Kaylee McKeown and Lani Pallister Headline Victorian State Championship Meet
Australia’s backstroking queen Kaylee McKeown and World Short Course star Lani Pallister will return to Melbourne for this week’s Victorian State Swimming Championships starting tomorrow at the Melbourne Sports And Aquatic Centre, hoping to make a splash in their happy hunting ground.
The Griffith University pair played staring roles in the Dolphins 13-gold medal haul in the recent Fina World Short Course meet in Melbourne with McKeown adding two gold in the 100 and 200m backstroke to her Tokyo triumphs from 2021 and last year’s World LC and Commonwealth Games successes.
While Pallister walked away with a four-gold medal haul in the 400, 800 and 1500m freestyle and the 4x200m freestyle to continue her push for this year’s Fina LC World’s in Fukuoka.
McKeown will contest an array of events adding the 100 and 200m freestyle, 200 IM and the 100 breaststroke to her specialist 100m backstroke while Pallister will add the 100 and 200m butterfly to the 50, 100, 200 and 400m freestyles.
The 400m freestyle will also feature dual Olympic freestyler, former WA girl Tamsin Cook (Melbourne Vicentre, VIC) who has linked with Mack Horton’s former coach Craig Jackson after a stint with USC Spartans and 2021 Tokyo Olympian Maddy Gough (Carlile, NSW) who has followed coach Chris Nesbitt to the famous NSW club on Sydney’s north shore.
Pallister and McKeown top the qualifiers for the 200m freestyle which also includes Cook and Gough and a host of youngsters led by Carlile 16-year-old Olivia Wunsch.
With Gough and Cook both lining up over 800m freestyle, while Gough will have things all to herself over 1500m, the event she finished eighth in at the Tokyo Games and fifth in the 2019 World Championships.
The men’s events will see former Nunawading –now Griffith University based Olympic 400IM bronze medallist Brendon Smith return home to a State Championship meet he has been no stranger at in his career.
Smith, who will again be joined by his breaststroking sisters, Mikayla (Griffith University) and Reidel (Nunawading) and will swim in his off events – the 100, 200 and 1500m freestyle, 200m breaststroke, backstroke and the 200m butterfly in a busy three-day home-coming.
The 200m backstroke will be headed by Commonwealth Games representatives Joshua Edwards-Smith (Griffith University, QLD) and six-time Games medallist Bradley Woodward (Mingara, NSW), as well as fellow Tokyo 400IMer Se-Bom Lee (Carlile, NSW) and Japanese veteran Yuma Edo.
PRIMED: Josh Edwards-Smith looking to continue backstroking prowess. Photo Courtesy: Delly Carr (Swimming Australia).
Edwards-Smith won the Queensland State title in December in a personal best time of 1:55.42, the second fastest by an Australian behind triple Olympian and Australian record holder Mitch Larkin and the former WA product will be out to impress again in Melbourne.
In the 50m backstroke Edwards-Smith and Woodward will have to contend with New Zealand’s Commonwealth Games 50m backstroke gold medallist Andrew Jeffcoat – fourth over the 100m backstroke in Birmingham and part of a revitalised Kiwi team and Dolphins team mate Isaac Cooper (St Andrews, QLD)– a five-time medallist – including two relay golds – at the World SC in December.
Jeffcoat, Woodward and Cooper will have a real ding-dong battle in the 50m backstroke while Cooper will be joined by Commonwealth Games relay gold medallist William Yang (SOPAC Swim Club) in the men’s 50 freestyle with Yang the top qualifier in the 100m freestyle.
The Victorian Championships will act as a key lead in to this year’s Fina World Championship Trials (TBA) with Australia’s best swimmers lining up in the NSW State Championships (March 10-12) at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre and the Australian Open Championships (April 17-20) at the Gold Coast Aquatic Centre.
VICTORIAN STATE CHAMPIONSHIP INFORMATION BOOKLET