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2024 SYDNEY OPEN & UNISPORT NATIONALS
The final day of action at the 2024 Sydney Open & Unisport Nationals wrapped up from Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre. The non-Olympic selection meet was a pit stop after last month’s Australian Open Championships and the Trials slated for June.
The highlight of the evening came in the men’s 400m IM with 24-year-old New Zealand world champion Lewis Clareburt putting up a monster 4:08.71 for the gold. That time beat the 4:09.72 which garnered him gold in Doha and landed him atop the season’s world rankings.
18-year-old Flynn Southam topped the men’s 200m free podium, producing a result of 1:48.57 as the sole sub-1:49 swimmer of the field.
Harrison Turner was next to the wall while Wesley Roberts rounded out the podium in 1:49.26.
Southam logged a new lifetime best of 1:46.11 to take the 200m free title at last month’s Australian Open Championships. He’ll be chasing the 1:45.97 Swimming Australia-mandated Olympic Qualification Time at the Trials.
Bond’s talented Southam already nailed the 400m free gold (3:53.21) and 100m free silver (48.97) in this competition. Later in the session tonight he led off his club’s men’s 4x100m free relay in 49.06 to cap off his successful campaign.
Another teenager made some noise in the women’s 100m free as 17-year-old Olivia Wunsch of Carlile popped a mark of 53.93 to grab the gold.
Opening in 26.52 and closing in 27.41, Wunsch earned a healthy advantage over 17-year-old Milla Jansen who snagged silver in 54.35. Brittany Castelluzzo wrangled up bronze in 55.28 while Bond’s Hannah Casey was 4th in 55.65.
World Junior champion Wunsch bypassed the senior nationals in favor of the Age Championships. There at the Gold Coast Aquatic Center, she captured gold in 53.99 so tonight’s result shaved .06 off that previous season-best.
As for Jansen, the World Junior Championships silver medalist behind Wunsch last year, the teen’s result this evening was within range of her lifetime best of 54.03.
Visiting Japanese Olympian Rikako Ikee ripped a winning time of 57.63 to take the women’s 100m fly.
That beat out the 200m fly victor here, Elizabeth Dekkers, who settled for silver in 58.26. Bella Grant bagged bronze in 58.46 and Olympic silver medalist Maddie Groves wound up 5th in 59.48.
Ikee qualified for this year’s Olympic Games in this 100m fly, posting a time of 57.30 at Japan’s Trials this past March.
Cameron McEvoy checked with a mark of 23.80 to earn a narrow victory in the men’s 50m fly.
He touched .05 ahead of 24-year-old Shaun Champion who notched 23.85. Bond’s Ben Armbruster scored 23.93 for bronze and Matt Temple of Marion represented the only other sub-24-second swimmer in 23.95.
Continuing her improvements since coming back from giving birth to her first child, 31-year-old Emily Seebohm got it done for gold in the 200m back.
The Olympian touched in 2:11.42 (1:04.85/1:06.57) in a two-woman race against SCM 100 back world record holder Minna Atherton. 23-year-old Atherton produced 2:11.74 for silver with the pair beating the rest of the field by nearly 6 seconds.
Finally, Olympic champion Zac Stubblety-Cook proved his consistency once again in the men’s 200m breaststroke.
The 25-year-old Griffith ace punched a time of 2:07.89 to get to the wall over 3 seconds ahead of his peers.
ZSC opened in 1:02.56 and brought it home in 1:05.33 to come within striking distance of his season-best 2:07.50. That former performance was turned in at the Aussie Open Championships to rank 6th in the world on the season.
ZSC won the 100m breast earlier in this competition, hitting 1:00.21. He’s been as quick as 59.85 this season from last month’s Aussie Open Championships.
Additional Winners
- Tilly King topped the women’s 50m breast podium in 31.94.
- The men’s 200m backstroke winner here, Kane Follows of New Zealand, won the 100m back in 54.52. Aussie Bradley Woodward made the final but scratched the event.
- The women’s 800m free saw 22-year-old Jacinta Essan get it done for gold in 8:48.88 while the men’s 1500m free saw Matthew Galea clock 15:32.80 as the gold medalist. Galea beat his competition by nearly 40 seconds.
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