Olympic champions Mack Horton and Kyle Chalmers were all class, Emma McKeon notched a double and rising star Kaylee McKeown caused the opening night upset at the Victorian swimming championships.
Horton started proceedings on Friday at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre with a powerful final 50 metres to outpace training partner and fellow Rio gold medallist Gregorio Paltrinieri to take the 400m freestyle final in 3:51.38.
Paltrinieri (3:51.80) led through the first 200m but Horton found something extra, with fellow Olympian, Rio finalist David McKeon, third (3:52.04).
"It's cool to win your home state championships and in the middle of a heavy training block at the moment (for next month's Commonwealth Games trials) and it's good to have some tough racing with Greg and Dave and, believe me, it was tough," said Horton.
"Everything is on track - we're stinging at this time of the season but it's going well."
Chalmers clocked 49.48 to win the 100m freestyle, also showing he was on track for the trials, powering past world championship finalist Jack Cartwright (49.73) with Rio Olympic relay bronze medallist James Roberts (49.90).
"It's awesome to win in a pretty stacked field here with Jack Cartwright and James Roberts and Travis Mahoney stepping up to do the 100m freestyle," said Chalmers.
"Everything is on track for the trials; we finish up here on Sunday, travel back to Adelaide on Monday and start racing again on Tuesday at the SA state championships.
"We'll get back into another block of hard training before we start to taper off - very exciting times."
Sixteen-year-old Kaylee McKeown, fourth in last year's world titles in Hungary, held on to edge world champion Emily Seebohm in an all-star 200m backstroke field.
In the final 50m, Seebohm narrowed the gap and appeared to touch ahead of her younger rival who won by just 0.04 seconds - McKeown clocking 2:08.76 to Seebohm's 2:08.80, with Sian Whittaker third (2:11.74).
Australia's multi-medal winning Olympian and world champion Emma McKeon won the 50m butterfly in 26.70 before swimming away from the field to take the coveted 100m freestyle in 54.69 from Brittany Elmslie and Gemma Cooney.
Other winners included Mikkayla Sheridan in the women's 800m freestyle; Barbora Zavadova (Czech Republic), 400Im; Jessica Hansen, 100m breaststroke; Bowen Gough, 200m butterfly; Benjamin Treffers, 50m backstroke; and Jake Packard, 50m breaststroke.
Share
