O'Callaghan, who beat McKeon's time of 52.67 seconds to win the gold at the world championships in Budapest last year
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The Australian championships’ women’s 100m freestyle title was won by world champion Mollie O’Callaghan in the event’s quickest time ever. O’Callaghan defeated Olympic gold medalist Emma McKeon in a race for the title. To defeat a top-tier field, the 19-year-old touched in a scorching 52.63 seconds. In a race that also included returning veteran Cate Campbell, Shayna Jack (52.64) crossed the finish line second to McKeon (53.22), a seven-time medalist from the Tokyo Olympics.
Campbell, who finished second to McKeon in the 100-meter race in Tokyo and has eight medals overall over four Olympics, including four golds, was considering retiring. With her sights set on the world championships in Japan this year and a fifth Olympics in Paris in 2024, she came back for her first significant competition since then and finished fifth in 53.78. O’Callaghan, who beat McKeon’s time of 52.67 seconds to win the gold at the world championships in Budapest last year, said it hurt but was great to touch the wall. “I’m just incredibly grateful that Shayna will be my awesome training partner. It’s been going well.”
June will see the trials for the world championship in Melbourne. The 200-meter backstroke world record-breaker Kaylee McKeown competed in the 100-meter freestyle as well and finished eighth. She won the 200m medley earlier in the day in a personal best time of 2:08:16, just behind Canadian sensation Summer McIntosh this year and faster than the time it took her to take silver in Budapest in 2022. Swimming legend Ariarne Titmus won the 800m freestyle in 8:20.19, beating out Lani Pallister, the world short-course champion, whose 400m freestyle world record was shattered by McIntosh last month.
Katie Ledecky was dethroned by Titmus in the 200 and 400-meter freestyle Olympic events, but the American champion could only come in the second over the 800-meter distance. Other winners included 100-meter champion Zac Stubblety-Cook, who holds the 200-meter breaststroke world record, and 400-meter freestyle champion Samuel Short, a 19-year-old upstart who shocked reigning world champion Elijah Winnington. Short’s time of 3:42:46 was not only a personal best but also the 10th-fastest in history and easily the fastest in the world this year. Short said, “Since I was next to the world champion, I tried to fight it out with him. I was shocked to see that my personal best was almost two seconds.”
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Australian swimmer Mollie Grace O’Callaghan was born on April 2, 2004. She participated In the Summer Olympics of 2020. O’Callaghan competed in the women’s 4×100 m freestyle heats on the opening night of the competition. As a result of her heat swims, she ultimately won two gold medals and one bronze medal. Her school is St. Western swim club of Peter. At the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, O’Callaghan competed for the Australian team in the preliminary rounds of all three women’s relays, winning two gold and one bronze in the process. She recorded a time of 53.08 seconds while swimming the first leg for Australia in the heats of the 4×100-meter freestyle relay. After the Australian team won the final, she was awarded a gold medal.
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