Courtesy: Swimming Australia
Swimming fans around the country will be able to catch all the action of the Australian Age Championships and Australian Swimming Championships through the Nine Network’s streaming platform 9Now, as announced this morning on Sports Sunday.
9Now will stream every heats and finals sessions, giving fans free access to all the racing across both events from April 7-20.
The largest annual event on the Swimming Australia calendar, the 2023 Australian Age Championships will see more than 2,600 aspiring Olympians and Paralympians from almost 400 different clubs across Australia contest over 200 separate events across nine days of competition, from 7-15 April.
The Australian Championships will then see some of Australian swimming’s modern day greats like Emma McKeon, Kaylee McKeown, Mollie O’Callaghan, Rowan Crothers, Katja Dedekind and Lakeisha ‘Lucky’ Patterson all compete for the coveted title of Australian Champion from April 17-20.
The Australian Championships will also serve as the selection trials event for the World Para Swimming Championships in Manchester in August.
Swimming Australia CEO, Eugénie Buckley, welcomed the Nine Network’s commitment to the further coverage of Australia’s most prominent Olympic and Paralympic Sport.
“Channel 9 has a long and proud history with swimming, and we are delighted to see that continue with 13 days of free to air coverage of our largest domestic event,” Buckley said.
“Not only will sporting fans around the country have the opportunity to witness quality racing from our leading Australian Dolphins, there will also be stars of the future turning heads at the Australian Age Championships which will be exciting to watch on the Nine Network in the context of their commitment as the Olympic broadcaster through to Brisbane 2032.”
Nine’s Director of Sport, Brent Williams, said: “With the countdown to Paris 2024 well and truly underway, Swimming will play an important role in our plans to showcase Australia’s world class athletes on their journey to the largest sporting event in the world.”
“Our established heroes of the pool will be on show at the Australian Championships but prior to that, the Australian Age Championships will provide an exciting arena for the stars of tomorrow to emerge as they dream of Los Angeles and Brisbane.
“The anywhere, anytime viewing opportunity that 9Now provides for all Australians makes it the ideal destination for 13 days of top class swimming – all live and free.”
Nine’s coverage of the 2023 Australian Age Championships and Australian Swimming Championships follows on from the networks highly successful broadcast of December’s World Short Course Championships in Melbourne, with 3.8 million viewers tuning in over the six days of competition.
Hi. Does anybody know how to record the stream of the swimming?
Bonza news this!
Not much to write home about, finals saw no huge time drops into strong consideration trajectories.
The 100 free 16 years girls is the highlight of the meet, which is of course why it is on the last day.
200 free is 2nd last day, bad scheduling.
50 free is Tuesday.
they added the stroke 50s and the missing distance frees last year, so you don’t have to look far to see why the program has scheduling issues
I’m glad it is a comprehensive meet now. It does show interest is on the rise.
At least this year they inserted them properly into the schedule instead of just dumping them at the start of the session.
Anyone know how Romy Heard went? Having trouble with my new phone and no TV reception here and no internet other than this samsung
14 year old Olympia Pope went 1:09.89 in the 100 breast heats so should be a nice battle between two 1:09 girls in the final.
Would have to be the highlight so far, breast is probably the touchiest of our form strokes going forward.
I guess this will have to be the discussion area for the first day of age champs.
I just noticed that 14 year old Lacey Strachan went 1:09.85 (!) in the 100 breast at a school championship at the end of March. Her 100 breast is first day of age champs.
So Abbey Connor has retired? https://www.instagram.com/p/CqmZk4SLNM9/
well thats certainly an unexpected decision for someone her age the year before Paris
No she is swimming at 12.44 today! Go Abbey from the Connor Family!!!
I’m happy with this. 9Now has been pretty good with the coverage I think. To be fair, I didn’t watch the Prime coverage because it’ll be a cold day in hell before I put any money if Bezos’s pocket.
If anyone is interested I posted this on an unrelated thread yesterday but seems more relevant here:
Notable Entries and Omissions for Australian Champs
Ariarne Titmus, Cate Campbell, Lani Pallister, Maddy Gough, Brianna Throssell, Lizzy Dekkers, Minna Atherton, Leah Neale, Se-Bom Lee, Mack Horton, Tom Nowakowski, Sam Short, Flynn Southam, JES, Jenna Strauch, Meg Harris, ZSC, Josh Yong, Will Yang, Elijah Winnington, Milla Jansen, Jack Cartwright, Shaun Champion, Brad Woodward, Kiah Melverton, Bowen Gough, Grayson Bell – Entered in all the… Read more »
Wunsch was back in action last Friday at a high school meet and was pretty snappy.
100 Freestyle 54.72 2023-03-31 NSWCCC Swimming 2023
50 Freestyle 25.39 2023-03-31 NSWCCC Swimming 2023
Outside of the known crop of age groupers, trying to come up with a must watch list of juniors at Age Nationals is far too time consuming.
There is far too many to filter, I look forward to seeing them, hopefully some records are broken.
I just went for the ones likely/possibly to be factor in Paris trials: Southam, Wunsch, Jansen, Casey, Perkins
– Olivia pope – 14 year old in breaststroke competing in age and open championship. – – Marcus Da Silva – 16 year old – should be interesting to see how he develops
You’re missing Stoupos, MacKinder, Barclay, Czajko
Milla Jansen is also competing, backing up from the age championships the week prior.
I must admit I don’t understand the timing of this meet – 2 months before the WC trials? With the new timing of the trials about 6 weeks before the major international meet of a year, SA is expecting swimmers to taper for trials and then taper again for the WC/Olympics. That’s fine – but are they expecting the same swimmers to fully taper 2 months prior to trials as well? If not, then why have a separate Australian championships at all – why not combine them with the trials (as was the case from the 1908s until recently).
In 2023, someone other than Kaylee McKeown… Read more »
Yeah she is in the list at the top of the comment but easily missed because it’s just a wall of names.
Yes it seems a few swimmers are foregoing their signature events here. While National Titles may be meaningful for some, if you’re an Olympic Champion and WR holder then Nationals are just another domestic meet leading up to trials.
A national title should still mean something and there is no reason to devalue it. But SA are devaluing it by running the national titles separate to, and two months before, the trials. The US have gone the other way – in recent years they have incorporated the national titles into the trial meet.
Usually for Olympic trials, otherwise they hold Nationals after LC Worlds.
Right now the system works well enough. though 2025 is a chance to change it.
Of course it has to do with overall event scheduling over the year, Swimming is a summer sport, winter is for resetting/training and football/rugby takes over everything.
So holding Nationals after Worlds is not really looked wisely upon in the southern hemisphere.
The other way is make it the selection meet every year, about 4-6 weeks before the big one, but that makes the whole pointscore nature irrelevant, nobody of value does domestic relays at a Trials meet, plus it would mean copying the schedule of the big meet, which… Read more »
Swimming isn’t just a summer sport in Australia – all the major international long course meets are held in July/August (except when WCs are hosted by Australia) and are the focus of every Australian swimmer every year. All of their training patterns are focused on peaking at the WCs/Olympics (unless they are taking the year off).
I understand your point about relays and point scores at national championships, but this year’s nationals are only a four day meet, so relays are probably going to be skipped by good swimmers anyway.
I haven’t argued for holding nationals after WCs – I know the US sometimes does that (not in 2017, but in 2019 and 2022) but it means all… Read more »
The point I was making is after August, there is basically nothing until Queensland States in December.
Swimming meets basically only happen from December-August domestically, so yeah, Spring is the season of nothing.
That is when WA usually holds their short course calendar, so anybody bothered heads off internationally, everyone else resets and starts building again until December at the earliest. It is also that period where Juniors/Seniors have their big meets.
I think there should be more opportunities for swimmers just below international level to compete during this off season.
Like ISL allowed, it makes some of them click.
Sydney Open is a month before trials again, same as in 2021
Likely indicates that Trials will be on regular TV, that should mean a wider reach than Prime managed.