2024 AUSTRALIAN OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, April 17th – Saturday, April 20th
- Prelims at 10am local (8pm previous night ET), Finals at 6pm local (4am ET)
- Gold Coast Aquatic Centre, Queensland, Australia
- LCM (50m)
- Non-Olympic Qualifying Event
- Women’s Races to Watch/Men’s Races to Watch
- Meet Central
- Final Start List
- Day 1 Prelims Live Recap | Day 1 Finals Live Recap
- Day 2 Prelims Recap|Day 2 Finals Live Recap
- Day 3 Prelims Recap | Day 3 Finals Live Recap
- Day 4 Prelims Recap
- Live Results (also available via Meet Mobile: “2024 Australian Open Championships”)
- Australian Channel 9 Livestream / YouTube Livestream
World record holder Mollie O’Callaghan continued to impress at the 2024 Australian Open Championships, a non-Olympic qualifying competition.
Racing in the women’s 200m free this evening, the 20-year-old St. Peters Western star crushed a time of 1;53.57 to handle the field, one which included reigning Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus.
Teammate Titmus, who already notched a world-leading 400m free result of 3:59.23 here, settled for silver in 1:55.38 while Griffith’s Lani Pallister rounded out the podium in 1:55.99.
O’Callaghan split 26.46/29.30 (55.76)/29.47/28.34(57.81) to touch first, overtaking her previous season-best of 1:54.36 produced at December’s Queensland Championships.
Tonight’s performance dropped nearly a second from that outing to rocket the Dean Boxall-trained superstar up the world rankings to now be #1. She takes the crown from Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey (1:54.08) as the only sub-1:54 swimmer on the planet thus far this season.
2023-2024 LCM Women 200 Free
TITMUS
1:52.23 WR
| 2 | Mollie O'Callaghan | AUS | 1:52.48 | 06/12 |
| 3 | Summer MCINTOSH | CAN | 1:53.69 | 05/14 |
| 4 | Siobhan HAUGHEY | HKG | 1:54.08 | 10/21 |
| 5 | Junxuan Yang | CHN | 1:54.37 | 04/21 |
Additionally, MOC’s 1:53.57 ranks as the 7th-swiftest performance in history, a fact which is mindblowing considering this is an in-season affair.
Top 10 Women’s LCM Performances All-Time
- 1:52.85 – Mollie O’Callaghan (AUS), 2023
- 1:52.98 – Federica Pellegrini (ITA), 2009
- 1:53.01 – Ariarne Titmus (AUS), 2023
- 1;53.09 – Ariarne Titmus (AUS), 2021
- 1:53.31 – Ariarne Titmus (AUS), 2022
- 1:53.50 – Ariarne Titmus (AUS), 2021
- 1:53.57 – Mollie O’Callaghan (AUS), 2024
- 1:53.61 – Allison Schmitt (USA), 2012
- 1:53.65 – Summer McIntosh (CAN), 2023
- 1:53.66 – Mollie O’Callaghan (AUS), 2023
The field has proven that the Swimming Australia-mandated Olympic selection standard of 1:56.59 won’t be a problem for these wicked-fast women. They will all be battling to see which 2 swimmers can power their way to the wall first along with who will duke it out thereafter for coveted slots on the 4x200m free relay.
Speaking of the 4x200m free relay, be sure to catch up on the latest medal-placement-shifting news regarding that event from the 2020 Olympic Games.
Your Olympic champ in the 200 free for sure.
It’s time to make predictions of how good Mowing Mollie(MoMo) will be!
100free:51.40(25.50/25.90)
200free:1:52.22
51.65 (25.50/26.15) is more realistic.
I won’t predict her 200 because it seems her improvement is more steep.
24.40/26.25
That’s not realistic judging by how MOC swam all her 100 races.
She’s not doing 24.40 first half when much faster 50 free sprinters Sjostrom, C Campbell, McKeon never split 24.4
Or maybe you mistyped 25.40?
Yeah it’s supposed to be 25.40.
By end of career, not going there. She may decide to switch out one of the free events and take a run at one of the backstrokes; we just don’t know.
For Paris ? WRs can never be taken as done deals, they happen ” when they happen”.
For liklihood, 200 looks far more likely; something in the 1.52.65 – 1.52.80 would not be out of the question.
100 is a much bigger ask as it’s still nearly 0.4sec away and MOC is giving away over 1sec in 50 PB to Sjostrom. Sub 52 = very plausible if no certainty (there’s been about a handful of 52.0s but only 2 ever below. 51.88 – 51.95 ?
There has only been 2 swimmers under 52 seconds, 51.71, WR, where she had a free hit in the leadoff leg of the 4×100 relay. Sarah’s next best time is 0.4 secs away.
Emma McKeon won the Olympic gold in 51.96 in Tokyo.
She’s on track to break both 100 and 200 WR in Paris.
I would love to see Siobhan Haughey get a gold medal in Paris. But Molly is going to be extremely hard to beat in the 200 and even the 100 i think
Siobhan has way more chance in 100 than 200.
Best chance is the 100, which will see her up against MOC, Steenbergen, maybe a 2nd Aussie and perhaps an American but the gap is much further in the 200.
Which American swimmer is going to find 0.5 seconds to compete with MOC & Haughey?