2018 AUSTRALIAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Thursday, October 25th – Saturday, October 27th
- Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Centre
- Heats at 10am local (9:30am Sat.)/Finals at 6:30pm local (4:30pm Sat.)
- SCM
- Qualifying meet for 2018 Short Course World Championships squad
- Aussie SC World C’ships Selection Criteria
- SwimSwam Meet Preview
- Entry List
- Day 1 Prelims Recap/Day 1 Finals Recap
- Live Results
- Live Stream
While competing on day 1 of the 2018 Australian Short Course Championships, 18-year-old Elijah Winnington produced a new World Junior Record in the men’s 400m freestyle.
Clocking 3:39.17 and finishing just .14 behind Jack McLoughlin’s gold medal-garnering effort of 3:39.03, Winnington of Bond Swimming Club fired off the best time of his career in the mid-distance event. Prior to this meet in Melbourne, Winnington’s personal best rested at the 3:46.02 he clocked last summer, so tonight was a defining moment for the young man.
When FINA first established the concept of World Junior Records, it defined benchmark standards to generate the first record and the men’s 400m free remained at that initial mark of 3:39.48. However, with his outing this evening, Winnington overtakes that standard and now establishes himself as the reigning World Junior Record holder.
With his head-turning swim, Winnington clinched a spot on the Australian SC Worlds roster, with his mark tonight dipping under the Aussie-dictated QT of 3:40.87.
Splits for Winnington’s WJR are below:
Name Age Team Prelims Finals FINA Points
2 WINNINGTON, ELI 18 BOND 3:41.93 3:39.17 908 30 r:+0.66 11.59 24.76 (13.17) 38.31 (13.55) 52.03 (13.72) 1:05.87 (13.84) 1:19.82 (13.95) 1:33.68 (13.86) 1:47.63 (13.95) 2:01.64 (14.01) 2:15.74 (14.10) 2:29.91 (14.17) 2:44.13 (14.22) 2:58.25 (14.12) 3:12.44 (14.19) 3:26.32 (13.88) 3:39.17 (12.85)
Superb swim, but I don’t see why they could do WJR’s retrospectively, Thorpe went 3:35 back in 1999.
The premise was that at non-FINA events, they couldn’t guarantee that proper doping protocols were in effect, and they didn’t want to just ignore some post-facto times and accept others.
100% agree. Among others, C1 and Missy franklin set times in the 50 free and 200 back respectively when they were 17 which are faster than the current WJRs. The argument for WJRs is similar to the one for supersuit records: Having two separate lists means swimmers can be rewarded for good swims more frequently, but it reduces significance of the achievement.