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James I On 47.10; James II On 47.63
Mar 19, 2012 - Craig Lord
Australian Olympic Trials, Adelaide, Day 5 finals and semis:
The Missile has fired and Australia has a London 2012 1-2 in the making too (not to mention a golden sprint relay capable of following up on the 2011 world crown with the ultimate prize): James Magnussen shot smoke off the water in Adelaide this morning with a 47.10 bombshell in the 100m freestyle, the best ever in textile by 0.39sec, while James Roberts, also 20, blasted a 47.63 for silver (in the same time in which Magnussen lifted the 2011 world crown) and the second Olympic berth as second-best man ever in textile.
There were Olympic tickets too for Jessica Schipper and Samantha Hamill in the 200m butterfly and Brenton Rickard and 20-year-old bolter Jeremy Meyer in the 200m breaststroke.
Race reports
Men's 100m freestyle
Magnussen, coached by Brant Best at the Sydney 2000 Olympic pool where Pieter Van Den Hoogenband (NED) clocked 47.84 in the semi on the way to gold, is in line to become the first Australian since Mike Wenden in 1968 to take the blue ribband Olympic crown.
Having shown his muscles in the fight, Magnussen pumped them with fists aloft in victory pose after the race, the new Alpha sign tatooed on the inside of his left arm screaming the arrival of the aquatic alpha male of sprint freestyle.
Roberts, coached by John Fowlie at the Queensland AIS, is now second best ever in a textile suit, demoting Pieter the Great to third, with Olympic 50m champion Cesar Cielo (BRA) third equal in 47.84 and Stefan Nystrand (SWE) on 47.91 in fifth ahead of the 47.95 clocked by Brent Hayden (CAN) when he claimed silver behind Magnussen in the world-title fight in Shanghai last year.
Magnussen, whose time falls just shy of the 47.05 Australian record of Sullivan set in a suit since banned, told reporters in Adelaide: "I wanted to come here tonight and have a crack at that world record. It's a race of inches so you've got to be confident. That was one of my weapons coming into tonight and it worked."
“It was a really exciting race,” Magnussen added. “I executed everything pretty close to the way I wanted to. It wasn’t quite good enough tonight but I’ll definitely give that world record another crack.
“I’m certainly not going to be resting on my laurels and I’m going to be doing everything in my power to break that world record because I do want to be considered the fastest man in history.”
Check out the video and news lines. Those last words on the broadcast race report - "he just misses out" - are truly a sign of the times: 47.10 and he goes down as having just missed out. The rub of rubber. But Magnussen was undaunted, telling the world with a smile: "Brace yourselves".
His soaring speed highlights the rub of FINA's decision not to draw a line in the world record books when it changed race conditions to deliver swimming back to swimmers by banning suits that altered the nature of the sport.
The magnitude of Magnussen's effort today in Adelaide cannot be overstated - and yet he is not even a national record holder. He did set an All Comers mark and confined the 48.29 in which he claimed the Australian title a year ago to the shelf of swimming stats.
In the wake of Sprint King James I and James II, the bronze went to Matt Targett, in 48.32, with Olympic silver medallist Eamon Sullivan on 48.53, and 17-year-old Cameron McEvoy on 48.58. Tommaso D'Orsogna clocked 48.64 for the sixth place that usually shuts the door on relay reserves, with Matt Abood, on 48.81, and Kyle Richardson, on 48.95, the only time in the final that did not crack the A cut for London 2012.
Labelled James "The Rocket" Roberts, the silver medallist, speaking through Swimming Australia, said: "I’ve been training to go a lot quicker and I have been training well. It was just about doing what I’ve been doing at practice tonight, but it was a bit of a shock to look up and see how far under 48 I went but it’s a great feeling."
For Targett, the good news was a textile best inside the 48.56 standard he set in semis. Sullivan has to go back to a 48.47 in 2007 to find his textile best, with 48.52 in 2010 the closest to that so far, his peak condition coinciding with the use of shiny suits that left the sport unable to say where the swimmer ended and the suit started.
And look at the future: 48.98 was McEvoy's best, the semi yesterday his maiden journey below 49sec. D'Orsogna stepped up too: he cracked 49sec for the first time in a textile suit with a 48.66 lifetime best in semis and shaved 0.02sec off that today. Australia's 4x100m prospects look radiant to say the least, with Magnussen a magnet to future speed.
The Missile's majestic swim takes sprint freestyle to a new level, into uncharted waters indeed. The world record stands to Cielo at 46.91, a booster bodysuit significant to that speed in 2009. No-one has come close since. Until now - less than a year after a 19-year-old from Port Macquarie said he thought the world of sub-47 was within the scope of his career.
The splits of the race today show just how far Magnussen and Best have come on their learning curve: when the sprinter swam slower in the solo final in Shanghai than he had in the relay lead-off, he went out faster, under 23sec, the balance cited as significant. What Team Missile didn't do was return home to consider the limitations of balance. They got back to Sydney and looked at the possibilities of balance and took the game on.
Out in 22.68 (faster than Joe Bottom held the 50m world best time in 1980), Magnussen still came home faster than anyone else in the race, on 24.42, with Roberts on 23.17 and 24.46 as second best coming home. They were the only two men capable of sub-25sec efforts after the turn, Sullivan the only man ahead of Roberts at the turn.
The game has shifted: you have to be up with Cielo on the way out, and up with missile pace coming home to have a realistic chance of wearing the crown.
The splits for whole final:
Michael Phelps (USA) is the only non-Australian in the top 7 in the world so far this year.
It is to Magnussen's generation and sprint skill that coach Bob Bowman and Michael Phelps will look as they finalise the 2012 Olympic swansong of the greatest. When the Australian clocked 47.49 leading off his nation's relay in lane 2 as Phelps clocked a lifetime best in textile of 48.08 over in lane 5 leading the USA to bronze, doubt was coupled to the notion of Phelps as a gold-medal prospect in an Olympic 100m final at the end of his career.
Magnussen then proved he could perform at that same soaring level when, in the heat of super troupers trained on the favourite in lane 4, he claimed the world crown in 47.63. Half a second is a long way over 100m. A full second is a world away. Too far to rule out taking a shot? Too far to rule it out for a man who may have the 200m butterfly final and 100m free semis on the same day and the 200m medley semis with Ryan Lochte on the day of the 100m free final? We'll know more in June.
Remote comparison
How Olympic season is shaping up (two per nation):
Magnussen's 47.49 all-time textile best was the 19th best ever performance counting booster bodysuits now banned. His 47.10 of today is the 5th best performance of all time and makes him 4th best performer ever, behind booster suited efforts. So far this year, he occupies seven of the top 12 times clocked worldwide.
To see how all the action in Adelaide and events at the French nationals in Dunkirk, meets in St Petersburg, Antwerp, Amsterdam, the Swiss nationals in Zurich, Brazil and elsewhere over the past few days, check out the SwimNews world rankings updated daily (often hourly!) by Nick Thierry.
Women's 200m butterfly
Jessica Schipper, Olympic bronze in 2008 and a former world champion and record holder, lived to fight another day with a dominant 2:06.93 victory ahead of Samanthan Hamill, on 2:08.92, the bronze granted to Amy Smith in 2:10.71. Coached by Stephan Widmer at Chandler, Schipper was shy of her 2006 textile best of 2:05.40 but hardly needed to be at best to get the job done and coast into the world top 5 so far this year.
The splits:
How Olympic season is shaping up (two per nation):
On 2:07.92, former world champion and record holder Otylia Jedrzejczak (POL), one of Schipper's big opponents down the years, is heading back to best form on the comeback trail.
Men's 200m breaststroke
Brenton Rickard, coached by Glenn Baker at Southport Olympic, matched the pace of his semi to take the EnergyAustralia national crown and book a second swim at London 2012. On 2:10.99 in the semi, Rickard sealed the deal in 2:11.03 a class up on the rest, silver and an Olympic debut ticket going to 20-year-old Jeremy Meyer in 2:12.76, just 0.2sec ahead of another 20-year-old, Nicholas Schafer, who in turn was 0.14sec ahead of Craig Calder.
Meyer produced the upset in the race after clocking a 2:14.22 lifetime best in semis, a year after improving to a 2:16.78 best. Just the right moment is an Olympic trials final to axe another 1.5sec off your best.
How Olympic season is shaping up (two per nation):
Much to unfold in this event, with world champion Daniel Gyurta (HUN) on 2:11.79 in January and among those yet to hit the gas.
Semi-finals
In the 200m breaststroke, Leisel Jones did as much as she needed to win the first semi, her 2:29.21 good for fifth overall, with Sally Foster, 2:27.92, Sarah Katsoulis, 2:28.61, Taylor McKeown, 2:28.61, and Tessa Wallace, 2:28.93, inside Jones's time in the second semi. Jones came to trials nursing illness that required treatment with antibiotics.
In the 100m freestyle, Cate Campbell claimed lane 4 for the final in 53.84, either side of her tomorrow Melanie Schlanger, on 53.91, and Alicia Coutts, 54.11, with Britanny Elmslie, 17, on 54.13, and comeback trailer Libby Trickett on a heartening 54.19 that suggests a 4x100m relay berth is in the making.
In the 200m backstroke, 19-year-old Matson Lawson claimed lane 4 for the final tomorrow in 1:58.53, with another 19-year-old, Joshua Beaver, closest, on 1:59.03, before Ashley Delaney, Mitch Larkin, 18, and Hayden Stoeckel, 100m winner at trials, completed the sub 2-minute club.
In the 200m medley, Daniel Tranter claimed the first semi in 1:59.88 ahead of Kenneth To's 2:00.87, with Jayden Hadler taking lane 4 for the final on 1:59.69 in the second semi, ahead of one of the men of the meet, Thomas Fraser-Holmes, on 2:00.12.
