Paris Olympics 2024: Mollie O’Callaghan blitzes rivals at NSW state open
In her last race as a teenager, Mollie O’Callaghan gave her main rivals a brutal reminder of how she’s building towards this year’s Paris Olympics.
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In her last race as a teenager, Australian swimming sensation Mollie O’Callaghan gave her main rivals a brutal reminder of how she’s building towards this year’s Paris Olympics after blitzing everyone to complete the 100m-200m freestyle at the NSW state open.
Still in the middle of heavy training, 16 days before her 20th birthday, O’Callaghan blew away a world class field to win the 200m final at the Sydney Aquatic Centre in a swift time of 1:54.76.
That was well outside the world record of 1:5.85 which she set at last year’s world championships in Japan, but still the fastest in the world in 2024.
Ominously, the runner-up at the NSW titles was her training partner Ariarne Titmus, the Tokyo Olympic champion, who remains her biggest threat for Paris later this year.
Titmus was almost dead-level with O’Callaghan when they turned for the last lap but could not keep up when O’Callaghan put on the afterburners.
A few days ago she beat Emma McKeon, the 100m champion in Tokyo, over two laps.
O’Callaghan won two gold medals as a relay heat swimmer at the last Olympics in Tokyo but is now trying to keep a lid on the expectations on her for Paris after scooping up five gold medals at Fukuoka last year.
“Ever since worlds, it’s been quite stressful,” O’Callaghan said.
“It’s come very quickly, there’s always something going on each month. It’s never a dull month.
“After finishing this, we’ll go straight into nationals and it feels like it’s happening very quickly.
“I’d like it to slow down a little bit so I can focus on training. I’m very excited but at the same time, there’s a lot of nerves. I’m quite anxious for it.”
One of the events O’Callaghan looks a near-certainty to win gold in at Paris is the 4x200m freestyle relay, if the selectors pick the fastest combination.
The first four finishers at the NSW state open on Friday, including Lani Pallister and Kaylee McKeown, all posted times that would have got them into the individual 200m final at last year’s world titles.
When they combine forces in the relay, they should be virtually unbeatable.
McKeown, who had earlier won the 200m and 100m backstroke double, showed off her amazing versatility by winning the 200m individual medley then the 50m backstroke, almost breaking her own world record, shortly after the 200m freestyle final.
Matt Temple produced the best performance in the men’s races, winning the 100m butterfly in 50.61, easily the fastest time in the world this year.
Temple, who trains and lives in Adelaide with Kyle Chalmers, is suddenly putting himself in the frame for an individual medal in Paris.
“The Olympics are coming around the corner, so I think I’ve just knuckled down a fair bit and concentrating on swimming,” Temple said.
“I’ve just been really enjoying swimming recently. It’s definitely helping me being motivated in and outside of water. And to do these times, it’s showing great results and gives me confidence leading into the next three, four, five months.”
Like Chalmers, Temple is now being trained by Craig Stewart after their regular coach Peter Bishop was replaced as head coach of the state high-performance squad following a secret investigation by the South Australian Sports Institute (SASI).
The details remain confidential but Temple said he and Chalmers were just getting on with preparing for Paris.
“We’ve got a great friendship, I’m now currently living at his house with the reptiles, with the chickens, so we’re going to continue to build that friendship and see how long it goes for,” Temple said.
“We’ve just continued to train as normal for the last three months.
“It’s all been on the back of our mind but we don’t know that much, really and it’s all up to SASI to figure out their side of the investigation.
“We’ve had the assistant coach step in and he’s done a great job.”
McKeown’s near-record stunner in ominous warning to Games rivals
Aussie swim sensation Kaylee McKeown came within a whisker of breaking another of her world records at the NSW state open championships on Saturday in a stunning warm-up for this year’s Paris Olympics.
Already the owner of the five fastest times in history for the 100 metres backstroke, McKeown blew her opponents out of the water to win in a time of 57.57 seconds, less than a quarter of a second off the 57.33 world record she set last year.
The reigning Olympic champion in both backstroke events, what made McKeown’s latest performance so remarkable was that she’s still in heavy training and supposedly exhausted instead of being fresh.
“I just think I’m the lucky one,” said McKeown, who also holds the world records for 50m and 200m backstroke.
“Some people swim the same times throughout the whole season. I’m one of those people.”
Only three women in history have ever gone under the magical 58 second mark for 10m backstroke but McKeown has done it 16 times, which speaks to her consistency but also how difficult it is for her to make any giant leaps because she’s already at such a high level already.
“Once you’re up in the top 1%, .01 or the second is hard to find,” she said.
“So without a doubt, it’s hard to get back into training and trying to find something to work on.
“But I am the kind of person who believes heavily in my program and my coach especially. So if he believes I can go faster, I’ve got to believe in him as well.”
Another Australian Olympic champion with her eyes on Paris gold, Ariarne Titmus survived a fright from Lani Pallister to extend her five and half year unbeaten streak in 400m freestyle.
Titmus hasn’t lost in her signature event since she went down to Katie Ledecky at the 2018 Pan Pacifics but had to dig deep to keep her run going after Pallister took the lead at the final turn.
The pair went stroke on the last lap before Titmus edged ahead just before the wall, touching in 4:02.39, with Pallister just 0.26 behind.
Both women went under the qualifying time for this year’s Paris Olympics and are expected to make it on the team when the trials take place in June.
Titmus said she can’t wait.
“Paris is my favourite city in the world. I’ve been there four times, so I am very excited,” she said.
“I feel like I thrive in those environments with the crowds and the pressure and the noise.
“I’m pretty sure the swimming pool is in a footy field, they’re dropping the pool in so I’m expecting it to be a big stadium.”
Evergreen sprinter Bronte Campbell won the women’s 50m freestyle, beating Olympic champion Emma McKeown and teenage star Mollie O’Callaghan, who dead-heated for second, while in the men’s races Flynn Southam won the NSW 200m freestyle title, edging out up and comer Max Giuliani despite almost pulling out because he was so sick.
“I had food poisoning on the weekend, I was vomiting my guts up and I lost about three kilos,” Southam said.
“I had diarrhoea for about 12 hours straight and ended up in the hospital getting three litres of IV pumped into me and a bit of medication.
“I was pretty much questioning whether I should come down here and race but I just took it day by day and my energy came back.
“I still feel pretty, pretty buggered but if I get food poisoning a week before trials and I can’t race then all of this is for nothing so this is a great test of what I can do under pressure.”
TITMUS FIRES OMINOUS WARNING
The Terminator has got her mojo back.
In a stark warning to her big name rivals from around the globe, Australian swimming superstar Ariarne Titmus feels like she is in the best shape of her life.
That’s saying something because the double Olympic gold medallist always seems to be in great nick whenever she plunges into the water but the timing this time is critical.
Not only are the Paris Olympics just four months away, but Titmus has also been rebuilding her fitness base after she underwent surgery last year to remove a benign tumour on her ovaries.
“After everything that happened with my health at the back end of last year. I was worried that I was going to be playing catch up in the new year, but, I’m actually really happy with where I’m tracking,” Titmus said.
“I’ve been swimming some really great times in training. I feel like my motivation is where it needs to be.”
Titmus is currently in Sydney for the NSW state open championships, which is one of her last hit-outs before the Olympic trials in mid June.
She won’t be at her absolute best because she’s still in heavy training and hasn’t fully rested but said her coach Dean Boxall had been pushing her so hard in practice that she was confident she could post some good times even while exhausted,
“There’s no point coming into meets like this and resting when the bigger picture is to race faster at Olympic trials and Olympics. It’s more about race practice,” Titmus said.
“Physically, training’s been really tough. I think that I’ve probably done the hardest six week block I’ve ever done in my life.
“There’s been a lot of mental pressure to execute fast times while grinding out some tough training so I’m definitely coming here a bit buggered but mentally I’m definitely ready to go.”
A master motivator, Boxall has been putting his squad through their paces this year, first at a training camp in Thailand, and again since returning to Queensland.
With the likes of Titmus, Mollie O’Callaghan and Shayna Jack all under his watchful eye, every training session becomes a shootout between the best in the world and Titmus is loving every moment of it.
“Dean’s definitely raring to go. As soon as the new year rolled over, we knew it was an Olympic year, his mood changed.
“In an Olympic year, everything changes. Everything becomes so much more important.”
If everything goes according to plan, Titmus will swim the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle races in Paris plus the 4x200m relay.
They are the same events she contested in Tokyo - winning gold in the 200m and 400m and silver in the 800m.
The 23-year-old remains the early favourite for the 400m, where she will take on her great rival Katie Ledecky and Canadian teenage sensation Summer McIntosh, but O’Callaghan is looming as the woman to beat in the 200m after claiming the world record last year.
Titmus wasn’t far behind and is using the disappointment of that defeat to spur her to find new ways to improve.
“I don’t think I’d be swimming if I didn’t think I could get better. I feel like you always have to have a purpose in your career and in your sport,” she said.
“And, I truly believe that I have more to offer in the sport, and that’s why I’m still swimming.
“But I think as you get better, it’s those tiny little areas where you can make improvements, and it’s more looking at your race analysis, at the finer details and finding out those small intricacies.
“My skills in the past is something that I’ve worked a lot on. In the 400m, now I have the best turns in the world, but I think in my 200m especially, I have to play catch up with girls that have incredible skills that are for 100m freestyle.
“So that’s something that I’m working on. And, there’s always small areas to find improvement. I can’t give too much away, but there’s always small areas.”
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