Australian swim championships report card: How Cody Simpson, Emma McKeon, Kyle Chalmers and co. look for Paris

Expectations of another big medal haul for our swimmers in Paris are sky high after what happened at the Tokyo games. So should we be worried about this week’s national champs?

Swimming report card from the aus swim trials

With just over a year to go until the 2024 Olympics, the clock is already ticking for Australia’s swimmers eyeing gold in Paris.

Expectations of another big medal haul are sky high after the Dolphins won a record nine golds at Tokyo in 2021 then cleaned up at last year’s world championships and Commonwealth Games.

This week’s national championships on the Gold Coast provided few real clues about the current health of the Australian team so News Corp swimming writer Julian Linden has taken a deep dive into how things are really shaping up.

Can the Australian team replicate their Tokyo performances in Paris?

Yes, but it’ll be a tall order to get nine golds again because the standard required to win in the French capital will be raised to another level.

If there’s one thing Australia’s swimmers should have learnt over the years, it’s that past success counts for nothing in the cutthroat world of international swimming.

The emergence of a new wave of foreign teenage stars, led by Canada’s Summer McIntosh and Romanian sprint king David Popovici is the clear warning of just how hard winning in Paris will be.

But the Aussies also have some exceptional talent of their own - both established and emerging - so there’s every reason to be highly optimistic about their prospects next year.

How did our best swimmers perform at this week’s national titles?

This was the first big stepping stone on the road to Paris and unfortunately, barring a few notable exceptions, the majority were way off their best.

Overall, the times were uncompetitive on the global stage, with only 13 swimmers - 11 women and two men - going under the standard just to qualify for this year’s world championships in Japan.

But there were some mitigating circumstances.

Kyle Chalmers dominated at the championships

Is this a wake up call?

There’s absolutely no reason for anyone to panic because there’s a very simple - albeit sad - explanation as to why so many top swimmers were off the pace.

And that’s because the Australian team for the world championships will be selected at a separate competition in Melbourne in June so none of the big guns were fresh because they were still in heavy training.

Why isn’t the Australian team picked at the national championships?

That used to be the case but everything changed when Swimming Australia decided to move the trials closer to the big international events each year.

That was a smart move but the knock-on effect is that it has completely diminished the value of the Australian championships, which were once the pinnacle of the sport in this country.

As such, the Australian championships have been reduced to a glorified practice meet held over just four days.

Why don’t they combine the Australian championships and the trials?

Swimming Australia is currently looking for a next leader after Eugenie Buckley quit as CEO.

One of the first jobs for the new boss should be to restore the national championships to its past glories.

It’s not the fault of the swimmers or their coaches, who are right to prioritise the trials, but the best swimmers should be competing in their best events at the national titles and that just wasn’t the case this time.

Hats off to Paralympic swim legend Ellie Cole and the rest of the poolside commentary team – Kurt Hanson, Meagen Nay and Braedan Jason – for doing a great job pumping up the event, because it was no easy task.

Aussie swim fans are the most educated in the world so weren’t fooled by the absence of many big locals and the inclusion of foreign visitors taking up lanes in the finals.

Kaylee McKeown is in phenomenal form

So, did we learn anything at all from the Australian championships?

Absolutely. And most of it is very positive.

While we won’t know for sure how fast the team is until the trials in mid June, master head coach Rohan Taylor has taken note of all the good signs and the areas that need more attention.

The women’s team, in particular, is packed with star power, especially in the freestyle events while the men’s team is already showing signs of being much stronger than Tokyo.

“For all the people who swam really fast times, what we take out of that is that the work they are doing with their coaches is on track,” Taylor told News Corp.

“So for them, the next eight weeks is about maintaining or building on that and ensuring that they get to that point.

“And the ones that maybe aren‘t performing because of their workloads, it’s a really good indicator for the coaches and athletes about what’s the most important things they need to be looking at to sharpen up and get ready.”

Can Ariarne Titmus reclaim the 400m freestyle world record she lost to Summer McIntosh?

There’s no doubt Titmus is fired up after McIntosh pinched the record that the Terminator worked so hard to take off Katie Ledecky. The looming clash between these three women is already being billed as the biggest race of this year’s world championships and next year’s Paris Olympics and Titmus is all in.

Don’t be fooled by her chirpy post-race interviews, Titmus is an old-school racer who will already be plotting her revenge.

Is Kyle Chalmers still serious about swimming butterfly?

Untouchable in freestyle sprints, the ‘King’ insists he’s still keen on butterfly even though it’s going to be tough for him to make the team in that stroke, let alone challenge for medals at the Olympics.

Men’s butterfly has been a comparatively weak event for Australian in recent years but there is new depth starting to come through with Chalmers’s bromance buddy Matt Temple, the pacesetter in 100m.

The pair have started working together as part-time labourers on building sites in Adelaide and it’s had a big impact on Chalmers, who looks and sounds like he’s in a really good mindset.

How long he persists with butterfly remains to be seen because Chalmers has plenty of options in freestyle, both in the individual events and relays, including the 4x200m which is suddenly shaping as a real medal event for the Aussie men.

Still unshaven, Chalmers won the 100m at the Gold Coast and looks to have plenty more in the tank to go faster when he needs to.

Who is looming as the new leader of the women’s team?

Already a double gold medallist after going to Tokyo as a relay heat swimmer, Queenslander teenager Mollie O’Callaghan continues to go from strength to strength.

Showing no signs of fatigue despite still being in hard training, the 19-year-old won the 100m freestyle at the Gold Coast in a faster time than when she won last year’s world title in Budapest.

Then she beat the Olympic champion Titmus in the 200m.

Because the standard of Australia’s female freestyle sprinters is so high, she’s not guaranteed an individual swim in Paris but right now she’s the one to beat.

Cody Simpson had a less than ideal week

How good is Kaylee McKeown?

In a word, she is phenomenal and has lost none of her hunger to keep getting better.

Not only is she the undisputed world leader in women’s backstroke, but she showed her amazing versatility at the Australian championships by winning the 200m individual medley in a world class time, winning the 200m breaststroke - and event she was doing for fun - then reeling off an superfast time to finish fourth in 200m freestyle.

How are the ‘old guard’ faring?

Don’t read too much into the performances of the more experienced swimmers such as Cate Campbell, Emma McKeon and Mack Horton.

They’re all playing the long game and will hit their straps when they need to.

Campbell and McKeon were both right in the mix in the freestyle sprints while Horton is renowned for being off the pace when he’s in hard work but able to make huge improvements when he’s fully rested.

Did any news stars emerge in the men’s ranks?

Although he won the 1500m freestyle gold at last year’s Commonwealth Games so is no rookie, Sam Short produced the single best performance of the Aussie champs in winning the 400m freestyle.

Not only did he beat Australia‘s reigning world champion Elijah Winnington, but he also posted a time that would have won the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

Kai Taylor - the teenage son of the great Hayley Lewis - also put his hand up, winning the 200m freestyle and finishing runner up to Chalmers in the 100m.

With Flynn Southam (17) and Tommy Neill (20) also making big strides, things are starting to look up for the men’s team.