Commonwealth Games 2022: Aussie swimmers willing to snub world champs after getting free pass

Swimming Australia is bending one of its oldest and most sacrosanct traditions by giving a handful of elite performers automatic selection.

Swimming Australia is planning to bend one of its oldest and most sacrosanct traditions by picking a handful of elite performers to represent the country without having to earn their place the old fashioned way.

Two of Australia’s best swimmers - Emma McKeon and Kyle Chalmers - are understood to have taken up the ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ offer so will be given automatic spots in the Dolphins’ team for this year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham without having to compete at next month’s trials.

It is believed the same unprecedented deal was offered to each of the nine Australian swimmers who won individual medals at last year’s Tokyo Olympics after the majority notified national selectors they were pulling the plug on this year’s world championships, taking place in Budapest in June.

No official announcement has yet been made but News Corp can reveal that only three Aussie swimmers who won individual medals in Tokyo are considering attending this year’s world titles: Kaylee McKeown, Zac Stubblety-Cook and Brendon Smith.

Gold medalist Kaylee McKeown, Chelsea Hodges, Emma McKeon and Cate Campbell in Tokyo

Of the other six, Cate Campbell, Emily Seebohm and Jack McLoughlin are all taking a sabbatical to recharge their batteries before the 2024 Paris Olympics while McKeon, Chalmers and Titmus are skipping the worlds to focus all their energy on the less competitive Commonwealth Games, starting in Birmingham in July.

Although she won’t be defending her 400m world title, Titmus will still race at the national trials, taking place in Adelaide next month, but McKeon and Chalmers will both be absent.

The decision to grant some swimmers an automatic place in the larger Commonwealth Games team is sure to raise eyebrows among the sport’s traditionalists because it goes against Australia’s long egalitarian approach to national team selection.

Rightly or wrongly, Swimming Australia has always prided itself on its ruthless selection policy, where the only way to get a spot on the team is by getting up on the blocks and racing at the trials.

That same cutthroat rule has been applied to Australian swimming’s greatest legends without fear or favour, including Ian Thorpe and Dawn Fraser, but the disruptions caused by the global pandemic have convinced selectors to make an exception - for this year only.

Australia's Emma McKeon has been given automatic selection for the Comm Games

While the world championships are normally held in odd-numbered years, the 12-month postponement of the Tokyo Olympics has thrown everything out of order, with this year’s Budapest world championships only added to the international calendar two months ago.

Most of Australia’s top swimmers had already timed their training to peak in July so Australia’s head coach Rohan Taylor agreed to make an exception and award a handful automatic places for the Commonwealth Games only, but with strict conditions and a pledge that the offer would not be repeated.

“We‘ve created a mechanism within the selection criteria that if you’re an individual medallist then we can select you into your events,” Taylor told News Corp.

“It‘s a one off. It’s something we’re doing just to try to keep the longevity.

“So we can put Kyle and Emma in without going to trials but I definitely need them to be committed.”

While a number of other countries already use discretionary methods to ensure their best swimmers are picked, the decision to break with tradition and give preferential treatment to Australia’s proven performers for Birmingham was made a little easier because there is an extra spot available in each event at the Commonwealth Games.

Kyle Chalmers will also be in Birmingham

Unlike the Olympics and world championships where each country is restricted to a maximum of two swimmers in each individual race, the Commonwealth Games allows for three, so the top two finishers from this year’s trials will still get picked for both events.

The decision by most of the Dolphins’ big guns to snub this year’s world titles, however, will not only harm Australia’s chances of another huge medal haul but will also rob the sport’s showcase event of its two biggest blockbuster head to head showdowns.

It can now be confirmed that Titmus, whose epic clashes with superstar Katie Ledecky in Tokyo, captivated the entire world’s attention during the lockdown, will now have to wait at least another year before she squares off again with her American nemesis.

And the next round of the heavyweight battle between Chalmers and his US rival Caeleb Dressel is also now on hold, although there is a new Aussie freestyle star on the rise who could make his first senior international appearance this year.

Although he’s just 16, Queensland teenager Flynn Southam is already making waves, blitzing his opposition to win the 100m freestyle at the Australian national age group titles in Adelaide on Thursday.

Improving at a rapid rate of knots, Southam’s winning time of 48.60 seconds was another personal best that not only broke Chalmers’ national age group record but is also faster than what Dressel was swimming at the same age.

Originally published as Commonwealth Games 2022: Aussie swimmers willing to snub world champs after getting free pass