Freestyler Kyle Chalmers entered a butterfly race for the first time at the Australian swimming championships as “a bit of fun”. Now, he is an national champion in the stroke after winning the 100m title in Adelaide on Sunday night.
“I stuck my head down and tried to swim similar to how I swim freestyle races – come home strong,” he told AAP. “It’s a bit more challenging doing butterfly though.”
He clocked a personal best of 52.16 seconds – almost half a second quicker than his 100m butterfly time at the NSW state titles three weeks ago. And Chalmers’ victory came after he trained twice on Sunday before a night final he found surprisingly comfortable.
“It wasn’t actually too painful, to be honest with you,” he said. “I have been doing so much freestyle that I’m probably pretty fatigued in those muscles at the moment. So to change it up … I haven’t done a lot of butterfly, so it was pretty good.”
Chalmers, the 2016 Olympic 100m freestyle champion, swam butterfly as a junior. “Up until 2014, I did a fair bit of butterfly but I haven’t done hardly anything since then,” he said.
And he wasn’t worried about his butterfly effort taking some steam out of his 100m freestyle swims on Monday. “Nah, not at all,” he said. “I’d like to think I’m in pretty good shape, I’m pretty fit at the moment. We have practised backing up a lot in training so it will have no effect.”
Cate Campbell collected the women’s 100m freestyle crown, but said she did not really enjoy winning another Australian title on the opening night of the nationals.
For Chalmers and other top-liners such as Campbell, the nationals is the first serious hit-out in programs designed to peak in July at the world championships, then again next year at the Tokyo Olympics.
So for Campbell, winning in Adelaide was a case of no pain, no gain in the big picture.
“Enjoy is the wrong word,” she told AAP. “It was a very solid swim and I think my coach will enjoy it a little more than I’m enjoying it right now. It’s really difficult to say where exactly I’m at, and everyone is at different stages as well.”
Campbell won in 53.36 seconds with Emma McKeon (53.50) second and Shayna Jack (53.66) third. Campbell’s sister Bronte Campbell was fifth (54.36).
In the men’s 100m backstroke, Mitch Larkin also won another national championship – and he is not sure how many Australian titles he now has, describing his latest triumph as “about pride”.
“I spoke to [coach] Dean [Boxall] and said ‘I don’t want to lose this one’,” Larkin said. “For this time of the year, it’s really good … the aerobic system is ticking along nicely. I’m not too puffed at the end of that, which is nice.”
The nationals are not doubling as selection trials for the world titles in July in South Korea – that will happen in Brisbane in June.
“The next couple of weeks we’re going to find some speed and, touchwood, by trials in a couple of months we’ll be swimming a lot faster and a lot easier,” Larkin added.