Notes & Quotes From Day One Of 2025 Australian World Championship Trials ...Middle East

By Retta Race on SwimSwam

2025 AUSTRALIAN SWIMMING TRIALS

We saw several significant performances transpire on day one of the 2025 Australian World Championship Trials on both the men’s and women’s sides.

Some drama unfolded with Olympic champion Kaylee McKeown first being disqualified for a false start in the heats of the women’s 50m backstroke before being reinstated after appeal.

The 23-year-old wound up winning the final contest, posting 27.33 to out-touch Mollie O’Callaghan‘s silver medal-garnering effort of 27.39.

As for McKeown, the USC Spartan has been as fast as 26.86 in her career, the world record she established during the 2023 World Cup circuit.

On her outing this evening, McKeown said, “It’s not the first time I’ve been DQ’d, so it’s not something that you really want to practice but it’s good to mentally toughen yourself up and, you know, hopefully prepares me for anything down the track.

“Tonight just wasn’t my night and I didn’t swim the way that I wanted to. I can throw out all these excuses but at the end of the day, I just haven’t done the work I would have usually done with my prep, and that shows in my swimming and in my training, so I’m just using this year to find my feet and get myself back.

“I’m a competitor. I love competing. I’m not going to turn down an opportunity to get up and race, even if it is late at night. But, yeah, you know, I love backstroke, and I love racing these girls, especially Mollie (O’Callaghan), we have a good time in the marshalling room. So it was nice to have that opportunity and to also ease some of the pressure by qualifying.”

In the women’s 100m fly, the first event of tonight’s session, 24-year-old Alex Perkins threw down the best time of her career en route to capturing gold and a slot on the Singapore roster.

Perkins powered her way to a result of 56.42 to defeat the field by over a second, becoming Australia’s 3rd-best performer in history in the process. Lily Price also qualified for the World Championships, courtesy of her silver medal-earning performance of 57.82.

Post-race, Perkins commented, “I’m really happy with the PB in the morning and the second PB at night. Those times were a long time coming and I’ve been working really hard for, so it’s really nice when it comes together when it matters. I think coming off my first Olympics and building that self belief, working out how to just race my own race a bit more and a change in coach has been really, really good and fresh”.

“Emma’s [McKeon] been at the forefront of this event (100m butterfly) for so long and she’s just so talented, and an amazing role model. It’s sad she’s not here to race anymore, but hopefully we can bring the 100m fly for Australia at the next big meets”.

Price added, “I went to short course last year but this is my first long course Australian team. It feels really exciting. Short course is a great achievement but the Olympics are long course, so everyone looks to make a long course team. So I’m really happy.”

Olympic medalist Lani Pallister made major noise in the women’s 400m free, turning in the first sub-4:00 performance of her career.

Now training under storied Aussie coach Dean Boxall at St. Peters Western, Pallister ripped a mark of 3:59.72 to become just the 7th woman ever to dip under the 4:00 barrier.

Pallister spoke of her achievement tonight, stating, “I think I’ve been questioning for the past week whether I had sub four in the bank. Dean (Boxall) said it wasn’t about cracking 4min it was just about executing the race plan. I could see him and my mum on the last 50m pushing me and I did not want to kick my legs whatsoever, but that’s all he’s been hounding into me for the past 10 weeks since being at St Peters.

“Moving to St Peters was more about having a group of distance swimmers to train with. Swimmers like Jamie (Perkins) who was in the Olympic final last year for the 400m (freestyle), Elijah Winnington who medalled last year, Ben Goedemans has now cracked 15 minutes (in the 1500m freestyle) … so there’s a nice group that do distance.

“So for me, it was just about having someone to chase up and down and challenge me every day, as Jamie does, and having a group of people that make me happy, and I think that’s been the biggest difference. Is I’m just thrilled going into the pool every day and just having 21 friends on pool deck with me.

“I’ve seen a different side of Dean that I never saw as an outside athlete before, and you guys see how passionate he is when we’re racing. But I think what we have at St Peter’s is something really special, and I’m really lucky that I get to be a part of that now. I saw a quote once saying that ‘water carries energy’ and the energy that comes out of that St Peter’s pool is electrifying.”

Jamie Perkins was just off her lifetime best tonight, hitting 4:04.03 to claim silver behind Pallister and join her in making the Singapore squad.

Perkins said, “Summer’s [McIntosh] (world record) time is pretty inspiring. I mean for what Katie (Ledecky) has done over the past over a decade now is incredible. To see someone else stepping up and doing that is good for us, to show that it’s possible.”

“First job is to make the team. You never know what’s going to happen and there’s so many obstacles to overcome during a prep. So step one’s done now and we have five weeks until Singapore.”

Quotes courtesy of Swimming Australia.

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