Record breaking Aussies in golden start to Junior Pan Pacs

 

  

Swimming Australia, August 25, 2016: Australia has unearthed its next generation of swimming stars just 24 hours after its Rio Olympians returned home from the Olympic Games with 10 medals – three of them gold.

Brisbane teenagers Jack Cartwright (St Peters Western) and Mina Atherton (Brisbane Grammar) have set new meet records on the opening day of the Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Maui.

 

Cartwright (200m freestyle) and Atherton (100m backstroke) won their respective A finals with two impressive performances at the Kihei Aquatic Centre.

 

The men's 200m freestyle saw an Australian quinella with Cartwright (1:47.68) and team mate, fellow Queenslander Louis Townsend (1:47.73) in personal best times and each going under the old meet record mark of 1:48.29 set by USA Olympic gold medallist, Townley Haas in 2014.

 

Haas won gold at the Rio Olympics in the USA's 4x200m freestyle relay alongside Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte and Conor Dwyer and was fifth in the individual 200m freestyle final.

 

The Australians were never headed in an eye-catching two-pronged attack and will now challenge for places on Australia’s 4x200m freestyle relay squad in the lead up to the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics that finished a close up fourth in Rio.

 

Atherton, training partner of Olympic gold medallists Emily Seebohm and Brittany Elmslie, clocked a time of 1:00.45 in an impressive performance by the World Junior Champion only to hear that she had been disqualified for having her "toes in the gutter" at the start of the race.

 

But the disappointment was short lived when the result was overturned with Atherton awarded the gold and fellow Aussie, Kaylee McKeown (USC Spartans) the bronze in 1:01.01.

 

The previous record of 1:00.82 was set by Japan’s Sayaka Akase in 2010. Atherton also holds the world junior record of 59.37, set at the Hancock Prospecting Australian Junior Championships in April.

 

Other medals went to Laura Taylor from TSS Aquatics won silver in the 200m butterfly in 2:12.20 and bronze to Leon MacAllister in the 100m backstroke in 56.14.

 

In other events, Elijah Winnington (Bond Swimming) was third in the 200m freestyle B final in 1:50.93; Jacob Whale sixth in the 200m butterfly A final in 2:00.47; former Tasmanian Ariarne Titmus was fifth in the 800m freestyle in 8:37.50 and fifth in the 200m freestyle in 1:59.90.

 

After eight events the USA leads he medal tally with three gold, four silver and two bronze from Australia (two gold, two silver and two bronze); China (two gold); Japan (one gold, one silver, one bronze) and Canada (one silver and two bronze).

 

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