Larkin takes winning World Cup form into Australian Short Course Championships

  

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Swimming Australia, October 31, 2016: Olympic silver medallist Mitch Larkin will return to Brisbane today in winning form for this week’s Hancock Prospecting Australian Short Course Swimming Championships.

The 23-year-old last night finished his Fina/airweave World Cup campaign in Hong Kong with an impressive victory in his final race, the 200m backstroke.

Larkin, the world record holder in the event, defeated Columbia’s Omar Garcia Pinzon by over three seconds, clocking 1:50.33.

He had picked up silver in the 100m backstroke final to Russian Stanislav Donetc and bronze to Pavel Sankovich in the 50m backstroke final, on day one in the highly competitive Series where wins were hard to come by.

Fellow dual long course world champion, Emily Seebohm can lay testament to that.

Seebohm, like Larkin, a two-time long course world champion emerged from the two-day Hong Kong meet with an impressive haul of six medals – four silvers and two bronze.

Hungary’s unstoppable “Iron Lady” Katinka Hosszu claimed four gold in front of Seebohm, wrapping up the overall Fina/airweave World Cup champion crown for the fifth consecutive year and the $US100, 000 prizemoney.

Seebohm, a member of Australia’s silver medal winning 4x100m medley relay in Rio, claimed silver medals behind Hosszu in the 50,100 and 200m backstroke finals and Denmark’s Jeanette Ottesen in the 50m butterfly and bronze to Hosszu in the 100IM and Ottesen in the 50m freestyle.

The Brisbane pair will join fellow Rio team members – including gold medallists Kyle Chalmers, Mack Horton, Bronte Campbell, Brittany Elmslie and Madi Wilson, as well silver medallists Maddie Groves and Taylor McKeown and bronze medallists Jake Packard, David Morgan, Cam McEvoy, James Roberts, Leah Neale and Jess Ashwood and Paralympic champions Elle Cole, Lakeisha Patterson, Brenden Hall and Tim Disken in Brisbane.

The three-day Hancock Prospecting Australian Short Course meet, which doubles as the selection trials for the Fina World Short Course Championships in Windsor, Canada in December, starts at the Brisbane Aquatic Centre, Chandler on Thursday and continues until Sunday night, when the team is announced.

The compact program means that the 50m form strokes and 100IM events will be swum as timed finals in the morning sessions.

Thursday will see both Seebohm and Larkin in action in the 200 and 50m backstroke events respectively as well as Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers, who has been in personal best form over 100 and 200m freestyle at the recent Singapore and Tokyo World Cups, nothing 100 and 200m freestyle wins.

Seebohm will have plenty of company in Fina Long Course silver medallist over 100m backstroke Madi Wilson and Brisbane Grammar training partner and world junior champion Minna Atherton as well as Hayley Baker, Amy Forrester, Sian Whittaker and Pan Pac champion Kaylee McKeown in one of the strongest fields on the program.

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Larkin will have fellow World Cup gold medallist Bobby Hurley and Olympic team mate Josh Beaver to contend with.

While the men’s 100m freestyle will see Chalmers up against McEvoy and fellow 4x100m freestyle relay bronze medallist James Roberts and his recently acquired Somerset College training partner, London Olympian Tommaso D’Orsogna who joins coach, Sydney Olympian relay gold medallist Ashley Callus.

See fields attached…

 

HANCOCK PROSPECTING AUSTRALIAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS

 

VENUE: Brisbane Aquatic Centre, Chandler

WHEN: Thursday, November 3-Saturday November 6, 2016

TIMES:

Heats: 10am

Finals: 6pm

 

SWIMMING AUSTRALIA GALA DINNER

 

VENUE: Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre

When: Sunday, November 7, 2016

Time: 6.30pm