Lani Pallister and Sam Short, Australia’s stars of the pool in 2026, have continued their terrific year with more success at the national short course championships in Sydney.
The pair, who had already scooped a hatful of Commonwealth and Pan Pacific titles, made it five Australian titles between them in a week at Olympic Park Aquatic Centre.
They are intent on ending their year with more gold at the world short course championships in Beijing in December.
Pallister, having already lifted the 200 metre and 1,500m freestyle titles, powered to victory over 400m on the penultimate night of racing on Thursday, as did Short, who had already won the 800m.
Short was in an imperious mood as he took the 16-lap title in 3 minutes and 35.16 seconds, easily inside the Beijing qualifying time of 3:39.14, which convinced him the world record of 3:32.25 was sure to fall at the famed Water Cube venue that hosted the 2008 Olympic swimming program.
“I think that’s gone in a couple of months at [the] world short course,” Brisbane star Short said.Â
“I haven’t swum much short course … in some ways it keeps you hungry.”
Former short course 400m world champion Elijah Winnington, though, was just outside the time needed, as he clocked 3:39.24 to finish runner-up.
Pallister was in a class of her own as she prevailed in 3:54.55, the fastest women’s time ever recorded in Australia, shaving 0.03 seconds off the old mark set by Ariarne Titmus six years ago.
Runner-up Jenna Forrester, who won 400m individual medley gold in a national record, was 0.65 seconds outside of qualifying time.
In the women’s 50m, Iona Anderson continued her breakthrough year by completing her sweep of the backstroke events, clocking 25.88 seconds as she got closer to Kaylee McKeown’s Australian record of 25.35 seconds.
AAP
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