Final boarding call for Singapore

JUST one session remains for Australia’s best swimmers to stake their claim for the 2025 World Championships in Singapore next month.

Tonight will feature titans of swimming – Kyle Chalmers, Cam McEvoy, Shayna Jack and her sprinting counterpart Meg Harris.

Paris silver medallist Harris advanced to the women’s 50m freestyle final in 24.24 – the sole swimmer to go under QT in the heats with Olivia Wunsch next best (24.80) and Mollie O’Callaghan (24.90). And the nursing student is fresh after pulling out of the 100m freestyle final to focus on her speciality splash and dash. Don’t write off noted butterfly specialist Alex Perkins (24.96) who is the form of her life at this meet.

> Another distance race. Another Lani Pallister special.

Pallister has been on fire this meet – starting with going sub-4 minutes in the 400m freestyle and breaking Ariarne Titmus’ 800m national record – will have the national record title holder Maddy Gough and up and comer Tiana Kritzinger on either side of her.> The men’s 50m butterfly heats were a wild ride.

Renowned flyer Matt Temple qualified seventh (23.82) with Dolphin veterans Kyle Chalmers (23.08) and Cam McEvoy (23.37) lead a pack of gunning fliers, including bolter Will Yang who put on a blitzering performance in heat nine out of nine. Yang shaved almost three seconds off his seed time (26.14) to qualifying for the final third (23.38).

> St Peters Western’s Will Petric and Jenna Forrester head the 400 individual medley finals. Petric has already secured his spot for Singapore in the 200 IM but Forrester is still gunning to stamp her passport. She is ranked number three on the Australian all-time list behind Australian record holder Kaylee McKeown and 2008 Olympic champion Stephanie Rice but Forrester will have to fend off national title holder Tara Kinder (Melbourne Vicentre) and Griffith’s Ella Ramsay.

> Last call for dual Olympians Brendon Smith and Se-Bom Lee to make Singapore team and it’s shaping up to be a battle for the second spot with Petric (4:18.17) over two-seconds in front and Smith (4:20.96), Lee (4:21.94) and David Schlicht (4:21.97 posting seed times in the same ballpark.