Five-time world champion and world record holder Mollie O’Callaghan has been unveiled as the face of the 2023 Hancock Prospecting Queensland State Swimming Championships – an honour that has been bestowed on the who’s who of swimming in Australia.
O’Callaghan will contest 10 events over the course of the seven-day meet from December 9-15 at the Brisbane Aquatic Centre, Chandler.
The Queensland States meet has attracted the sport’s biggest names with O’Callaghan joined by fellow Olympic and or World champions Kaylee McKeown, Emma McKeon, Ariarne Titmus, Cameron McEvoy, Zac Stubblety-Cook, Elijah Winnington and Sam Short.
Every year Swimming Queensland produces a commemorative poster and for 2023 it’s the 19-year-old from St Peters Western, the girl christened in the swimming font as Mollie O, who is front and centre.
Named Swimming Australia’s Olympic Program Swimmer of the Year, O’Callaghan returned from this year’s Aquatics World Championships in Budapest with five gold medals and five world records in the Women’s 100 and 200m freestyle, 4x100m and 4x200m freestyle relays and the Mixed 4x100m freestyle relay.
She joins the likes of Olympic champions Jon Sieben, Duncan Armstrong, Kieren Perkins, Grant Hackett, Stephanie Rice, Libby Trickett, Leisel Jones and Emma McKeon and so many more whose images adorn the Wall of Fame inside the pool.
O’Callaghan will contest seven individual races, the 50, 100, 200 and 400m freestyle, the 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke as well as three club relays with St Peters Western.
And there will be no shortage of opposition in “Mini Olympic or World Championship line-ups” especially the 50m freestyle which will feature McKeon (Griffith University), Shayna Jack (St Peters Western) and Cate Campbell (Chandler).
McKeon the Tokyo Olympic champion, Campbell the two-time Olympic bronze medallist in 2008 and 2020 in her only event and the 2023 World Championship silver medallist Jack.
The 100 and 200m freestyle will see world champion O’Callaghan up against Olympic champions McKeon (100), St Peters Western training partner and dual Olympic champion and world champion Titmus (200 and 400) and triple crown World Champion McKeown (Griffith University).
A relieved Titmus returns 10 weeks after her operation for benign tumours in one of her ovaries as she builds back up for next year’s Olympic title defence – and swill swim five freestyle events, the 100,200, 400, 800 and 1500m.
Jack, like poster girl O’Callaghan, will also contest 10 events – the 50,100 and 200m freestyle, the 50 and 100m butterfly, 50 and 100m backstroke and three 4x50m club relays with St Peters Western.
While McKeown is also celebrating a remarkable year when she became the first female to win the 50, 100 and 200m backstroke crowns in Fukuoka, adding the 50m world record to her existing world marks in the 100 and 200m as she swept through an unbeaten run at the recent World Cup Meets – named swimmer of the World Aquatics Championships and World Cups, culminating in her being named World Aquatics Female Athlete of the Year.
The 23-year-old who will focus on the 100 and 200m backstrokes and 200IM for Paris next year, will have the most varied program – lining up in the 100m butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle as well as the 200m freestyle, 200IM and two relays with Griffith for a total of eight events.
Her Griffith teammate and fellow World Cup star Lani Pallister will line up in the 200 and 1500m freestyles as well as the 100m butterfly.
Read on Swimming World Magazine Website
Photo Credit Wade Brennan
