Picture: Martin Philbey
Matthew Temple and Bowen Gough are used to racing against each other. They are rising butterfliers, they train together at Nunawading, and when they meet in the competition pool, the result usually follows a familiar pattern.
“He’ll win the 200 and I’ll get him in the 100,” Temple said, with Bowen conceding: “that’s pretty much how it goes”.
It proved to again be the case on Sunday night in the final session of the 2019 Optus Victorian Open Championships with Temple taking the 100 metre butterfly title in 52.67 seconds from Gough’s 54.19 and Shaun Champion (Abbotsleigh) in 54.45.
However, the script did have an unexpected - and potentially painful - ending in one sense for Temple. Describing the performance as good but with some “messy” elements, he said he had, when gliding to the wall, attempted to sneak in one final stroke.
“That put my head onto the wall rather than my hands,” Temple said.
However, an encouraging sign was that the time was only marginally slower than his effort at last year’s Commonwealth Games trials where he finished fifth.
The teammates, who took part in a recent National Event Camp, said they pushed each other to better performances.
“He (Temple) is really good to make sure I don’t get complacent with my training because I get to see how far he can push himself and I learn from that,” Gough said.
Temple added: “We push each other. We just keep going along, trying to get faster, beat each other at training and it helps in the race”.
Meanwhile, Melbourne Vicentre’s Sian Whittaker is relishing the prospect of overcoming a tough and experienced field of Ausrtralian backstrokers to earn selection to the 2020 Olympic Games
“There are girls who have been on the team for such a long time that I’m now racing against and it’s just great to have such a strong team of backstrokers,” said Whittaker, who finished second in the 200IM behind New Zealander Helena Gasson (Coast Swimming) on Sunday night.
“It keeps us all on our toes and it keeps us working hard. We get up behind the blocks and you never know who’s going to win, so it’s really, really good.”
Other results include:
Nunawading’s Andrew Rice, Jess Hansen Kayla Costa and Caiden Gill set the first Open record (unofficial) of the meet when they won the 4x50 mixed freestyle relay in one minute 45.23 seconds from Melbourne Vicentre and Southport Olympic.
TSS Aquatic’s Alice Stuart won the 200 butterfly in 2:13.03 from Sharni Robinson (University of Queensland) in 2:15.47 and Aimee Grella (Bayside) in 2:16.27.
Moesha Johnson (Palm Beach) won in Allcomer’s record (unofficial) of 16:36.70, slicing 0.26 off the previous mark. Sophie Caldwell (Nunawading) followed in 16:46.33 with third-place getter Ebony Blackstone (Yeronga Park) finishing in 17:03.09.
In the men’s race, Northcote’s Silas Harris won the 1500 freestyle in 15:31.89 from Elliot Rogerson (Nunawading) in 15:47.48 and Aaron Wartman (16:49.33).
Nunawading’s Brendon Smith won the 400 individual medley in 4:24.47 from Thomas Peregrina (Knox Pymble) in 4:33.61 and Ryland Brian (MLC) in 4:35.84.
Abbey Kearney (Cheltenham Amateur) won the 200 freestyle in 2:01.68 from Melbourne Vicentre’s Elyse Woods (2:02.40) and Wangaratta’s Maggie Skewes (2:03.36).
For full results go to the competition page.
* An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Maddison Cooper had placed third in the 1500 metre freestyle. Ebony Blackstone (Yeronga Park) actually took third in 17:03.09. We apologise for the error.
