Throssell Achieves Childhood Dream

WAIS athlete Brianna Throssell last night achieved a childhood dream by qualifying for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games after finishing second in the women’s 200m fly final at the Australian Swimming Championships in Adelaide.

The 20 year-old swam a new personal best of 2:06.58 to secure her nomination along with national champion Madeline Groves (2:05.47) to become the third Western Australian swimmer to earn a ticket to this year’s Olympic Games.

The result caps an impressive rise for the City of Perth swimmer, after she last year made her Australian Dolphins debut at the 2015 FINA World Championships in Russia, where she finished fourth in the 200m fly.

Throssell acknowledged the achievement via her Twitter account this morning – tweeting, “Last night I achieved my childhood dream of qualifying for the Rio Olympics.”

The dream was set up by a dominant second 100m, in which Throssell swam away from the chasing pack to almost overhaul Groves at the wall. Her reaction following was one of the enduring images of the meet to date, with nervous energy converted to pure elation as she realised her time would earn her a spot in Rio.

In the men’s 200m breaststroke final, WAIS had three contestants in action, with Lennard Bremer’s fourth place finish (2:13.45), followed by emerging talents George Harley (2:13.79) and Alex Milligan (2:13.90) in sixth and seventh respectively.

The title was won by 17 year-old Matthew Wilson (2:09.90) who fell agonisingly short of the A-Qualifying time required for automatic nomination for the Australian Olympic Team.

 Tuesday’s racing at the Australian Swimming Championships will be dominated by the sprinters, with the final of the women’s 100m free joined by the heats and semis of the men’s 50m freestyle.