Evans Impresses at SA State Champs

Twenty-year-old WAIS athlete Blair Evans recently impressed at the South Australian State Championships at the SA Aquatic and Leisure Centre. Her superb style saw her smash two SA All-comers records and record two A-qualifying times in the 200m and 400m freestyle events.

Evans erased Janelle Elford’s 1989 SA All-comers record when she took out the women’s 400m freestyle in a spectacular time of 4:08.36.

Cruising through the first 200m Blair led by three body lengths and turned it on again in the last 50m for a strong finish. Chasing her down was 18-year-old Jessica Ashwood who touched the wall in 4:14.02, nearly six seconds behind Evans with Jessica Pengelly (4:15.04) in third.

Less than an hour later, Evans was at it again comfortably taking gold in the women’s 200m freestyle in an Olympic A qualifying time of 1:58.23.

Coach Matt Magee said he was pleased with Blair’s performance, “I expect to see those times from Blair, that’s our focus as we progress towards trials and the challenge was to back up from that and we’ve seen that tonight so I’m happy,” he said.

But, Magee admitted there was room for improvement in aspects of her race. “There are still some little things to tweak, we’ve got to keep our eyes on the prize and that will be in March, Magee said.

“Our plan is to swim considerably faster at trials, we’ve got to go a lot quicker when we race girls like Bronte Barratt and Kylie Palmer I think to do that we’ll have to break the Australian Record.”

Evans completed a busy schedule on the last day of competition, recording a further win in the 200m IM, again in A-qualifying standard time, before rounding off her competition with a bronze medal in the 100m freestyle.

-Swimming Australia