Evans London Bound

WAIS swimmer Blair Evans has earned Olympic nomination in the 400m Individual Medley after finishing second in last night’s final in Adelaide.

Competing at Australian Swimming Championships, which double as the Olympic selection trials, Evans swam second behind Olympic and World record holder Stephanie Rice, with both athletes well under the A-Qualifying standard.

The Matt Magee coached City of Perth club member clocked 4:37.80mins to ensure she will be competing at her first ever Olympic Games.

The result is a massive boost to Evans, who still has the 200m and 400m freestyle events to look forward to at the Championships, and the 20 year-old took to social media site Twitterto thank her supporters afterwards, describing herself as “probably the happiest girl alive”.

Rice – a triple Olympic champion – showed plenty of form, burning the stopwatch at 4:33.45mins, to book her ticket to a second Olympic campaign, with the second fastest time in the world this year.

In this morning’s session, Evans has qualified through to tonight’s final of the women’s 400m freestyle after setting the seventh fastest time (4:12.42) in heats. Only fastest qualifier Kylie Palmer (4:09.12) has recorded an A-Qualifying mark ahead of the final.

There was disappointment for Evans’ training partner Travis Nederpelt, who missed selection in the men’s 400m IM after swimming fourth (4:21.01) in the final.

Nederpelt however, still has his favoured fly events to look forward to in Adelaide as Thorpie-mania reaches fever pitch, after he qualified this morning through to the semi-finals in the men’s 200m freestyle.