Pan Pacs Bronze for Blair Evans

Western Australian Institute of Sport swimmer Blair Evans has won her first individual medal at a major championship after taking bronze in the women’s 200m freestyle in a new personal best time.

The Matt Magee (WAIS/City of Perth) coached star clocked 1:57.27 at the Pan Pacific Championships Final in Irvine, California to secure the biggest result of her fledgling international career.

Evans came home hard to out touch fellow Australian Kylie Palmer who finished fourth in 1:57.50, with the US pairing of Allison Schmitt and Morgan Scroggy taking out gold and silver.Schmitt’s time of 1:56.10 was yet another championship record, while Scroggy was just 0.14 of a second quicker than Evans in 1:57.13.

The 200m national champion also backed up in the 800m final, finishing seventh. Katie Goldman was the best of the Australians, placing third.

World champion Guehrer continued her dominance of the women’s 50m butterfly with a gold medal performance in the opening final of the night, before Seebohm and Schipper added to the gold rush in the 100m backstroke and 200m butterfly respectively.

Guehrer, a gold medallist in the same event in Rome last year, hit the wall in 25.99 from fellow Australian Seebohm (26.08) to make it gold and silver for Australia, following a scintillating swim from Yolane Kukla in the women’s B final.

Kukla set the pool alight with a championship record swim of 25.99 in the B Final which would have tied with Guehrer if she had qualified for the A Final.

Seebohm then backed up from the silver medal in the 50m butterfly to win the 100m backstroke in a new championship record time of 59.45 from Japan’s Aya Terakawa (59.59) and Natalie Coughlin (59.70). Having difficulty staying in the middle of the lane, Seebohm bounced her way down the two laps like it was ‘bumper bowling’ night in California, but managed to get home over the Olympic champion and Japanese title holder.

Not to be outdone, and holding on to the title she won in Canada in 2006, Jessicah Schipper led from go to gold in the 200m butterfly to win in a time of 2:06.90. The world champion in the event, and the only gold medallist at 2006 Pan Pacs (100m, 200m fly), Schipper battled a disrupted preparation to win from Tessa Crippen (2:06.93) and Kathleen Hersey third in 2:07.27. Australia’s Samantha Hamill was sixth in 2:09.23.

– Swimming Australia