Hackett warms up for world contest
AUSTRALIAN swim team captain Grant Hackett stepped up preparations for this year’s world championships with a 400m freestyle victory last night at the Telstra Grand Prix meet.
Hackett looked sharp in his first hit-out since the Australian trials in March, posting a time of 3min 52.33s to easily account for fellow Queenslanders Nicholas Sprenger (4:01.31) and Cameron Smith (4:04.09).
Hackett could come up against American whizkid Michael Phelps in the event during the championships in Montreal, Canada.
“I was really happy with those times,” said Hackett, who will race his pet event - the 1500m freestyle - tonight.
“I felt really strong in the 400, sort of just working at the back end of it and it worked really well.
“The 100 was a great time for me. Again the back end was an important thing to see how my endurance work was going and it was very encouraging.”
Olympic gold medallist Libby Lenton (1:59.49) was the only female swimmer to break the two minute barrier in the 200m freestyle and set a new personal best on her way to claiming the spoils.
She looked set to claim her second win of the night less than 15 minutes later in the 100m butterfly but was pipped at the wall by Jessicah Schipper (59.62s).
Lenton, 20, played the role of bridesmaid yet again in the 50m freestyle when Alice Mills (25.51s) edged her out by .02 of a second.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.