Zac Stubblety-Cook has turned in a sizzling performance in the men's 200-metre breaststroke at the Australian Olympic swimming trials, booking his ticket for the Tokyo Games and snaring the national and Commonwealth records.
The 22-year-old blitzed the field in Adelaide to post a time of 2:06.28 – and Russian Anton Chupkov's 2:06.12 now stands as the only fastest time in history.
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In heartbreaking news, however, former world record holder Matt Wilson failed to qualify in the 200-metre breaststroke, falling just 0.24 seconds short.
He only fractionally missed out on qualifying for the Rio Games and, after also failing to meet the benchmark in the 100-metre breaststroke during the 2021 trials, has dashed his chances of competing in Tokyo.
As Wilson grappled with that reality in gut-wrenching scenes, a beaming Stubblety-Cook spoke to Australian Olympic swimming great Giaan Rooney in a pool-side interview.
"I'm just ecstatic," Stubblety-Cook told Rooney on Amazon's coverage.
"We went into tonight just looking to execute a process. Swam well at nationals and built into this meet. I was pretty happy with the 100, where it was at, and knew my forte was in the back end. I was just looking to execute a race plan and try to swim in my own lane. Matt … going out pretty fast was quite helpful in the end. I was very happy with that swim."
Australian Olympic swimming legend Grant Hackett empathised with the breaststrokers as they consoled Wilson in the water.
"Two opposite ends of the spectrum here," Hackett said.
"All these men, they've raced together, they've been on teams together for the past five years, and you can just feel the emotion right now. It's brutal. This is what the trials are about. We have the extreme highs and the extreme lows."
The fourth day of the swimming trials also saw Rio gold medallist Kyle Chalmers register 47.59 in the men's 100-metre freestyle to satisfy Tokyo's qualifying time.
And Tokyo-bound young gun Madeleine Gough swam 15:46.13 in the women's 1500-metre freestyle to make the Australian record her own.
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