Australian swimming trials LIVE: Ariarne Titmus breaks 200m freestyle world record, Hodge breaks IM record

Ricky Betar wins the men’s 200m multi-class individual medley, but it’s Timothy Hodge that walks away with the world record.

The multi-class races means para-athletes swimming under different classifications race together. Hodge had his foot amputated when he was four-years old, and is swimming under a SM9 qualification.

Speaking after the race, and after qualifying for his third Paralympics, Hodge said the world record was the icing on the cake.

“What a race. Came in tonight with not really much of a focus on the overall time, more of a focus on execution, race plan, things like that,” he said.

“And to come away with a world record tonight is icing on the cake.”

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Ariarne Titmus wins in a world record time. 1:52.23 is the time, smashes Mollie O’Callaghan’s world record of 1:52.85.

Titmus took it out hard and held on. One of her most impressive swims ever. What a race we have brewing in Paris.

First place will either be Ariarne Titmus or Mollie O’Callaghan.

The latter is the world record holder and the former is the reigning Olympic champion. Titmus blitzed her 400m free final and O’Callaghan was sharp in her 100m backstroke final. Going to pick an upset and say Titmus by less than a tenth of a second.

Places three to six will lock up relay spot, with Shayna Jack aiming to make her first Olympics team after her drugs ban hell.

Three years ago, Alexa Leary’s parents said goodbye to their daughter. The 19-year-old triathlete – a silver medallist at the 2019 world junior titles – had fallen off her bike while training at about 70km/h and landed on her head.

Her father Russ, who was also on the Saturday morning ride just outside Noosa, hardly recognised his unconscious daughter. Along with broken ribs, skull and scapula, she also had a punctured lung and shattered leg.

She was airlifted to the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and immediately sent for emergency surgery. Part of her skull had to be removed or death would have been unavoidable. So Russ and his wife Belinda waited and endured, not knowing if Leary would ever come back to them.

On Tuesday, she qualified for her first Paralympic Games.

Read the full story about Leary’s incredible journey here.

There’s something special at the end of the night – a celebrity and swimming legends relay.

Tasmanian Max Giuliani won a thrilling men’s 200m freestyle final on Tuesday night to book a ticket to his first Olympics and then realised he needed to text his boss to get some time off work.

The 20-year-old, who had all but given up swimming as a teenager before one last push to become an Olympian, is working two or three shifts a week in the fishing section at an Anaconda store at Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast.

“I’m going to message the boss after this. I’ll be away for about 10 weeks,” said Giuliani with a big grin after edging out Tommy Neill by 0.19 seconds in the final race on night two of the Australian Olympic and Paralympic trials in Brisbane.

“I pulled back a bit last week [on shifts at work]. I just go in there and switch off and hang with the boys and just muck around and not think about swimming.”

Read the full story, and the full report from night two, here.

Hello all, and welcome to our live coverage of night three of the Australian swimming trials.

We’re halfway there now, but there’s so much more action to come.

If you’re joing us for the first time this week, you can go back and read all the action from night one here, or night two here.

It’s another busy night tonight, with Ariarne Titmus back in the pool along with a bunch of other Aussie legends.

First up is the women’s 200m freestyle from 7:30pm. We’ll bring you all the news until then.