Winnington claims second big swim scalp

Saturday, 20 January 2018: Gold Coast teenager Elijah Winnington has claimed another sizeable scalp at the NSW swimming championships by beating Olympian Cam McEvoy in the 200m freestyle.

Teenage swim star and Gold Coast Commonwealth Games hopeful Elijah Winnington has claimed another high profile scalp at the NSW swimming championships at Sydney's Olympic Park Aquatic Centre.

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The 17-year-old Gold Coaster swam away Saturday from dual Olympian, Bond University training partner, and best mate Cameron McEvoy to add the 200m freestyle to his 400m win over Olympic champions Mack Horton and Gregorio Paltrinieri from Friday.

Winnington dug deep over the final 75 metres to shake off McEvoy and Rio Olympian Daniel Smith (Griffith University) to win in 1m:48.59s.

He admitted he went home to bed last night "almost forgetting" what happened in the 400m final.

And with coach Richard Scare helping to ensure Winnington kept an old head on those young shoulders, the youngster was ready for another battle with the big names.

"There's an old saying 'You stick to your own lane'. It doesn't matter who's next to you I just went out there and executed my race plan," he said.

"I normally have a very good last 50, it was the same in the 400 last night.

"Richard and I have this thing 'Ability can only get you so far, it's the heart you have in the last 50m that gets you where you want to be on the wall'," Winnington said.

"Everyone is hurting equally in that last 10 metres so you've just got to give it as much as you can."

One of the other form swimmers of the meet, world beater Cate Campbell (Chandler) added the 50m freestyle title to her gold medal tally (50m butterfly and the 100m freestyle) clocking a very fast 24.15s.

Two other youngsters who also put their hands up tonight, were backstrokers Kaylee McKeown (USC Spartans) who went under the minute (59.67s) for the first time to win the 100m backstroke, and Central Coast surf-swim star Bradley Woodward (Mingara) who went under two minutes for the second time in the same day in the 200m backstroke.

He clocked a NSW record breaking time of 1m:58.30.