Trickett on fire at Canberra meet

Libby Trickett has clocked two of her best ever 100 metre freestyle times at the
Duel in the Pool swimming meet against Japan in Canberra.
On a night when Beijing Olympic golden girl Stephanie Rice failed to fire, Trickett
showed no sign of a post-Games hangover.
Competing in the mixed 400 metre freestyle relay with Eamon Sullivan, Matthew
Targett and Marieke Guehrer, Trickett swum a blistering 52.89 seconds in the first
leg - just 0.01 seconds shy of the world mark she set at last year's Olympic trials.
Then, around 90 minutes later, the 24-year-old backed up to record 52.95 seconds in
the women's individual 100 metre freestyle.
They are only the fourth and fifth times Trickett has broken the 53-second mark
since becoming the first woman to do so going head-to-head against US swimming
sensation Michael Phelps in a mixed relay in 2007.
"To get that sort of consistency under 53 seconds is awesome for me. It gives me so
much confidence," Trickett told reporters after her second race on Saturday.
"It proves to myself that it was never a fluke that I was able to do that and I had
it in me to do that today."
Meanwhile Sullivan is also in good shape, taking out the men's 100 metre freestyle
in 48.4 seconds ahead of Targett and Japan's Takuro Fujii.
The 23-year-old said he was happy to swim a time close to what he recorded at World
Championships trials in Sydney last March.
"I wanted to get as close as I could to that 48.2 I did at trials," he said.
"Very excited and very happy with that time considering the hard work we've had over
the last few weeks."
But triple Olympic gold medallist Rice struggled in the women's 400 metre individual
medley, finishing an exhausted-looking third behind winner Maiko Fujino of Japan and
Queensland's Ellen Fullerton.
Also Jessicah Schipper took out the women's 100 metre butterfly event, Andrew
Lauterstein won the men's equivalent and the women's 400 metre freestyle went to
Melissa Gorman.