Bendigo's Jenna Strauch reaffirmed her status as Australia's premier female breaststroker with a dominant performance in Friday night's 200m final at the national championships in Adelaide.
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After winning the 100m breaststroke final on night one and finishing runner-up in the 50m breaststroke final on night two, Strauch completed an outstanding carnival by winning her pet event the 200m breaststroke final on night three.
The Tokyo Olympian swam 2:23.26 in Friday night's final - just outside of her personal best, but well inside the FINA qualification time of 2:25.91.
Strauch finished well ahead of runner-up Abbey Harkin, who swam a time of 2:24.85.
"It's a surprise to get the 1 and the 2, but I'm just glad to be here racing and having a good time,'' Strauch said of her 100m and 200m double.
"I definitely can't complain (about the time), we always want to go faster and we always want a personal best, but I had some time off over December and got back in and got some work done.
"I'm very happy to be sitting in that position for where I'm at and how much training I've done."
Subject to what the Australian selectors decide, Strauch could swim up to four events - 50m breaststroke, 100m breaststroke, 200m breaststroke and 4 x 100m medley relay - at the World Championships in Budapest next month and/or at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in late July.
Strauch said her Olympic debut last year had whet her appetite to compete in more major events.
"I took some time to ride that (Olympic) high for a bit and I think I'm enjoying being in the water more now than ever,'' she said.
"I think it puts everything back into perspective what went down at the Olympics last year and seeing where I want to get to."
Meanwhile, Bendigo East Swimming Club's Cameron Jordan produced a career-best swim to win the 100m breaststroke 17-20 male age group final in Adelaide on Friday night.
Jordan swam a time of 1:01.74 to win by 0.23 of a second. The 20-year-old's time was less than a second outside of the FINA qualification time for the world championships and Commonwealth Games.
Earlier in the day, Jordan narrowly missed out on qualifying for the national 100m breaststroke final.
His heat time of 1:02.29 was just 0.54 of a second behind the eighth-ranked swimmer.
Former Bendigo East swimmer Layla Day won the 100m backstroke 17-20 female age group final on Friday night.
Day, who finished seventh in Thursday night's 50m backstroke national final, just missed out on the 100m backstroke final after qualifying 10th in the heats on Friday morning.
She made up for that disappointment by claiming the 17-20 age group final in a time 1:01.83 - 0.73 of a second quicker than her heat time.
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