Ashwood breaks Aus record at State titles

NSWIS athlete and London Olympian Jessica Ashwood has set the pool alight at the 2014 NSW State Swimming Championships at Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre on the weekend winning double gold in the women’s 800m and 400m freestyle.

The 20-year-old Sydneysider produced the swim of the evening on night one of competition setting a new Australian record in the women’s 800m freestyle, breaking the previous mark by more than three seconds and smashing her own personal best with an 8:19.76.

Ashwood backed up that performance with an impressive 4:05.01 in the women’s 400m freestyle on night two to record the fourth fastest 400m freestyle time by an Australian female.

Her swim would have seen her finish fifth at last year’s FINA World Championships in Barcelona, while her effort in the 800m would have been good enough for fourth.

Ashwood was ecstatic with the 800m swim and said she was looking forward to repeating that performance at the Australian Championships in Brisbane next month.

"I’m very excited. At first I couldn’t believe it because that was sort of my goal for Trials so now I’ll have to make some new goals for that," Ashwood said.

"We are in really hard training at the moment at the end of a block, and the swim didn’t really feel very good so I was probably more worried that I wouldn’t do a good time, so I was very surprised when I did well."