Evans joins throng for big event
Blair Evans will make her return to racing in a WAIS swimming invitational meeting at HBF Stadium this weekend.
The London Olympian has returned to training in recent months after a two-year injury lay-off and will test her progress against the State's best, a month out from the national championships in Brisbane.
It will also be fellow Olympian Yolane Kukla's first racing of 2015 after the butterfly and freestyle sprinter's build-up was interrupted by illness.
The meeting is the brainchild of WAIS high performance coach Michael Palfrey, who hopes it will become an annual event.
Close to 300 swimmers from around the State were invited and more than 200 accepted.
Palfrey, who moved to Perth from Brisbane in 2012, said WAIS could have taken its swimmers to the NSW championships but believed the invitational would be the best preparation for national trials. The costs associated with swimmers travelling interstate for high-level competition have been reinvested into the local meeting.
The event begins in the 10-lane outdoor pool today and runs until Monday.
"It's not something I would have done over east because I think the racing opportunity over east is a lot better," Palfrey said. "I really want to try to see if I'm getting the same level of commitment from our athletes.
"It's just to give athletes and the coaches a really strong competition."
Palfrey said he hoped to grow the event over time and lure international talent.
"As long as everyone wants to support it, I'd like to keep it as an annual thing," he said.
"I would like to attract maybe some other teams from South Australia and maybe Singapore and some other areas."
Palfrey is hopeful WA will have representatives on the world championships team for Russia.
"They've definitely got the potential to do it," he said.
"It comes back to what sort of form they hit the meet in. It's not going to be easy to make the team. It's 12 months from the Olympics, so it will be tough."
