James Magnussen posts second-best 100m time this year James Magnussen has posted a quick 100m freestyle time at the national trials, with an eye-opening 47.97sec. Picture: Gregg Porteous Source: The Advertiser JAMES Magnussen began his 100m freestyle campaign at the national trials this morning with an eye-opening 47.97sec clocking, that immediately lifted him to No.2 in the world rankings this year. And that is just the start. He expects to go faster in the semi-final tonight and in tomorrow's final. Russia's new contender Vladimir Morozov holds the No.1 ranking after posting a 47.93sec to win the Russian title this month, but it seems inevitable that Magnussen will surpass that time in the next 36 hours. He is already starting from a higher base than he did at last year's Olympic trials, where he clocked 48.26sec in the heats and went on to swim the fastest time in history in a textile suit, 47.10sec, in the final. His coach, Brant Best, had warned that Magnussen wouldn't be at his best in the 100m here because he would not be fully rested and would be carrying some residual fatigue from his excursion into the 200m freestyle on Saturday. But there was no sign of that today. "I felt really good," Magnussen said. I know from the training I've been doing that I can get a little bit stuck in 200m timing and I'm a little bit lethargic in the morning so I wanted to blow out a few cobwebs in the 100. But I executed my race really well. I was nice and light and pretty quick. I think it's a good confidence boost. I'll sleep a little easier today knowing aI haven't lost anything and hopefully it spurs everyone else to swim quick as well because like we saw in the 200 last night there's a lot of depth in men's swimming at the moment and I think it would be great to carry that in the 100. Magnussen was more than half a second faster than his closest domestic challenger Kenneth To (48.58sec), with Matt Targett (48.80sec) and Cameron McEvoy (48.89sec) also in the hunt for an individual berth in this event at the world championships in July. The man who held the second spot at last year's Olympics James Roberts, has been struggling this season, and was only eighth fastest (49.68sec) in the heats. He backed up to swim the 200m individual medley and qualified third fastest (2:02.63) behind Olympian Daniel Tranter (2:01.48) and Justin James (2:02.02). The World Cup overall winner last year, Roberts has plenty of experience backing up but he faces a tricky double tomorrow with the medley final just two events before the 100m freestyle. Another multi-eventer Emily Seebohm led qualifying in the 50m backstroke (28.44sec) from her regular sparring partner Belinda Hocking (28.58sec), while Samantha Hamill set the pace in the 200m butterfly (2:12.50).