Magnussen impresses at swim nationals James Magnussen sent a message to international rivals as he swam the second-fastest 100m freestyle time of the year in the heats at the national swimming championships in Adelaide. World champion Magnussen clocked 47.97 seconds on Monday in an ominous warning ahead of July's world titles in Barcelona. Magnussen, 22, said he had been fired up for the heats after copping a rare lesson from rising star Kenneth To in a recent time trial. "I time trialled against him about two weeks ago over 100m free and he beat me by a body length so I wasn't going to let him get me again today," said Magnussen. To (48.58) was second-fastest qualifier for Monday evening's semi-finals ahead of Magnussen's London Olympic relay teammates Matt Targett (48.80) and Cameron McEvoy (48.89). Magnussen was obviously relieved to produce such a good swim as he gets back into the thick of competition following the months of fallout over his controversial London Olympics campaign. I just think I executed my race plan really well. It was nice and light and pretty quick," said Magnussen. I think it's just a good confidence boost. I will sleep a little easier today knowing that I haven't lost anything. That is always my plan - to start off comfortable in the heat, a little bit faster in the semi and then put it all on the line in the final so I think I gave myself a really good platform today to do that. Magnussen's Monday heat time was faster than his Olympic 4x100m relay lead-off effort in London (48.03). Magnussen's coach Brant Best had feared his charge would not be at his best in the 100m in Adelaide after dabbling in the 200m freestyle event at the national titles. Magnussen is in the 4x200m freestyle relay team mix for Barcelona after clocking the third fastest time for the four-lap event before withdrawing ahead of Sunday night's final won by Thomas Fraser-Holmes. But he still clocked the year's second fastest 100m time behind only Russia's Vladimir Morozov (47.93). "Hopefully it spurs everyone else on to swim quick as well because, like you saw in the 200m last night, there's a lot of depth in men's swimming at the moment - I think it would be great to carry that in the 100m," Magnussen said of his 100m heat time. His controversial London 4x100m freestyle relay teammate James Roberts struggled in the 100m heats, clocking only the eighth fastest time (49.68). However, he backed up to be third fastest in the 200m individual medley heats (two minutes, 02.63 seconds) behind Olympian Daniel Tranter (2:01.48) and Justin James (2:02.02). Emily Seebohm topped the time sheets in the 50m backstroke (28.44) ahead of Belinda Hocking (28.58), while Samantha Hamill was quickest in the 200m butterfly heats (2:12.50).