D’Arcy back in dramatic fashion

Nick D’Arcy has returned to the pool in record-breaking fashion, the controversial swimmer tying for the 200m butterfly title at the World Cup meet in Sydney tonight.

He put his finger up in celebration to his parents and friends, including fellow Dolphin Kenrick Monk, that had flown down from Brisbane for his first competition since being booted off the Beijing Olympic team.

D’Arcy (1 minute 53.37 seconds) went out hard and just managed to hold on as the fast-finishing Chris Wright dead-heated with him in the third round of the shortcourse series at Olympic Park.

Their time lowered the Australian record of Andrew Richards by just under half a second and D’Arcy received a warm reception from the modest crowd.

D’Arcy, who still has serious assault charges hanging over him, admitted to nerves on the blocks.

“I got behind the blocks and I was thinking it could have gone one of two ways,” he said.

“Swim really well which I feel I have done or bombed out.

“I just wanted to go out hard and give myself every opportunity and Chris was on my heels the whole way.”

D’Arcy said his parents celebrated their wedding anniversary this week and he was pleased to bring some happiness to them.

He said the salute was also a thank you to his mates for sticking by him during his testing year.

“That was for a couple of my friends that have come down and just to show a couple of the boys back home that I was happy with how I went and they should be pleased,” he said.

“They know how important it is to me and they enjoy watching me swim.”

D’Arcy earlier said he hadn’t felt any bad blood from fellow swimmers regarding the bar altercation with former Commonwealth Games champion Simon Cowley that so tarnished the sport’s image earlier in the year.

“I thought there might have been some mixed emotions but to be honest everyone has been great, it is just business as usual,” he said.

“Everyone has been really good, there has not been any animosity at all.”

He was greatly encouraged by his performance on the back of limited training as he tries to revive his career at next year’s world championships in Rome.

Queensland’s Ellen Fullerton, 15, continued her rise through the ranks by winning the 200m freestyle in 1:56.35.

The Denis Cotterell-coached swimmer finished second in the 200m medley in 2:10.52.

Marieke Guehrer (56.88) elevated herself to the position of the fourth fastest Australian swimmer by comfortably winning the 100m butterfly.

The 17-year-old Tommaso D’Orsogna (48.36) marked himself as one to watch, the West Australian finishing second to Swedish speed merchant Stefan Nystrand (47.45) in the 100m freestyle.

Olympic 1500m champion Oussama Mellouli proved himself as the iron man of the competition by taking out the 400m freestyle, 100m and 400m medley events.

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