Sullivan dealing with demons from Beijing

Eamon Sullivan says he won’t let the demons from his bittersweet Beijing experience sabotage his campaign for the 2012 London Olympics.

The 50m and 100m freestyle world record holder missed out on a gold medal in China but appeared reinvigorated today from a six-week overseas holiday.

The world’s fastest swimmer said that he had dealt with the disappointments of finishing second in the 100m to Frenchman Alain Bernard and out of the medals in the one-lap dash at the Water Cube.

“As soon as I finished it, I summed it up … I wasn’t happy,” he said.

“I told the truth to the media, I said look I am not happy and I didn’t swim the right race (in the 100m) and I just left it at that.

“I think if you hold onto those sort of negative emotions it can affect you in the long run.”

The triple Olympic medallist felt he was as hungry as ever following the longest break from the pool in his career.

“I have always had a lot of fire burning in my belly to swim fast and I don’t like losing,” he said.

“Obviously I came second and that disappointed me and next time I am looking to swim faster and go one better.”

The 23-year-old, who has a long history of injuries, spent time out doing extreme sports in Switzerland during his European vacation ahead of his move from Perth to Sydney in the coming fortnight.

Sullivan said he looked forward to linking up with long-time coach Grant Stoelwinder in the harbour city alongside new training partner in triple Olympic gold medallist Libby Trickett.

The West Australian expected he and Trickett, the women’s 50m and 100m freestyle world record holder, to help each other out in slashing their times even further.

“If we can learn just one or two things and take say 0.1 or 0.2 off our times then it is exciting,” he said.

Sullivan felt he returned too early to the pool following the Athens Olympics and hadn’t made that mistake this time around.

“I definitely enjoyed myself and that is something I had to get out of my system,” he said.

“The mistake after Athens was I went half hearted and tried to be a bit more sensible and thought about swimming too much.”

Even if one of his travelling mates was keen to take him on in the pool.

“My school friend who was travelling with me was always keen to get in the pool to have a race against me,” he said.

“I have never seen the appeal of getting in the pool and doing laps and not being a swimmer so I don’t know what was going through his head.

“I was like ‘what are you talking about, I don’t want to get in there’.

“I got stuck in doing a few laps but it did not feel too good so I stopped doing that and just enjoyed being overseas.”

Sullivan, who skipped the current World Cup meet in Sydney, expected to be back in serious training next month and back in a more “streamlined” shape in time for March’s world championships trials.

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