Swimmers involved in Olympic inquiry
Australia’s Olympic swimmers have been asked to take part in an inquiry into the country’s performance in London, as well as admitting they underestimated the pressure the Games would bring.
4x100m freestyle gold medallist Cate Campbell said Swimming Australia approached the team for consultations after delivering their lowest medal count in 20 years.
“They’re going to try to get as many athletes as possible so they can get a feel for what athletes want, what needs to be changed or kept the same,” she told reporters in Sydney.
Swimming Australia announced an inquiry last week, to be led by coach Bill Sweetenham and former swimmer Susie O’Neill, who has said current swimmers do not have the work ethic of generations past.
Three-time Olympics veteran Eamon Sullivan said the team was taken aback by the intensity of the London experience.
“As much as you think you’re ready for it, the difference between world championships and the Olympics is a hundred times more pressure,” he told media in Sydney.
“We under-prepared for the expectations of the pressure and the experience of the Olympics and, unfortunately, it’s a bad time to learn lessons.
“But for the next Olympics, if it’s the same team, it’ll be a different result.”
Suggestions have been made that Australia consider changing its training model to something similar to the USA’s, who hold their Olympic trials a month before the Games.
Australia’s trials are conducted three months before the Games, and Campbell thinks it works.
“I love having trials and then three months to improve on my performance,” she said.
“The only thing I’d add is more competitions between trials and the Games where you can have race practice, which you can’t replicate in training, though our coaches like to try.”
Sullivan says different training regimes work for different countries.
“It works for them. For us to make a decision like that just because we’ve had one bad performance – and it wasn’t bad, a lot of people swam personal bests – it’s just that others were a lot faster,” he said.
“I believe getting the trials out of the way early and having enough time to train is the best way for Australians; we’ve done it for years and it hasn’t been a problem.
“We just have to find a way to make our athletes make a bigger improvement on what we’ve already done.”
Emily Seebohm, who won one gold and two silver medals in London, said she didn’t think she could compete in trials and go to a major meet a month later as the Americans do.
“For me, this works – from my trials to the Olympics, I dropped a second off my time, which is more than I did (previously) so I don’t see why I would change that,” she said.
Sullivan, Seebohm and freestyler James Roberts haven’t yet been asked to be part of the inquiry but said they would be happy to contribute.
Roberts said the American system was more effective.
“Keeping the speed there and keeping the swimming going, it’s a lot easier to do that than jump in and have another block of training,” he said.
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The Crowd Says (5) | Page 1 of Comments
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August 19th 2012 @ 8:24pm
SandBox said | August 19th 2012 @ 8:24pm | Report comment
as much as everyone loves Susie, do you really think she has the smarts for this?
The managers who have already feathered their nest quite nicely, now set up an inquiry designed to take the attention away from their filthy snouts in the trough. If it’s all up to the swimmers why have managers at all?
August 20th 2012 @ 7:57am
Professor Rosseforp said | August 20th 2012 @ 7:57am | Report comment
Sandbox has a good comment.
I believe our coaches were not prepared for the opposition that came from so many different countries. Let’s face it, as living standards rise, more countries become valid contenders for gold medals. China is the obvious example.
If an Australian swimmer can get a silver or bronze, then I suspect the right coaching could get them gold — unless they are swimming against someone like Michael Phelps.
I think the Americans factored this into their plans, but how much discussion did we hear before the games about the challenges to our swimmers from France and Hungary?
Perhaps we need to look at the Jamaican model, to excel in one area, rather than try to win gold in so many sports, and so many events.
Let’s not hear any rubbish about Twitter causing the medal tally to plunge, either. Athletes coped when they used to spend hours writing letters, reading telegrams, watching tv — so twitter is not to blame.
The managers and selectors are a good place to start, since there were obviously a few athletes who had done well before — but were not going to repeat the performance. They probably should not have been sent over there.
August 21st 2012 @ 7:32pm
jack said | August 21st 2012 @ 7:32pm | Report comment
Eamon Sullivan said it’s not a bad result at London. Quite right, it wasn’t that bad given the class of opposition our swimmers were up against. Also factor in the unrealistic expectation by our less than reliable journos and you have a very clear overview of what has been happening to Aust swimming for many years. If you want to get a reliable formguide as to possible GOLD medalists, look at the result sheets of other countries selection trials. The European, Asian and particularly the USA trials paint a very clear picture of what our athletes are up against. Don’t go on what is written in the papers, look at the facts. Proff Ross, you said that we didn’t hear anything about the swimmers from France and Hungary. Of course not, they’re not Australian, so we don’t consider them. But our swimmers and coaches are well aware of them. Then add to that the techniquily perfect Americans ( their starts and turns are flawless,and have been for olympics after olympics) and even to get to a final is a marvelous achievement. All we heard for months was “The Missile, The Missile”. And when he was beaten by a fingernail by a techniquily superior swimmer he was a DUD. How fickle and grossly unfair we are. So hold as many inquiries as you like, the crux is that while we may produce the occasional superstar at the games (and hopefully a clutch of them at once) so will other countries, so look at the results and times of their selection trials and you will realise that “it aint easy”.
August 22nd 2012 @ 6:04am
jack said | August 22nd 2012 @ 6:04am | Report comment
Techniquily? A thousand pardons for my dreadful spelling. You know what I mean.
September 2nd 2012 @ 9:42am
Razza said | September 2nd 2012 @ 9:42am | Report comment
Forget all of that crap and concentrate on the Paralympics, they are doing us all proud to do so much with little they have, especially in the pool, it is uplifting to see swimmers with only one leg competing with a swimmer with two legs and be on their shoulders on the home run or win and there is no television coverage like the able bodied olympics, HOW DISCRIMATIVE AND PATHETIC.