The Roar
The Roar

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Australian swimming is back, but the track is ill

Can James Magnussen make up for his Olympic flops? (CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP)
Expert
28th July, 2014
22

Remember London 2012 when the Australians swimmers won just one gold in the entire Oympics – the 4×100 freestyle women’s relay – and that was on the opening day?

For the rest of the meet, Australian swimmers won six silver, and three bronze with Alicia Coutts winning five of them with her relay gold, three silver, and a bronze.

With a day to go in the pool, the Australian swimmers have won 49 medals, almost meeting the overall team target of 55 medals.

Before Roarers knock the Commonwealth Games as seond rate and a thanks for coming award meet, Australians can only beat what opposition is available.

And they are doing that in droves.

James Magnussen and Cameron McEvoy are world class, so too Cate Campbell, her little sister Bronte, and the exciting 19-year-old newcomer Emma McKeon on her international debut.

The men and women’s 4×100 freestyle relay teams are world class, the girls broke the world record that was set by the Netherlands in the era of “super suits’

“I thought that record would stand for a decade, at least” was Cate Campbell’s predcition.

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Sure, the opposition wasn’t as strong as world class, but the Australians couldn’t be better than recording the fastest time ever in any competition.

Next up, the Pan-Pacific Championships on the Gold Coast from August 21 to 24. and the best litmus test possible against the Americans.

I expect Magnussen and Cate Campbell to win their golds, proving an old adage that good, big competitors invariably beat good, smaller competitors.

The last five days have proved that point.

Magnussen at 197cm (6ft 6), beat arch rival McEvoy 185cm (6ft1), Cate 186cm (6ft 1) beat sister Bronte 179cm (5ft 10), and Emma McEvoy 178cm (5ft 10).

And last night at the track, the world’s greatest sprinter and defending Olympic champion Usain Bolt 196cm (6ft 5) from Jamaica has kept himself purely for the 4×100 relay..

It mattered not, compatriot Kemar Bailey-Cole at 193cm (6ft 4) stepped into the breach to power away with 100 track gold in 10s dead, over Englishman Adam Gemili 165cm (5ft 10).

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Drawn side-by-side, Gemili stood “tall” level with Bailey-Coles’ teeth.

Gemili led by a metre at the 15m mark until Bailey-Coles’s long legs started to kick in, and he won by closer to two metres.

Prediction.

Bronte Campbell is fast bridging the gap that has always been evident against Cate, while the surprise packet Emma McKeon looks likely to down both within a year.

For mine, Emma is the find of the meet. Quiet as a mouse compared to the very outgoing Campbell sisters, Emma could well be the smiling assassin in the nicest possible meaning of the description.

But compare the Australian swimmers with their track and field cousins.

When the national sport funding is next allocated, there are two diametrically opposed possibilites.

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Cut funding to track and field because they are a basket-case, or pump more funds into finding better talent.

I have no doubt the talent is there, but are they coached properly?

At last count there were over 100,000 kids from five to 16 in the Little Athletics movement, competing in 500 centres around Australia.

Don’t tell me there isn’t a minefield of hidden talent in 100,000 keen enough to compete on a regular basis?

While the swimmers win gold by the bullion-load, the last track and field gold medal winner was Cathy Freeman in the 400 flat at the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

That was 14 years ago.

Sally Pearson won the 100 hurdles in London 2012, but I class that as something of a field event, not pure track.

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The time is right for an Australian track revival.

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