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De-bugged Mack ripe for Rio selection

Roar Guru
6th April, 2016
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Distance swimmer Mack Horton used to be the next big thing in Australian sport. That was only last year, when at 18, he set world-leading times in 400m and 1500m freestyle at the Australian titles.

But far from vindicating the hype at the world titles in Kazan Russia a few months later, he failed to final in the 400m and was half the pool behind Italian winner Gregorio Paltinieri in the 1500m, cruelling what might have been the ideal Rio trajectory.

Nerves and bad pacing were initially blamed for the otherwise reliable Horton’s failure, but a subsequent blood test in Australia revealed the presence of the nasty ‘Blastocystis’ virus, likely picked up in Kazan or training camp in Doha.

His rehabilitation has been tedious, but the times and expectations have returned in time for this week’s Olympic Trials in Adelaide. At a recent appearance in the Victorian titles, he went stroke for stroke with fellow Rio 400m freestyle hopeful David McKeon, though the times were typically pedestrian for un-tapered swimmers.

Horton’s supporters are unanimously upbeat about his chances of making the Rio team. To do so he must place at worst second and be under the qualifying cut-offs: 3.47.19 for 400m and 14.57 for 1500m. His respective best times are 3.42.54 and 14.44.09.

The additional four months grace before the Olympics will see Horton’s virus nightmare a distant memory.

Swimming Australia is similarly invested in a revitalised Horton, since he is one of several male lynchpins in an unlikely ‘geek power’ image makeover after the London Olympic Stillnox stench.

In the black-framed bespectacled Melbournian, along with new backstroke supremo Mitch Larkin, and sprinter Cameron McEvoy, swimming Australia has three highly educated, affable leaders likely to be around in Tokyo in 2020 to steer team mates clear of a damaging repetition of the London fracas.

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The men’s 400m freestyle final is on Thursday evening (April 7), the 1500m on the following Thursday (April 14).

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