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Swim queens Libby Trickett and Leisel Jones today forecast a bright future for Australian swimming regardless of whether they go to the London Olympics in four years.
Phelps considering Bernard challenge
The Australian team of over 400 today returned home from Beijing with a swag of 46 medals.
First person off the two charter planes was triple gold medallist Stephanie Rice who joined a select band of six other Australians to win three events at a single Games.
“It’s amazing, it still hasn’t really sunk in for me what’s happened,” Rice said.
The swimmers accounted for almost half of the team’s medal haul, though the women won all six of Australia’s gold medals in the pool.
Neither 100m butterfly champion Trickett nor 100m breaststroke title holder Jones would commit to London in 2012 but both were bullish about Australia’s pool prospects.
“We’re going in the right direction, we have so many great young athletes coming through and that’s very exciting for our sport,” Trickett told AAP.
“Hopefully I still feel like I have a lot to give to the sport and hopefully I can show that in the next four years.”
Trickett said she would approach the future in two-year blocks.
“I assume that I will be there (in London) though, hopefully, fingers crossed.”
Jones wasn’t yet ready to commit to a fourth Olympic campaign.
“I haven’t finished with Beijing yet, so I’ll just let it soak in a little bit and enjoy the experience before I think about anything else.”
While the male swimmers failed to win gold for the first time since Montreal in 1976, Jones was upbeat about the potential of the male section of the program.
She compared the emergence of a bunch of promising males to a similar phase the female swimmers went through after the 2000 Olympics.
“I think the men’s team have been building and the women’s team did it throughout 2000, when a lot of the older members retired,” Jones said.
“We did a lot of rebuilding.
“We’ve got some great young men that are willing to step up and take the world on.
“Some people weren’t expected to win medals and they stepped up and won them. Hayden Stoeckel (bronze medallist) in the (100m) backstroke really did a great performance.
“Andrew Lauterstein (bronze medallist) in the 100m butterfly. Some of the boys have really stepped up.
“I think Australian swimming always has a lot of depth. No matter when someone retires there is always someone very quickly to fill in their spot and do it as well if not better.”
Rice was today scheduled to start a promotional tour for underwear company Davenport along with her former boyfriend, 100m freestyle world record holder and Olympic silver medalist Eamon Sullivan.
The West Australian swimmer patiently and politely dealt with the inevitable inquiries about the status of his relationship with Rice prior to undertaking their promotional appearances.
“We’re great friends, we definitely have no problems doing the stuff for Davenport together,” Sullivan said.
He refuted any suggestion the blaze of publicity over the reported breakup of their relationship had adversely affected his performances in the pool.
“It didn’t affect me … we were very sheltered over there, so I didn’t have to worry about too much,” Sullivan said.
Reflecting on his narrow loss to Frenchman Alain Bernard in the 100m freestyle final, Sullivan attributed his defeat to tactical rather than technical shortcomings, when asked if he could have done anything different.
“Effort wise no, tactically yes. I didn’t swim my own race, I was swimming his, that’s not how I swim my fastest race.”
Following his promotional commitments, Sullivan planned to head to Europe for a two-month break and was convinced he could still improve his pool performances.