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Triple Olympic gold medallist Libby Trickett says she would have struggled to stay motivated ahead of the 2012 London Olympics if she didn’t make some drastic changes in her life.
Trickett confirmed today she was splitting with long-time mentor Stephan Widmer in Brisbane and moving to Sydney to train under fellow swimming sprint world record-holder Eamon Sullivan’s coach Grant Stoelwinder.
Stoelwinder and Sullivan decided before the Beijing Olympics to relocate from Perth to Sydney where Stoelwinder is heading up the NSW Institute of Sport program.
“For me to commit to four more years, I needed new challenges and new stimulus and I think that’s what this will bring for me,” Trickett said today.
“It was probably particularly the coach that brought me here. Particularly his program I’m excited about joining. Obviously Eamon has been very successful recently. I’m excited about being a part of that and seeing how much better I can get.”
The 23-year-old paid tribute to Widmer’s “instrumental” contribution to her career success and rejected the notion that her move was partly due to butterfly rival Jessicah Schipper’s decision to join Widmer’s squad.
“I would have loved to have trained with Jess but I knew that I needed more changes and challenges in my life,” she said.
“The whole change of program, change of city is very new to me so that’s going to hopefully keep me passionate and energetic about the future.”
Trickett said she was excited by the prospect of training alongside Sullivan and believed they could boost each other.
Her decision means that two of the world’s fastest swimmers — Sullivan and Trickett are world record holders for 50 and 100m freestyle respectively — will become training partners at the inner-city Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre and also have use of the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre.
“A lot of the training will be about racing … but is probably even more about the sprint side of things and I’m really excited about looking at that side of things because that’s probably something I didn’t have as much with Stephan,” said Trickett, whose move will also fit in with her husband Luke’s finance career.
Trickett attended her first red carpet function in Sydney on Tuesday night but said it was something she would not get carried away with.
“It’s a totally different world to anything I’ve ever experienced before but first priority is my swimming. Nothing’s going to get in the way of that,” she said.
Stoelwinder was excited by Trickett’s arrival but admitted he had a “huge job” in front of him.
“It’s nice to have Libby call up and say `can I come and train with you?’ It really starts to put the finishing touches to a training group which I’m getting excited about,” he said.
“It’s going to be a huge job for me and a lot of pressure but we’re very excited to have Libby on board as part of the program. She’s a great asset.”