Do we dare to dream of backstroke gold?

As I was belting out the laps at the David Thiele pool at the University of Queensland this morning, my mind wandered to thoughts of Thiele himself and his extraordinary achievements.

Then it quickly moved on to Mitch Larkin and Emily Seebohm, two Australians who will next year have a chance of joining the exclusive club of which Thiele is the only member.

That club is ‘Australian backstrokers who have won individual Olympic gold’.

As a young medical student, Thiele found himself a part of the amazingly successful Australian swimming team at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, winning the 100 metres backstroke.

He was one of five individual gold medal winners for Australia, the others being Dawn Fraser, Lorraine Crapp, John Henricks and Murray Rose. Three of those – Fraser, Rose and Thiele – were to defend their titles four years later in Rome.

Thiele had taken time off from swimming in the intervening years to concentrate on his studies but still managed the difficult feat of successive Olympic gold medals in the same event.

The fact that no other Australian has been able to win an individual backstroke gold is testament to his enormous achievement. (I should mention of course that Mark Kerry swam the backstroke leg of the men’s medley relay team which won gold in Moscow.)

I am certain that Thiele would welcome new members to his exclusive club and the chances of that happening in Rio are strong and indeed growing as 2016 nears.

The World Championships one year out from the Olympic Games have become a traditional indicator of medals for the Games themselves. Seebohm and Larkin claimed gold medals in both the 100 and 200 metres backstroke in Kazan meaning they must be real contenders.

Do we dare to dream of backstroke gold again 56 years after Thiele’s Roman conquest?

Of course it is much more than a dream and there is still a long time and a lot of work to be done before our backstrokers get that chance of Olympic glory.

There can be a danger in talking up any possible Olympic gold medal chance because we all know that favourites have often been beaten at the Olympics and anything can happen. Yet both Seebohm and Larkin have special qualities that suggest they will be in there with a huge chance of breaking that long drought.

Both have been continuing their good form in the last week at international swimming’s World Cup series in the Middle-East.

Emily Seabohm is already a dual Olympic gold medallist, having swum the backstroke leg of the Australian medley relay team’s gold medal in Beijing and then being a heat swimmer in the Australian four by 100 metres freestyle gold in London.

She won the 100 metres final at the World Championships this year in 58.26 and has continued to swim sub 59-second times, dominating her opposition. Adding to the positive signs for Australian backstroke is the fact that Madison Wilson finished second to Seabohm in Kazan.

Mitch Larkin is going from strength to strength, breaking his Commonwealth record in the 200 backstroke on the weekend with a time of 1.53.17, beating the rest of the field by almost five seconds.

He had almost a full second on the field at the World Championships and the fact that his time has continued to come down means that he must be firming in favouritism for the Rio gold in both backstroke events.

A year in swimming is a long time. I well remember watching James Magnussen as he talked to the media after his gold medal in the 100 freestyle at the Shanghai World Championships.

Knowing that he had a year to go until the biggest test, the Olympic Games, there was a part of me that felt for him having to absorb all the pressure that he would face over those 12 months.

We now know that he improved on his Shanghai effort as far as time was concerned at the Olympics but finished an agonising one hundredth of a second behind the American Nathan Adrian in the final.

It’s a tough game and it will be very tough for both Seebohm and Larkin. Both could win multiple gold medals in Rio but surely there is every chance that they can pick up at least one gold medal each and join that exclusive club.

Thiele deserves their company and they will well deserve to join him if they can grab individual gold in Rio.