Coaches take steps to resuscitate men’s team

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REINFORCEMENTS are arriving for the struggling men’s team as it starts to prepare for the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne next March.

National head coach Alan Thompson was encouraged to see the return of Olympic medallists Ashley Callus, Justin Norris and Geoff Huegill to competition after extended breaks, and the arrival of newcomers like 50m freestyle winner Matt Targett at the national short course championships in Melbourne this week.

But that does not mean he is dismissing the poor performance of the men at the world championships in Montreal.

Thompson and national youth coach Leigh Nugent have conducted an examination of the men’s team this week and have identified several factors which contributed to such a disappointing outcome in Montreal. Team captain Grant Hackett was the only individual medallist there in an Olympic event.

“I believe that no one goes away to swim poorly and, for whatever reasons, some of those guys did,” Thompson said.

“Some of the guys prepared poorly and, in hindsight, some of the coaches thought their athletes didn’t prepare as well as they should have.”

Thompson said some of the men’s coaching programs have focused too much on technique, moving from the hard fitness work required. “I think there are some guys who just expected it to happen, and it doesn’t just happen,” he said.

Thompson believes Callus, 26, will take a senior role, now that he has shrugged off the ill-health which has compromised his performance in the past two years.

Thompson also revealed that he hoped to take the entire Australian team to Beijing for a two-day familiarisation tour after the world short course championships in Shanghai next April.

Australian Swimming is trying to find financial support for the venture, but Thompson said he believed the trip would inspire those aiming for the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Schipper lets fly at idol’s record

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JESSICAH Schipper mowed down another Petria Thomas record when she smashed her Commonwealth mark in the 100m butterfly final at the Australian shortcourse titles last night.

In a race featuring three individual gold medallists from the Montreal world titles, Schipper slashed 0.37sec off Thomas’s 2002 record to win in 56.56sec ahead of Libby Lenton.

Schipper’s time was just 0.22sec off American star Natalie Coughlin’s world record.

The 18-year-old produced a brilliant finish to edge out Lenton (56.96sec), who broke the 100m freestyle world record twice at this week’s titles at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre.

Last night’s swim continued Schipper’s run of record-breaking performances.

The Queensland teenager knocked over Commonwealth records held by Thomas and Susie O’Neill on her way to gold and silver respectively in the 100m and 200m butterfly in Montreal last month.

“I knew the competition would be tough and we were all very tired after such a long time away, but I just went out there and tried my best,” Schipper said. “To be faster than them (Thomas and O’Neill) is amazing, but I have a long way to go to achieve what they achieved.”

Completing a top week of competition, Lenton returned to the pool two events later to win the 50m freestyle final ahead of Athens Olympian Michelle Engelsman.

Lenton, a gold medallist in the 50m freestyle in Montreal, won in 24.44sec ahead of Engelsman (24.59sec), who missed selection for this year’s world championships.

Queensland sprinter Ashley Callus is making a habit out of touching the wall at the same time as his opponents, recording a dead-heat with West Australian Eamon Sullivan in the 100m freestyle final.

In his return to competition, Callus looked set for victory before a brilliant finish from Sullivan had the pair touching in 47.91sec. It was a similar scenario for Callus two years ago when he dead-heated with Ian Thorpe in the final of the 100m freestyle at the 2003 world titles trials.

Matt Welsh continued his unbeaten streak in the men’s backstroke to win his 24th national shortcourse title in the 200m.

HEAD coach Alan Thompson has identified poor preparation as a key factor behind the sub-standard performance of the Australian men’s team in Montreal.

After reviewing the team’s performances with national youth coach Leigh Nugent this week, Thompson said some swimmers had expected results to come too easily.

Thompson met coaches and athletes to reinforce this as the team looks ahead to its next major assignment, the March Commonwealth Games.

“I think some of the guys prepared poorly,” Thompson said yesterday.

“In hindsight, some of the coaches believe their athletes did not prepare as well as they had done in the past, or probably should have done.”

While Grant Hackett is the Australian captain, Thompson said he needed support to lead the young men on the team.

“I think sometimes people think, ‘We’ll leave it for Grant to do’,” Thompson said.

Schipper wins 100m butterfly gold

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Queenslander Jessicah Schipper triumphed in the battle of Australian swimming’s wonder women at the national shortcourse titles in Melbourne, edging out two other world champions for a Commonwealth record.

Schipper beat Libby Lenton and Danni Miatke to win the women’s 100 metres butterfly gold medal - her 56.56 seconds erasing Petria Thomas’ old Commonwealth shortcourse mark and just .22sec outside the world record.

The 18-year-old from Redcliffe wore down Lenton, who went out hard and was on world record pace for the first 50m of the race.

But while Lenton has broken two world records at this meet - both in the 100m freestyle - Schipper posted her second near-miss after coming within a whisker in her women’s 200m butterfly victory on the opening night.

“I haven’t had very much luck with the world records on this trip - close but not close enough,” Schipper said.

“It gives me something to work for. Going to the world shortcourse (in Shanghai next April), hopefully I’ll get it there.”

Not content with a punishing three-week schedule including the world championships and Duel in the Pool meet, Lenton backed up 10 minutes after the 100m butterfly to win the 50m freestyle.

“I knew as soon as I touched the wall (in the 100m butterfly) that I was in a whole new world of pain and that I was really going to have to put my head down for the 50m and try to win it,” Lenton said.

Both Lenton and Schipper - like most of Australia’s swimmers - are off for well-earned breaks after a gruelling and successful three weeks.

Another of Australia’s world champions, Leisel Jones, also broke through the pain barrier for her second individual gold medal at this meet.

Jones beat arch-rival Brooke Hanson in the 200m breaststroke final by more than two seconds to add to her 100 metre title from Wednesday..

Victorian Matt Welsh took out his fourth gold medal of the meet - the men’s 200 metre backstroke final - to become Australia’s most successful national shortcourse champion.

Welsh’s victory gave him his 24th Australian shortcourse gold medal and he swept the 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke titles for the seventh consecutive year.

Other winners were Tayliah Zimmer in the women’s 50 metre backstroke, Brenton Rickard in the men’s 50m breaststroke, Leith Brodie in the men’s 100m individual medley and Kurtis Macgillivary in the men’s 1500m.

World champion Grant Hackett withdrew from the 1500m, believing it would be too strenuous after already winning the 200m and 400m freestyle here following his world championship and Duel In The Pool heroics.

First test for Games profiteers

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POLICE have laid the first charges under Victoria’s ground-breaking scalping laws.

The charges flowed from last year’s AFL Grand Final, but the Government yesterday said the prosecutions had wider implications.

“This is a warning to anyone looking to sell Commonwealth Games tickets at a profit,” Games Minister Justin Madden said.

Uniformed and undercover police will be posted at Games venues and internet and newspaper advertisements will be investigated.

Demand will be red hot for events such as swimming finals involving the likes of Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett, Giaan Rooney and Jodie Henry. Track cycling, also heavily oversubscribed, will be a target for scalpers.

The Government introduced anti-scalping laws in 2002 after years of outcry over grand final profiteering. The law exposes greedy event organisers, ticket on-sellers and street-corner touts to fines of up to $6000 a ticket for individuals and $30,000 for companies.

People scalping multiple tickets can be fined up to $60,000, and companies $300,000.

Tickets can be seized and holders refused entry. Mr Madden said two interstate men had recently been charged with grand final scalping.

It is believed both were caught up in sting operations after advertising tickets for sale.

The Commonwealth Games is the second event to be declared under anti-scalping laws. Mr Madden said after teething problems at the 2003 AFL Grand Final, a Consumer Affairs audit found compliance had been high last year.

Grand Final and Games tickets must carry a warning that on-sale above face value is an offence.

Hackett wins reprieve after disqualification

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AUSTRALIA’s team captain Grant Hackett was disqualified for the first time in top level competition yesterday when he checked in late for the 400m freestyle heats at the national short-course championships in Melbourne.

Hackett and five others, including Craig Stevens, Ky Hurst and and Kurtis McGillivary, failed to report to the marshalling room two clear events before the 400m heats, as required by the international federation (FINA) rules.

They were ruled out of the event but then given an official reprieve.

Eventually, the six were allowed to swim a separate heat.

Their appeals against disqualification were heard by the referee, Lawrie Cox, and upheld on the grounds the marshalling scoreboard that alerts athletes to which events are being called was difficult to see from the athletes’ area.

Hackett said that, despite a nine-year international career, he was completely unaware of the FINA rule.

“I would have been disqualified several times before if it had been enforced like this, definitely,” Hackett said.

Swimming Australia’s chief executive Glenn Tasker said the incident was a “hiccup” and the referee had given the swimmers the benefit of the doubt.

“We had a mass group of some of our best 400m freestylers not turning up,” Tasker said. “In the first instance the officials did the right thing, but what the referee has done when considering the protest is given the benefit of the doubt to the athletes, given the environment that we are working at with this pool.”

Tasker said he believed the same ruling would also have been made for lesser-known athletes.

Hackett arrived early last night and won the 400m final in 3min 36.73sec.

Hackett angered by ‘late for race’ rules

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Grant Hackett yesterday called for changes to international swimming rules after he was among six competitors who were disqualified and then reinstated to the 400 metres freestyle heats at the Australian shortcourse championships yesterday.

Hackett, his training partners Ky Hurst and Kurtis MacGillivary as well as Craig Stevens, Ken Walsh and Norwegian Lasse Hoel all missed the call to the marshalling area because they had not seen the call-up message on the scoreboard and were unaware of the rule that competitors had to arrive at the pre-race room two events before the first heat of their swim.

Australian Swimming chief executive Glenn Tasker said the rules allowed for a judgement call by officials and the swimmers were permitted to compete in a specially arranged heat after protests were lodged by their respective coaches. Head referee Lawrie Cox then upheld the protests and set aside the disqualifications after the race — won comfortably by a fired-up Hackett in three minutes and 39.37 seconds.

Tasker said the swimmers, who were “among some of our best 400 freestylers” were not given beneficial treatment because the meeting doubled as the trials for next year’s world shortcourse championships. “At least two of them have been away from Australia for nearly a month competing in myriad different events and you can understand why they might be a little bit tired or they weren’t paying attention to the time or whatever it might be so what the referee has done is given them the benefit of the doubt,” Tasker said.

Hackett said he kept to a regular pattern at meetings — after finishing his warm-up he arrived at the marshalling room about 20 minutes before his race.

“I give myself enough time to try and be down at the marshalling area to put my suit on and relax myself and I didn’t realise that I had to be there so long before the race,” he said.

“… This is almost 10 years I’ve been involved at his level of the sport and by no means was I down there any later than I would have been for any other event in the past.

“They are complaining about the men’s team and their performances already and we come here now and we’re disqualifying people. I know that the rules are the rules but when they’re this heavily enforced does it gets a little bit ridiculous and do we have to question what the rules are?

“I would have been disqualified several times before if it had been enforced like this. You probably wouldn’t have seen me on too many teams.”

Lenton’s in the pink with world record

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While she saves her special hot pink suit for finals, gold is proving more Libby Lenton’s colour after she again smashed the world record to win the women’s 100 metre freestyle at the Australian short-course championships.

Lenton became the first woman to ever go under 52 seconds for the distance in Monday night’s semi-final, when she broke Sweden’s Therese Alshammar’s five-year-old world mark of 52.17 seconds.

She bettered her own record of 51.91 in the final, clocking 51.70 at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre.

Lenton said she had saved her lucky hot pink suit especially for Tuesday’s race, with her own world record in her sights.

“I love this pink suit, it’s my extra little bit I keep for finals and it makes me get excited and ready to race,” said the beaming 20-year-old Queenslander.” She said she and coach Stephan Widmar had pin-pointed improving her start to achieve the super-fast time.

“Stephan told me to concentrate on my start because it was a bit slower than normal last night so that’s where we thought we could get that extra little bit.” Victorians Shayne Reese (54.79) and Danni Miatke (54.71) filled the minor placings.

Lenton finished last week’s world long-course championships in Montreal with three gold medals and two silvers, including the 50 metre freestyle title.

These national titles double at trials for the 2006 world short-course championships in Shanghai next April, where Lenton will defend her 100m title won in Indianapolis last year.

In other events, triple world champion Grant Hackett overcame his shock disqualification and subsequent reinstatement earlier to cruise to victory in the men’s 400m freestyle event.

Six swimmers including Hackett were disqualified for not appearing in the marshalling area at the correct time ahead of the heats but a protest was successful.

Hackett clocked 3:36.73, well outside his world record of 3:34.58, followed by Craig Stevens (3:45.53) and Cameron Smith (3:46.53).

In the women’s 50m butterfly, world long-course champion Danni Miatke (26.24) beat home world 100m champion Jess Schipper (26.34). Amy Cockerton (27.54) was third.

What went wrong with the Aussies?

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If any proof was needed that Australians expect and demand only the highest standards from its swim teams, it came over the weekend.

On the team’s return from the World Championships in Montreal, the question was asked, “what’s happened to our men?”

Yes, quite unbelievably, there is some dissatisfaction at the results of the men’s squad. The women were fantastic. They won ten gold medals of the thirteen which ended up hung around the necks of Australian swimmers. But this means that the men won only three- all of those by the magnificent distance freestyle exponent Grant Hackett.

So the female brigade came up trumps and led the Aussies to second place on the medal table behind the USA (15golds). But this is not what is expected from recent Australian teams. Ian Thorpe, who was absent from the championships, Hackett, Matt Welsh, Jim Piper, the relay teams and others have consistently kept the men to the forefront. It has been the males who have dominated the sport in Australia and it has been the men who have scored the high profiles and the massive contracts.

Now the situation has changed. Without Hackett, there would have been zero gold medals for the men and that would have been a dramatic shock. So the questioning of the performance of this section of the team is probably justified.

However, all sports go through troughs and men’s swimming in Australia is experiencing one right now. Mind you with Hackett and Thorpe still the best in the world in their events, trough is probably too harsh. But Australia has enormous talent waiting just below the surface- waiting possibly for the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne next March.

There are a vast number of young swimmers salivating at the prospect of performing in front of a home crowd. The swimming events are sold out already, so expectations are high. After all, Australians have dominated Commonwealth swimming for many years and swept aside all other nations in Manchester three years ago.

Encouragingly though, other Commonwealth nations have produced some world class opposition for the Australians. South Africa will threaten in the men’s sprints, the Canadians seem to making a resurgence after years of under-performing, the current British trials are producing some classy times and, much to the delight of all us, the likelihood of a decent haul of medals by New Zealand now looks probable.

So while the Australian women are sure to win the majority of gold medals next year, if their men do not make the anticipated big improvement, they might find that they will be relying on Thorpe and Hackett for their golds.

That prospect will not sit well with the fans. They will want better.

Thorpe likely to drop 400 at Melbourne

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Olympic and world champion Ian Thorpe is likely to drop the 400 metres freestyle from his Commonwealth Games itinerary as he shifted his focus to taking on the sprinting world, coach Tracey Menzies said yesterday.

Menzies said Thorpe, who was aiming to return to competition in December, felt mentally burnt out with the 400 freestyle, especially after the dramatic lead-up to last year’s Athens Olympics, and he wanted a break from the event he has dominated since the 1998 world championships.

She said Thorpe, who will compete in the 200 freestyle, could even consider replacing the 400 with the 50 freestyle in Melbourne next year.

However Menzies said the decision, if Thorpe did cut the event, would not necessarily mean the end of his participation in an event in which he has won three world championships and his second Olympic gold last year.

“He just wants a bit of a break from it. Everyone knows the pressure he had as far as the 400 (last year). I just think you need to find new stimulants and a new love in what you are doing and the break has probably been a good thing for him,” she said.
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Menzies said Thorpe had been eyeing the challenge of the 100 freestyle. It would also be one of the genuine world-class events at the Commonwealth Games with the field including South African world championship silver and bronze medallists Roland Schoeman and Ryk Neethling.

Menzies conceded Thorpe could find it difficult to return to the 400 freestyle — an event that required different training to the sprints — especially if his times in the 100, in which he won a Commonwealth Games gold and Olympic and world bronze, substantially improve.

“That’s something you have got to be committed to do … you can facilitate all the training programs but whether they … take it on board as mature and elite athletes, it’s got to be self-ownership, too,” she said.

Menzies said Thorpe was back in training, which has included some medley work, although he was unlikely to compete in the 200 individual medley at the Commonwealth Games, and was aiming to resume at the NSW titles.

Menzies felt the success of the women’s team and Grant Hackett’s performances would ease the expectations and pressure on Thorpe.

“He is part of the team and that’s the way he sees himself,” she said.

Fatigue costs redoubtable Schipper world record

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NEW butterfly queen Jessicah Schipper was narrowly denied a world 200 metres butterfly record for the second time in as many weeks at the national short-course championships in Melbourne last night.

The victim of a judging mistake that cost her the world 200m title and world long-course record in Montreal last week, 18-year-old Schipper bounced back to challenge the world short-course mark just two days after returning from North America.

The world 100m butterfly champion was under world record pace for 150m, but this time her own fatigue rather than Polish Olympic champion Otylia Jerzejczak kept her from the world mark.

She clocked 2min4.68sec, just 0.64sec outside China’s Yang Yu’s world record but three seconds faster than she had swum before.

Afterwards she admitted she was beginning to hurt after swimming brilliantly at three high-class meets in three different countries and time zones in the past two weeks.

But she was satisfied to become the third fastest swimmer in this event, behind Yang and Australian record-holder Susie O’Neill (2:04.16).

It is one of the few O’Neill records to have survived the onslaught of Schipper and Libby Lenton in this period.

“It’s a massive personal best - my swim this morning in the heats (2:07.88) was already a PB - so to take another three seconds off and to be so close to the world record was a great achievement,” Schipper said.

“It gives me something to aim for next time.”

Even the endurance king, Grant Hackett, was starting to feel the pinch of the “ridiculous” schedule Australia’s elite swimmers have undertaken.

He pleaded for a chair from which to conduct his post-race interviews after winning the 200m freestlyle handsomely.

“My legs need a seat,” Hackett said.

“Yesterday I slept all day. I didn’t really get out of bed until the heats this morning.”

Hackett, 25, has had the biggest workload of any swimmer in the world in the past two weeks but still managed to get one up on American Michael Phelps.

He won the national 200m freestyle title in 1:42.81, beating Phelps’ winning time (1:43.59) from the world championships last October. Phelps defeated Hackett for the long-course world title in Montreal last week.

Hackett drew on the boundless reserves of his endurance when he fell just short of matching his Australian all-comers record (1:42.48). He is one of only four men who have swum faster.

“To come here and swim that time - that was nearly a PB - it was very encouraging,” Hackett said.

As an indication of his class, Hackett defeated his national team-mate Andrew Mewing (1:45.99) by more than three seconds. Promising Queensland 18-year-old Nick Ffrost, who has just joined the Australian Institute of Sport, finished third in 1:46.69 with Sydney’s Louis Paul fourth in 1:47.06.

The top four finishers qualified for the 4×200m freestyle relay at the world championships in Shanghai next April.

Hackett has yet to determine if he has enough energy left to swim the 1500m freestyle on Thursday.

On the theme of near-misses, world championships bronze medallist Lara Carroll finished just outside Hayley Lewis’ long-standing national 400m individual medley record. Carroll won in a personal best time of 4:35.44 - 0.5sec slower than Lewis’ standard.

World champion Jade Edmistone could achieve a unique double tonight in the 50m breaststroke final, where she will attack her own world short-course record.

Edmistone broke the long-course record one week ago to win her first world title in Montreal, and pressed the short-course record (29.90sec) in her semi-final last night (30.16sec).