Interview: Grant Hackett

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Grant Hackett has had a big week in the world swimming championship trials in Sydney … winning four events, including the 1500 metre freestyle in his fastest time in Australia. But an even bigger moment came last night when he was named as captain of the Australian swimming team — the first time swimming has had one person representing the sport in a captaincy role. His appointment was endorsed by former Wallabies captain, John Eales, former Test cricket captain, Steve Waugh, and Australian netball skipper, Liz Ellis. Grant Hackett talked about the honour and the future of Australian swimming with Jana Wendt …

JANA WENDT: Grant Hackett has finally come out of the shadow of Ian Thorpe. With Thorpe out of the national swimming championships, Hackett won the 200, 400, 800, and 1500 metre freestyle events, posting his fastest time in the 1500 in Australia last night.

To cap off a week of triumph, Hackett was named captain of the Australian team ahead of the world championships in Montreal in July.

It’s the first time swimming has had a single person representing the sport as captain. Grant Hackett joins us now from Homebush, where he’s led the team by example all week.

Grant, thanks for joining us. Congratulations on an amazing week. Is there an added weight on your shoulders this morning now that you have the responsibility of captaincy?

GRANT HACKETT: I’m not really feeling it, to be honest. I’m just looking forward to taking on the role, and the challenge, of course, of doing that.

Certainly I feel like the team has given so much to me, and I’d love to put back in. I guess for the past couple of years now, I’ve sort of unofficially taken on that role, but now to officially be named the team captain, and be able to look after the team, and you know, I guess my main focus, of course, is on my competition. What I have to do, and leading by example. But at the end of the day, I’m certainly looking forward to working with the athletes, and the things externally from the sport that a team captain has to do.

JANA WENDT: Well, what sorts of things do you think a team captain does have to do?

GRANT HACKETT: Well, obviously internally with the team he has to lead his fellow peers, you know? We have a very diverse team. We have a girl as young as, you know, 15 or 16, and a male as old as 30, so you have to be very approachable. You have to work with the group. And certainly you want the support of all your athletes.

In terms of externally you have to be, I guess, a media face like your George Gregan, your Johnny Elsworth of the Wallabies or your Ricky Ponting for, of course, the cricket team. So therefore you’ve just got to, I guess, bring the sport into more of a professional light.

JANA WENDT: You mention that your main concern is still of course your own performance and your own swimming. But do you think your new role as captain might have an impact on your own swimming in the pool?

GRANT HACKETT: I think only a positive impact. At the end of the day, this is something I’m looking forward to doing, and a challenge, and I’ve certainly spoken with the head coach Alan Thompson, and they want to make sure it doesn’t take away from my performances, only really complement them.

You’ve got to make sure that you do lead by example, and you do everything right, and you get up and perform well. And for someone like me who competes six out of the eight day rogramme at a swimming meet, it certainly is a very long week, but a lot of the captaincy role will surround the competition and pre and post and all those sorts of bits and pieces.

And I’m quite used to doing a lot of media throughout the week of competing, so I don’t feel it’s going to have, you know, too much extra impact. And like I said, I’m just looking forward to taking on the challenge of the role, and leading my group. That’s something that I’m finding very exciting.

JANA WENDT: Well, the whole week, but especially the 1500 last night for you looked pretty easy. How much more do you think you have in you in that event?

GRANT HACKETT: You know, a lot more. I came here with only 11 weeks’ preparation under my belt. I had two and a half months off after the Olympic Games in Athens because I felt like my body — I really needed it. And you know, I’ve certainly been feeling good this week.

And I guess I’m just looking forward now to getting back in the water, preparing for the next 14 weeks with the world championships obviously coming up in July in Montreal, and that’s where my main focus is now. The time was great last night, but my best time’s 14 minutes 34, and I hope to be able to bring that down a little bit more at world championships.
But certainly everything looks good at this stage.

JANA WENDT: Okay. I’ll ask you to put on your captain’s hat now. There’s been some controversy recently about remarks made by Ian Thorpe suggesting that the sport had been over-exposed.

Now, if Ian Thorpe made those comments today, what would the captain do about it?

GRANT HACKETT: I guess I’d jump on the front of the camera like I am right now, and that’s something I actually had to do throughout the week when Ian, of course, made those comments. And I mean, whether the sport is over-exposed or not, you know, when you’ve got big sponsors and big companies like Telstra and Speedo supporting us, we certainly need that exposure, and it’s something that’s very important to the athletes.

I guess getting sponsorship and being able to be financially secure throughout the sport. Not everyone’s like, you know, Ian or myself. Or many of the other athletes like Jodie Henry or Giaan Rooney, and certainly need that exposure, and you know, perhaps, strategically he thinks things could be improved, and he’s certainly entitled to that opinion, and I guess he should sit down with the hierarchy of the sport and suggest what needs to be done.

But at this stage, you know, things seem to be going well. We have a very popular support, and a lot of popular athletes, so there’s not too much that’s broken.

JANA WENDT: And if he’d made those remarks today would you as captain have sat down and had a work to him about what he’s said?

GRANT HACKETT: Oh, certainly I would have sat down and nutted out, you know, where he was coming from, and you know, seen if things were taken out of context, and certainly looked at all the issues, and looked at all the points of the issues, and that’s very important, and obviously, you know, Ian’s a very high-profile athlete, not just here but all around the world.

And whenever he says something it can be taken out of context, it can be blown up out of proportion, and we have to be conscious of that, and I guess I’d just sit down and see where he was coming from and then try and make an unbiased opinion, and you know, I guess look at it all from a positive angle.

JANA WENDT: As you say, he does have a formidable international reputation. Does that present its own issues for the captain of a team?

GRANT HACKETT: No, not really. I mean, we’ve got a very diverse range of athletes, like I was talking about, and you have to be able to cater for all those – all those athletes. All those personalities. And all their, I guess, statuses.

You know, where they lie, and their profiles lie. And, you know, Ian is an athlete who is global, and you know, very well recognised. But at the end of the day he is part of the swimming team, and you know, we work together as a team, and we’re all working to complement each other’s performances, and you know, certainly being a team captain or being a part of that team in general, and having experience is something that we’ve just got to work together.

I mean, not only is it 40 to 41 athletes, but there’s 76 of us altogether. We have managers, we have sports staff, we have physiotherapists, coaches, and all those sorts of people. So I guess it’s a very important role as team captain to make sure that, you know, everyone’s happy.

JANA WENDT: Grant Hackett we wish you very good luck in your new role, and of course in your swimming future. Thanks very much for joining us this morning.

GRANT HACKETT: Ta, thanks for having me. Thanks Jana.

JANA WENDT: Grant Hackett, speaking to us from Homebush there.

Swimming: Hackett to lead Australian team at Montreal world championships

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SYDNEY : Triple Olympic gold medallist and the king of distance freestyle Grant Hackett has been announced as the first captain of Australia’s swim team for this year’s Montreal World Championships.

Hackett, 24, who has been swimming for his country since the 1997 Pan Pacs in Fukuoka, was told of his appointment on Friday by the Swimming Australia board.

“To be named captain of the Australian swimming team is an enormous honour,” Hackett said in a SA statement Sunday.

“Over the past few years we have built this team up to be one of the most admired teams in Australia and to think that I have been asked to lead the team is humbling.

“I look forward to not only helping the younger swimmers but enlisting the help of the other experienced athletes on this team, Michael Klim, Ian Thorpe, Brett Hawke, Brooke Hanson and Giaan Rooney.”

Swimming Australia President Neil Martin said: “Grant is not only a tremendous athlete but he is a tremendous person, a great figurehead for the Australian swimming team and an impeccable role model for young people right around Australia.”

Hackett, along with Thorpe, ranks as one of the best swimmers in contemporary world swimming and is gearing up for his fourth world championship meet in Canada in July.

He has won three gold medals in two Olympics, seven gold medals in three World Championships and five Commonwealth Games gold medals.

Captain Hackett eyes record

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Grant Hackett has wrapped a brilliant week at the Telstra Trials in Sydney by clocking the fastest 1500m ever in an Australian pool and taking his fourth national championship of the meet.

Hackett, who was named Australia’s team captain for July’s world championships in Montreal, swam a time of 14 minutes 44.94 seconds, completely outclassing his rivals in the event and believes he can break his own world record in Canada later this year.

“If everything goes well, and I am consistent and feel as good I did pretty much this week and my taper runs well, I am sure I can get under 14:34,” he told AAP. “By how much I do not know but I just want to win it, I will be happy with that.”

“I do not want to put too many expectations on myself, but the world record happens to be my PB and that is what you have to look at, I am not here to swim backwards or to swim at the same level.”

He became the first man to win four Australian freestyle titles since Justin Lemberg in 1984 after adding his pet event to the 200m, 400m,and 800m crowns he claimed earlier in the meet.

To cap it all off, he was announced as the team leader, the first time that honour has been bestowed on anyone since the Moscow Olympics.

Alice Mills was the other star of the final night, clocking 24.49 seconds and breaking the Commonwealth record for the 50m freestyle.

The 18-year-old downed Athens Olympic bronze medallist Libby Lenton (24.86) to grab her second title of the meet. Jade Edmistone (31.02) booked her spot on the team with a win in the 50m breaststroke, while Matt Welsh (25.23) made it five backstroke ‘triple crowns’ with a win in the 50m.

Adam Lucas (4:18.49) edged out Travis Nederpelt (4:18.93) in the men’s 400m individual medley, while Lara Carroll (4:45.73) won the women’s event.

Swimming Australia announced a 38-strong squad for July’s world championships, with 16 Queenslanders, 11 Victorians, seven NSW, and four West Australian swimmers in the squad.

Team: Men: Leith Brodie (Qld), Grant Hackett (Qld), Brett Hawke (Vic), Brendon Hughes (Qld), Michael Klim (Vic), Andrew Lauterstein (Vic), Adam Lucas (WA), Kurtis MacGillivary (Qld), Andrew Mewing (Qld), Patrick Murphy (Vic), Travis Nederpelt (WA), Jim Piper (WA), Andrew Richards (NSW), Brenton Rickard (Vic), Mark Riley (Qld), Nic Sprenger (Qld), Matt Welsh (Vic).

Women: Bronte Barratt (Qld), Lara Carroll (WA), Lara Davenport (NSW), Sophie Edington (NSW), Jade Edmistone (Qld), Felicity Galvez (NSW), Brooke Hanson (Vic), Jodie Henry (Qld), Leisel Jones (Qld), Libby Lenton (Qld), Linda MacKenzie (Qld), Danni Miatke (Vic), Alice Mills (Qld), Melissa Mitchell (NSW), Sarah Paton (NSW), Haylee Reddaway (Vic), Shayne Reese (Vic), Giaan Rooney (Vic), Jess Schipper (Qld), Louise Tomlinson (Qld), Tay Zimmer (NSW).

Hackett adds leadership honour to his winning role

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Grant Hackett has made a habit of having a reason to celebrate on the last day of a swimming event. It’s when the 1500 metres is always swum, and he hasn’t lost one of those races for almost nine years. But last night he had an extra reason to celebrate.

As usual Hackett brought an end to the national titles with a 1500m victory - this time in 14 minutes, 44.94 seconds, the fastest 1500m time swum in Australia and the seventh quickest in history - but after stepping from the pool, the 24-year-old was bestowed with the honour of being named captain of the Australian swimming team.

It is the first time Australia will have one official captain, someone who will not only be a team leader but also a spokesman who will be the face of the team. Hackett will have his first assignment when he leads the team of 38 swimmers - 17 men and 21 women - selected last night to contest the world titles in Montreal in July.

“It’s a role obviously I’m very honoured to have and something I think is great for the sport,” Hackett said. “This is something I’m very enthusiastic about, and I’m looking forward to taking on the role to be there for the swimmers and the sport as well.

“And if there is anything I have trouble with, Steve Waugh and John Eales, all those sorts of guys, are certainly very helpful and good friends of mine that I can call on.

“A lot of the time the public get confused because they see swimming as such an individual sport. All they get to see is the race, a medal presentation, you walk around the pool by yourself and that’s it.

“They don’t realise that the months leading up, you’re doing camps, you have talks, dinners together, do everything together except for what they see. It’s very much a team-orientated sport, so it’s important to have some sort of structure within the team that’s going to best complement the team.

“I would want to lead by performance as well. That’s something that’s very important to me.

“There’s nothing better than seeing someone swim well - that motivates the team and does the best for the team in terms of morale.”

The most impressive performance last night came from 18-year-old Alice Mills in the 50m freestyle final.

Mills, who also won the 100m freestyle last week, clocked 24.49s, breaking the Australian record of Libby Lenton (24.70s) and Commonwealth record of Briton Alison Sheppard (24.68s) and becoming the third-fastest woman over 50m in history.

Her time was also quicker than the time world record-holder Inge de Bruijn set in winning Olympic gold in Athens last year, and the fastest 50m swum in the past four years. Lenton finished second in 24.86s to qualify for Montreal.

Hackett still laps it up

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LOOKING back on the 18-year history that Denis Cotterell shares with Grant Hackett, the Miami coach can pinpoint the moment when he realised he had a kid who was not just good, but destined for greatness.

It was a regular training session at Miami’s Pizzey Park pool, back before a second 50m pool was added and the facilities were limited to one pool and a bare-bones gymnasium.

Cotterell was doing his usual thing, buzzing around the pool-deck, stopwatch in hand, possibly an ever-present coffee cup nearby as his squad – led at the time by distance supremo Daniel Kowalski – ground away.

A 12-year-old Hackett was working his designated training program that day, several sets of 400m that progressively increased in speed.

Cotterell wasn’t entirely unaware of the potential of the gangly Hackett.

“I always keep an eye on the ones I think might have that bit extra,” he says.

But on this day he would see something more than “a bit extra”.

“I wasn’t really timing his 400s to be honest. I had a lot of other kids to worry about,” Cotterell said.

“But there was one set of his I did time. When he finished I looked at the time, saw 4min27sec and thought ‘no that can’t be right. Not for a 12-year-old’.

“So I told Grant, ‘I don’t think that’s right’. And he was miffed at me. He said ‘OK, I’ll do it again. I’ll prove it’.”

So Hackett ploughed through another 400m and took seven seconds off the first time.

Cotterell, one of the hardest people in the game to ruffle, was ruffled.

To put the time in perspective, it would have won Hackett the national under-13 age championship at the time.

“He swam that time just proving a point to me. And in training. And he was 12 years old and wasn’t even taking swimming too seriously back then,” he says.

“But if he thought he could do a set better, he would do it again. He always wanted to do another one then another one and nail himself to the wall one more time.

“Some people say that’s why he’s a danger to himself and his health but I never stopped him because as far as I’m concerned, that’s a winning characteristic.

“Even though it broke him down a few times, it’s a winner’s behaviour.”

The episode provides another insight into Hackett’s unwavering training ethic.

No one trains harder than the dual-Olympic champion, reigning world record holder and Australia’s greatest distance swimmer, who still pushes himself to the point of vomiting in training.

He swam the Athens Olympic final with a busted lung. Cotterell admits that he was also battling the Epstein-Barr Virus when he won his maiden Olympic 1500m title in Sydney.

Hackett could easily have taken the road chosen by Ian Thorpe this year and enjoyed a break to go to the Super Bowl, to New York, to royal dinners and nightclubs.

He doesn’t need to keep swimming. There’s plenty of money in the bank, a waterfront house on the Gold Coast, a healthy investment-property portfolio, a prosperous racehorse part-ownership and a gorgeous girlfriend.

But Hackett celebrated his landmark Athens win by returning to Miami to prepare for this week’s world-championship trials where he took out the 200m, 400m and 800m, and is on the verge of winning the 1500m freestyle.

He will go to the July world championships in Montreal in search of a record four-consecutive 1500m titles, as well as gold medals in the 400m and 800m.

He is aiming for a third-Olympic 1500m gold in Beijing and perhaps his first Olympic 400m freestyle title. He has also indicated he will keep swimming beyond Beijing.

So, in a word, why?

“I’m just really passionate about swimming,” says Hackett.

“I have very basic needs and a very basic philosophy – I just love the sport.”

Nothing gets past Hackett, says Cotterell.

“Even after his 1500m heat (yesterday), I was going through his lap times, gave him his splits and fudged one-tenth of a second,” he said.

“I wanted to make the second 25m of a lap look a bit better than it was and I took one-tenth off.

“And Grant said ‘Hang on, if I did that then this time is out and it doesn’t add up’.

“So I had to say, ‘OK, you got me. I fudged it’.

“I mean, it was one-tenth. And he picked it up. Who does that?”

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GRANT Hackett won’t start as the fastest qualifier in tonight’s 1500m freestyle final at the world championship trials in Sydney, but the dual Olympic champion is unconcerned.

Hackett will start from the unfamiliar territory of lane five after qualifying second behind West Australian Olympian Travis Nederpelt in yesterday morning’s heats.

It has been so long since Hackett has not been the fastest qualifier at the national trials in the 1500m, even he can’t remember when he last recorded a heat time slower than someone else.

Hackett swam a controlled 15min 36.10sec in his heat, two seconds slower than 19-year-old Nederpelt, who clocked 15:34.27 to show his growing improvement in the 30-lap event.

Hackett’s training partner, former Canadian Kurtis MacGillivary, was third fastest in 15:37.61.

Not worried about failing to top the time sheet in his pet event, Hackett said he felt strong and relaxed in his heat swim, which augured well for tonight’s final.

“It was really easy, I felt a lot better than my 800m heat so that’s encouraging,” the world record-holder said.

“The rhythm in my swimming feels a lot better than it has in a long time. I was happy with that.

“It doesn’t worry me [qualifying second], I was planning to swim 15:50 this morning so I went a fair bit faster than I thought I would.”

A sick Hackett started from lane three for last year’s Olympic final in Athens, but went on to stage a brave win for his second Olympic title. It was later revealed he had swum with a partially collapsed lung.

So good is he feeling now, 24-year-old Hackett said his fastest time in Australia, 14:45.60, could be under threat tonight.

Hackett has been getting better with each swim at the trials, having already won the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle.

Tonight he will be aiming to become the first person in 20 years to win all four freestyle events at the national trials.

* AUSTRALIA’S new sprint queen Alice Mills believes Jodie Henry’s 100m freestyle world record may be within reach after finally “banging down the door”.

Having defeated the two fastest swimmers in the event’s history, Mills is eager to see where she can take her times as she looks ahead to a maiden berth in the 100m at the world championships in July.

The 18-year-old has missed out on a top-two finish in the 100m for the past three years, but made an emphatic breakthrough on Thursday night to defeat Henry and Libby Lenton with her first sub-54 second swim and she is now the fourth fastest swimmer in history.

* MICHAEL Klim’s resurgence continued at the world championship trials last night when he seized his second win of the week in his former world record event, the 100m butterfly.

After his victory in the 100m freestyle on Wednesday night, Klim returned for an encore to book his second individual swim on the world championship team with his 53.08sec win ahead of Andrew Richards (53.52sec).

Sprint specialist Brett Hawke borrowed Klim’s bodysuit for the final of the men’s 50m freestyle, and scored a stylish win in 22.35sec from Jeff English.

HACKETT GOES DISTANCE WITH SPEEDO

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Speedo has extended its sponsorship of the world’s most successful long distance swimmer, Australian Grant Hackett.

The new four-year agreement will see the undisputed king of long distance swimming through to Beijing in 2008 and beyond. Twenty-five-year-old Hackett is the reigning 1500m Olympic, World, Pan Pacific, Commonwealth and Australian champion and a world record holder in both short and long course events, unbeaten since 1996 – more than nine years ago.

Hackett’s international career has already seen him collect two Olympic gold medals, six world titles and two Commonwealth gold medals. In Athens alone last year he took home a gold medal in the 1500m and two silver medals in the 400m freestyle and the 4×200m freestyle relay.

Tony Wood, president of Speedo, said, “Grant Hackett is a phenomenal athlete and a great ambassador for both the Brand and the sport of swimming.�

Hackett will be lining up at the Telstra Australian Swimming Trial this week, in the new, specially designed, black and green SPEEDO Fastskin suit.

Grant shows who’s boss at swim trials

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Insatiable distance champion Grant Hackett is renowned as being a glutton for punishment.

But it is the rest of the competition feeling the pain at this week’s world championship swimming trials as the re-energised Queenslander gobbles up his opposition.

The lanky 24-year-old motored to his third freestyle title of the week by winning the 800m freestyle in a canter in seven minutes and 43.16 seconds in Sydney.

He was four seconds off Ian Thorpe’s world record and led the Gold Coast’s Miami club to the top four places with Canadian-turned-Australian Kurtis MacGillivary booking a flight to his former home country in July.

1500m master Hackett now needs only to win his pet event on Saturday night to become the first man to win four Australian freestyle titles since Olympic bronze medallist Justin Lemberg in 1984.

Hackett’s struggle to win the 1500m at last year’s Athens Games had many believing it was only a matter of time before American Larsen Jensen or Welshman David Davies ended the superstar’s nine-year reign in the event.

However Hackett is swimming as well as ever after recovering from his well-publicised health problems last year.

He said he was really looking forward to the 1500m and that lowering his world record of 14.34.56s set at the 2001 world championships was not out of the question in Montreal.

“I would not say at this stage, but at world championships it is probably not that unrealistic if I had a good preparation,” Hackett said.

He comfortably won the 200m and 400m national titles in Ian Thorpe’s absence this week and the Thorpedo’s no-show has not slowed down the dual Olympic gold medallist.

A wary Hackett has also dropped the 200m from his schedule to give himself the opportunity of an unprecedented 400m, 800m, 1500m treble in Canada.

“I felt really comfortable the whole way,” he said of the 800m.

“I felt I was in really good rhythm and it is nice to do my first real distance swim since that 1500 in Athens and it felt about ten times as easy.” Hackett’s clubmate MacGillivary (7:58.97) changed nationalities on Australia Day this year after a falling out with Canadian officials over non-Olympic selection last year.

“I am glad to be on the Australian team, it has been a dream of mine for a while now,” said MacGillivary with a strong Canadian twang.

Mackay marvel Linda MacKenzie (1:58.70) defended her 200m freestyle title by chasing down Ballarat’s Shayne Reese (1:59.28) in the final lap.

The 400m national champion has rebounded at this meet from her disappointing time in Greece last year.

“It is always good to come back like this, I was a bit out in taper and everything was not going too right at the Olympics,” MacKenzie said. “But I think I know how to work things out at the moment.” West Australian Travis Nederpelt (1:57.07) took out the men’s 200m butterfly and recently-engaged AIS swimmer Andrew Richards (1:57.48) found a reason for another celebration with his second place earning him a world championship berth.

Former world record holder Michael Klim (49.28) earlier showed he was not washed up as a sprinting force by qualifying fastest for Wednesday’s 100m freestyle final.

However the dual Olympic gold medallist admitted it would be a battle for the Australian sprinters to post a qualifying time to allow a 4×100m relay team to be sent to Canada.

On semi-finals time, they would miss out by just under two seconds.

“It is tough, we’ve got to average 49.6, even my standard is not very high,” Klim said.

“I am the fastest at 49.2 which is not a good time, but we can improve.” 100m national champion Brent Rickard (28.02) continued his sizzling form in the men’s breaststroke by lowering his 50m national record by 0.11s.

Hackett aims for new mark

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OLYMPIC 1500m champion Grant Hackett moved within striking distance of Ian Thorpe’s 800m freestyle world record, clocking the fourth fastest time in history at the national trials last night.

Despite a short preparation, Hackett swam 7min 43.16sec, four seconds slower than Thorpe’s world mark, which was set in their epic showdown at the 2001 world titles in Fukuoka.

Hackett set the second fastest time in history that day, 7:40.34, and is confident he can now improve on that.

“It felt really good - I have felt better as the meet has gone on. This puts me in a good position for the world championships to do a personal best time.”

Hackett has been so encouraged by his form this week, after winning the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle, that he is also confident he will be able to attack his extraordinary 1500m world record of 14min 34.56sec this year.

His training partner, Canadian convert Kurtis MacGillivary, finished a strong second in 7:58.97, to qualify for his first Australian team. MacGillivary, 21, received his citizenship on Australia Day, just six weeks ago.

Linda MacKenzie had something to prove after a disappointing Athens Olympics, and she now has the chance to make amends at this year’s world titles after defending her two national titles against all-comers in Sydney.

MacKenzie completed the middle-distance freestyle double, adding the 200m freestyle to her 400m freestyle win.

“I was raring to get back into it (after Athens) because I knew I had something more to give,” the Australian Institute of Sport swimmer said.

Victorian Shayne Reese was the hare to MacKenzie’s hound, going out fast through the first 100m and defending her position grimly in the last lap.

MacKenzie finally caught her in the last push to the wall to win in 1min 58.7sec, a time which would have given her a top-five finish in Athens. Reese, 22, held on for second (1:59.28) and her first chance to swim an individual event at the world titles after swimming the relay at last year’s Olympics.

Another AIS swimmer, Brenton Rickard, has also struck a rich vein of form this week. Rickard set his second national record in as many events to clinch the 50m breaststroke title.

He had dominated the 100m final but faced a tougher test of his powers against former national record-holder Mark Riley in the one-lap dash.

Rickard had to set a new national record (28.02sec) just to quell Riley (28.08sec), who also swam well under Rickard’s former record (28.13sec).

However, Rickard was looking for a another barrier-busting performance, after becoming the first Australian to break 61 seconds in the 100m.

“I was pretty keen to go 27 seconds, but 28.0 is still a personal best time,” Rickard said.

“When you are swimming in good form you try to make the most of it.”

On a night for fast-finishers, 19-year-old Perth Olympian Travis Nederpelt earned his first national title by pegging back Sydney’s Andrew Richards in the 200m butterfly.

Nederpelt (1:57.03) paced his race just right to defeat 21-year-old Richards (1:57.48), who surged into the Australian all-time top five to earn his place on his first major national team.

Healthy Hackett way out in frontk

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If Ian Thorpe had not been a clumsy youngster and been blessed with significantly better hand-eye co-ordination, then there’s a reasonable chance that - aided by his father’s love of the game - he would have opted for cricket rather than the pool. Had that been the case, Grant Hackett would today own a lot more gold medals and world records.

That’s a little like saying if John Howard had been able to play for the Wallabies instead of just wearing their tracksuit, Peter Costello would be Prime Minister, but at least now Hackett is having a taste of life without having to chase the flippers of Thorpe.

He had already won the 200 metres and 400m freestyle earlier in the week in Thorpe’s absence and, last night, the man who is second-fastest in history in the 800m - yes, behind Thorpe again - added that national title to his tally with an effortless win in 7 minutes 43.16 seconds at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre.

The time was just adrift of Thorpe’s world mark of 7:39.16, set at the world championships in Japan in 2001 - where Hackett finished second - but it is faster than the time he swam to win the world title in Barcelona in 2003 and the fourth-fastest in history.

Judging by his times and performances this week, Hackett may be ready to finally break his first Thorpe world record when he gets to the 800m at the world titles in Montreal in July.

“I feel so much better in the water just warming up and leading up to my races and feeling strong in each of my events,” Hackett said. “To me, it’s such a different feeling from the Olympics or even the trials last year and it’s nice to be able to feel like that again and that’s the most important thing now.

“What I have done, I have done well, and I’ve done healthy. Like I said, that [my health] is just my priority at the moment and the way it’s going to stay for the rest of my career.

“Getting up and racing Ian at any meet has been a lot of fun for me and it’s been an experience that I’ve become accustomed to over the last few years, and not having him here this season is difficult in a sense. I am used to having him there and just pushing stroke for stroke at the end or just having him to catch, and that [not having Thorpe there] feels a little bit odd.”

Second place and a spot on the team for Montreal went to former Canadian swimmer Kurtis MacGillivary in 7:58.97.

She may be 35 centimetres shorter than Hackett, but pint-sized Linda Mackenzie also completed a freestyle double last night, adding the 200m title to her 400m from Saturday, storming home to win in a 1:58.70.

“It’s a little bit slower than last year, but it’s been a pretty good meet for me so far,” the 21-year-old said. “I knew it would be a tough race, but I’ve been training pretty hard.”

Asked about her powerful finish, she added: “That’s part of training. I practise that over and over in training.”

Second spot and a trip to the world titles went to Shayne Reese in 1:59.28, with Lara Davenport third and Melissa Mitchell fourth, both women gaining a relay spot on the team for their efforts.

Brenton Rickard not only qualified for his second swim at the worlds with victory in the 50m breaststroke last night, but for the second time at the titles, he broke his own Australian record.

Rickard clocked 28.02 seconds in beating Mark Riley (28.08), to shave .11s off his old record, and did so just two nights after he bettered his national record in the 100m breaststroke final.

Travis Nederpelt and Andrew Richards staged a match race in the 200m butterfly, with just 0.45 seconds separating them at the wall. Nederpelt won in 1:57.03, but both were under the qualifying time and will head to Montreal in July.

After battling shoulder and back injuries during the past four years, Michael Klim produced his fastest 100m freestyle since 2001 last night to be fastest qualifier for tonight’s final.

“It’s good to be here, racing, and being in contention,” Klim said of his 49.28 semi-final win. “I’ve changed my technique in the last few months, trying to find something that is manageable with my shoulders. For me, it’s about getting the most out of the sport I can.”