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THE young West Australian who will carry Australia’s hopes in the 1500m freestyle at the Games plans to seek the advice of dual Olympic champion Grant Hackett in a bid to maximise his medal chances.

Athens Olympic medley finalist Travis Nederpelt will be the only Australian competing in the 1500m freestyle next month after no swimmers qualified for the event at the selection trials.

Former Canadian Kurtis MacGillivary, who trains with Hackett, won the 1500m final. But his winning time of 15min 22.68sec was well outside what was needed to secure selection.

Nederpelt, second to MacGillivary at the trials, was asked to swim the distance event after his Games berth was sealed in other events.

The 20-year-old individual medley specialist said he would speak to the sidelined Hackett to help ensure he delivered his best 30-lap performance in front of a home crowd at the Games.

“I will definitely be speaking to him,” Nederpelt said.

“It’s hard to think that I’ve got to try and take over (in that event) and match him.

“I’ve heard everyone say I’m the only hope to keep the title in Australia, but I’ve just got to try and put that out of my head and just go in and do the best job I can.”

Nederpelt, who has a personal best time of 15:17.81 for the 1500m, is aware of the challenge in front of him.

Welshman David Davies is the favourite to end Australia’s dominance of the event at the Games in Hackett’s absence.

Australia has owned the 1500m at the Commonwealth Games since 1958.

“Australia has always viewed it as quite an elite event so I’m quite proud to be a part of it,” Nederpelt said.

However, his tilt at the 1500m falls at the end of a heavy Games program.

When the 1500m comes around, Nederpelt will already have competed in the 200m butterfly and the 200m and 400m IM. But Nederpelt said he was well-equipped to handle the workload.

While the spotlight will be on his 1500m swim, he said he was far more confident of his medal chances in the 200m butterfly and 400m IM.

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AS HEAD coach of the British swimming team, Bill Sweetenham has been there before. In fact, his situation was definitely even more dire, but the results this past week at the Commonwealth Games have shown that with hard work there can be a resurgence, and he expects to see a similar situation with the Australian men in the years to come.

While Australia’s women were at their brilliant best during the six nights of swimming finals, the (able-bodied) men’s team managed just one gold, that coming in the final event of the program, the 4×100m medley relay. As a result these Games became the first that Australia’s men have not won a gold medal in an individual event.

In Manchester four years ago the men - spearheaded by Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett - won 17 of Australia’s 27 gold medals in the pool. It was 12 of 23 in 1998 in Kuala Lumpur, 13 of 27 in Victoria, Canada in 1994 and even nine of 21 in Auckland in 1990. In Melbourne it was one gold, six silver and eight bronze, while the women won 16 gold, 12 silver and nine bronze.

By comparison, while Great Britain was split into individual nations, when results are calculated, the British won 15 gold, 14 silver and nine bronze. The interesting fact was that the British men won 12 gold medals.

Even at their home Games in Manchester four years ago, the British countries managed only 11 gold medals overall.

“I know the Australian coaches and know they will address any areas of weakness or problems they have, and address it very quickly,” said Sweetenham, who took over as British head coach after the nation’s woeful Sydney Olympics where they failed to win a medal in the pool.

“They are a very professional group of coaches and I think Alan [Thompson] and the other coaches will fix whatever the ills are … if there are ills. I don’t want to get into any of those arguments [about the Australian men]. I just have great confidence in the Australian coaches.”

Thompson has vehemently defended his men’s team, one which obviously felt the absence of both Thorpe and Hackett, the two swimmers who have won most of the men’s team gold medals in the past six years.

“You take your two best players out of any team … you could be better with your two best players,” Thompson said. “If you keep generalising in the headlines and looking for a gold medal it’s not a great thing to do to our team. The expectations are extremely high and it seems that the great improvements of these young guys and the great work they’ve done is being overlooked by us looking for a single gold medal.

“I don’t think anyone could claim that people like Matt Welsh, Michael Klim, and probably Hawkey [Brett Hawke] and Ash [Ashley Callus], and those guys haven’t really done a great job. Michael Klim did his first PB [personal best] in about five years the other day. We are starting to see the emergence of young men who are probably a year away from making their mark on the world. We need to make sure we are not losing sight of the big picture for one gold medal.”

Klim agreed that the future was not as bleak as some feared, but added that the younger men needed encouragement.

“Many people are winning medals but if we keep harping on the fact the men are not as good as girls the young guys won’t be here,” Klim said. “They need encouragement and another year. The Pan Pacs [in August] is another chance for these guys to race the world.”

UNTIL now, they have been worlds apart in the swimming pool.

The streetwise champion, Grant Hackett, the mega-wealthy multi-medallist and iconic figure of a nation obsessed with its swimming heroes.

The young contender, David Davies, who has learned his championship trade in Hackett’s shadow and made do with Olympic and world championship bronze as the Australian colossus roared into the 1500m freestyle distance.

But the next time the two men meet (some time next year after Hackett’s recovery from shoulder surgery) Welshman Davies will know what it’s like to be a champion following his stunning Commonwealth Games gold on Tuesday.

Whether it leads to a shift in the balance of power between these two great rivals we must wait and see, but what is beyond dispute is the different lifestyles these tough-as-teak athletes lead.

In a country which worships its sporting stars, Hackett is in the same feted bracket as fellow swimmer Ian Thorpe and cricketers Ricky Ponting and Shane Warne. Ironically, missing the Games through injury has meant he has been even busier than he would have been in the pool with extensive media and sponsors’ commitments taking up his time.

Davies? Well, even his namesake Sharron would struggle to make swimming “sexy” in a nation too often caught up with the daily drama of its rugby and football teams.

But the differences don’t end there, or with the respective bank balances. Hackett’s interests include the glamorous pursuits of surfing, fast cars and playing drums and guitar. You could certainly say the 26-year-old world record holder is “living the dream”.

Davies shares Hackett’s love for music, but he is more likely to be seen wandering around back home or at the Commonwealth Games village with his iPod listening to various indie tunes or Eminem’s latest release.

After that, his love for Cardiff City (hence the “ayatollah” medal ceremony celebrations which have baffled the non-British press in Melbourne), hanging out with mates and the odd round of golf is as racy as it gets.

And then there are the domestic arrangements. While Davies - 21 earlier this month - still lives at home with parents Paul and Sue at the detached family home on a smart Barry estate, Hackett resides in a sprawling mansion on his native Gold Coast.

When Davies and his coach Dave Haller popped around for dinner before the Games, it was said the Welshman was taken aback by the size of the place. But that’s what you get when you’re sporting royalty in Australia.

“It’s certainly a different attitude out here to swimming,” Hackett told me this week. “Great Britain only got two bronze medals at the 2004 Olympics and that’s not really going to do much for the profile of the sport.

“Like anything you’ve got to be successful to gain a big profile and, I guess, to be famous. But given the history of the 1500m freestyle here David would already be a celebrity by now.”

If the lifestyles or the earning powers of the two men are at odds, then the mutual respect which exists between them is not.

Ever since Hackett clapped eyes on Davies for the first time at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester he has noted a competitor “so hungry and keen to improve”.

But it was at the 2003 world championships in Barcelona when Hackett identified someone capable of challenging his pre-eminence as one of the world’s great distance swimmers.

“Barcelona was when he lifted it up another notch,” he said. “From there he’s just gone from strength to strength and taken big chunks off his personal best time. He’s proved he’s a real star athlete who knows how to work hard and get up and race when it counts.

“He’s just one of those guys who has built up each year and is getting better and better. You can see he wants to get up there and be No 1 in this event.

“I see a lot of myself in him. Any guy who can swim around that level is ambitious, willing to work and challenge himself every time he gets in the water.

“They are the attributes I saw in myself and, hopefully, people like him and the American Larsson Jensen are not too good when I’m back!

“But it’s good for me that these guys are around. They definitely make me more determined to lift my training and swim faster.”

Hackett, already close to resuming his full training programme, will return to racing in the summer and should be in great shape for the Australian world championship trials in December.

So the pair should renew battle at the 2007 world championships here in Melbourne when the fervent home crowd will demand gold in their favourite event.

“It stings a little bit losing the 1500m freestyle,” said Hackett, mindful that the last non-Australian winner at the Games was at Vancouver in 1954.

“But there comes a time and a place when you can’t win everything forever. Things move in cycles and we’ve just got to be fortunate that we’ve had a 50-year winning cycle.

“I look forward to swimming against David again. He’s got a real good attitude to competing against the other guys and with the event itself.

“I know he’s going to be a big threat to me at the world championships and at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, titles which I’ve been able to be successful at in the past.”

Also successful has been the Grant Hackett merchandise spin-off industry and, as an Aussie-based aunt once memorably sent Davies a pair of Ian Thorpe boxer shorts, could the 1500m world record holder send his Welsh rival a gift to mark his gold medal triumph?

“There are some Grant Hackett speedos I could give him if he asked me nicely,” laughed Hackett. “But I don’t know if he’d want them.”

No, what Davies wants now is Hackett’s scalp. Maybe then, he would enjoy the recognition in Wales that his talent deserves.

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AUSTRALIA’S swimming team members have been getting plenty of support from family and friends.

Also cheering them on poolside have been two swimming superstars who could not compete in the Games — Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett, who was with his girlfriend, singer Candice Alley.

Libby Lenton found loads of encouragement from boyfriend Luke Trickett and mother Marilyn.

Adam Pine’s wife Sasha and son Max were there to see him in his fourth Commonwealth Games.

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MELBOURNE (Reuters) - David Davies provided Wales with their first swimming gold medal in 32 years to complete Australia’s humiliation in the men’s swimming events at the Commonwealth Games on Tuesday.

With Australia’s injured world record holder Grant Hackett watching, Davies cruised to victory in the 1500 metres freestyle in 14 minutes 57.63 seconds to end Australia’s 48-year domination of the sport’s most gruelling event.

Davies, whose winning time was more than 23 seconds outside Hackett’s best, finished almost half a length clear of Canada’s Andrew Hurd, who took the silver in 15:09.44.

Hercules Prinsloo of South Africa was third in 15:11.88 and the two Australians in the final, Craig Stevens and Travis Nederpelt, finished sixth and seventh respectively.

Davies, who won bronze medals behind Hackett at the Athens Olympics and last year’s world championships in Montreal, became the first Welsh swimmer to win a Commonwealth Games title since Patricia Beavan won the 200m breaststroke in 1974.

His victory also handed Australia their first defeat in the event since 1954 and condemned the host nation, decimated by the loss of Hackett and Ian Thorpe, to the humiliation of failing to win a single gold medal in the individual able-bodied men’s events for the first time in Commonwealth Games history.

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MELBOURNE (Reuters) - David Davies gave Wales its first Commonwealth Games swimming gold for 32 years on Tuesday, destroying a proud Australian record for good measure.

Davies’s comfortable victory in the men’s 1,500 metres freestyle ended Australia’s 48-year stranglehold on swimming’s ‘iron man’ event on the final night of competition.

“I was proud out there — I was almost crying,” said Davies, who stormed to the gold in 14 minutes 57.63 seconds in the absence of Australia’s Olympic champion Grant Hackett.

“It’s the first major medal I’ve won and I’m going to remember it for the rest of my life.”

Davies was third behind Hackett at the 2004 Olympics and at last year’s world championship, and was installed as the odds-on favourite when the Australian pulled out after shoulder surgery.

He became the first non-Australian to win the gold since 1954 and the first swimmer from Wales to win a Commonwealth title since Patricia Beavan’s 200 metres breaststroke gold in 1974.

“It’s a massive weight off my shoulders,” said Davies. “Since Grant Hackett’s withdrawal I’ve been expected to win. It’s a new experience for me.

DIFFERENT ANIMAL

“I’m still not that same type of animal as Grant Hackett or even Kieren Perkins. They can go out fast and attack but it takes a lot out of me.”

Wrapped in a Welsh flag, Davies celebrated his start-to-finish victory by jumping into the Welsh enclosure to hug coaches, family and team mates.

“I swam out on my own. It was pretty hard,” said the 21-year-old, who touched almost 12 seconds before runner-up Andrew Hurd of Canada.

“One of the boys said to me, ‘If I go down to the bookies and put 1,000 dollars on and you don’t come through I’ll only get 20 back’, so there was a lot of pressure.”

Davies’s time was well outside his personal best and more than 23 seconds outside Hackett’s world record of 14:34.56.

“Now I know what it’s like to go out there and do it,” he said. “I’ll take it on again when all the big guys are back for the (2008 Beijing) Olympics and (2007) world championships.”

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Australian swimming star Grant Hackett has offered a blood sample to be stored for up to 30 years to prove that he and his team-mates are free from doping.

Hackett, who is missing the Melbourne Commonwealth Games due to injury, dived into the row started by former long-jump champion Gary Honey, who rattled his compatriots by saying he was convinced they were using illegal means to stay on top.

The dual Olympic gold medallist said his blood sample could be stored for up to 30 years and tested at any time as drug-testing technology improved.

“I wouldn’t think twice about it,” he said.

“I have been part of the Australian team for 10 years and I have never seen so much as a vial or tablet or anything. I couldn’t even tell you what growth hormones or steroids look like.”

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CHAMPION swimmer Grant Hackett has offered to have a current blood sample stored for drug testing for up to 30 years.

Hackett was responding to Olympic long jump silver medallist Gary Honey’s suggestion that Australia’s swimmers were likely to be using performance-enhancing drugs.

As reported in yesterday’s Herald Sun, Honey said illegal drugs were so prevalent in endurance sports such as athletics and cycling he could not believe swimming was clean.

Hackett, a dual Olympic gold medallist, said yesterday he would stake his name on the rest of the Australian team being drug-free.

Yesterday national head coach Alan Thompson urged all drug-testing bodies to test his swimmers as often as possible.

Reeling from Honey’s remarks, Hackett countered by offering to have his blood stored and re-tested as drug testing technology improved.

“And I know any other Australian swimmer would do the same,” Hackett said. “I wouldn’t think twice about it. I have been a part of the Australian team for 10 years and have been one of its best-performed swimmers.

“I have never seen so much as a vial or tablet or anything. I couldn’t even tell you what growth hormones or steroids look like.

“I know I can’t speak for everyone, but I have to believe that if drugs haven’t come my way, then the same has to be said for everyone else.”

Hackett acknowledged drugs were, and had been, a problem in international swimming.

“But there are obvious signs that are symptomatic of drug use which you just don’t see in Australia,” Hackett said.

“Swimmers coming from nowhere to break world records, rapid overnight improvements.

“If you look at the Australian team, especially the women, they have gotten to where they are in painstakingly small increments. It has been a long and gruelling process and it was the same when our men were dominating.

“There have never been athletes burst on the scene, win a medal and then disappear.”

Thompson said he had absolute confidence that the Australian team was clean.

“We as a sport will continue to encourage WADA, FINA, ASDA to continue testing as widely as they can because we do not want drugs in our sport,” Thompson said.

“We’ll be co-operating fully with all the testing bodies. It frustrates us a little bit that happens, but I would still rather they be testing than not testing.

“I have absolute confidence in our swim team and in our sport that we are drug-free.”

Thompson said he was disappointed Honey had made such “inflammatory” comments.

“Gary Honey, a silver medallist from the Olympic Games, is a person Australians will listen to along with other famous people and legends in our sport,” he said.

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HE LAMENTS that he doesn’t even win Monopoly when he’s at home with the family. He had to settle for third place in the Welsh Personality of the Year Awards in 2004. David Davies has never been a “favourite”.

But with Grant Hackett out of the Commonwealth Games with an injured shoulder, Welsh 1500 metres freestyler Davies is the hot tip for gold in an event won by an Australian since 1954.

“It’s like a fairytale,” Davies said yesterday. “The Aussies have won this event for the last 50 years; now we’ve come to Australia and I’m the favourite. Grant Hackett’s not here … But I can’t get sucked into that fairytale stuff because I’ve still got a hard race to do.”

When Davies arrived to train on the Gold Coast six weeks ago, Hackett held a dinner party at which Davies and his coach, Dave Haller, were at “the top” of the guest list. “Myself and Dave went to dinner with him and his coach,” Davies said. “We had a chat, we got on really well and we have a lot of respect for each other.” So did Hackett have any advice for Davies? “Take up sprinting,” quipped Haller.

Davies grew up watching Hackett on television, never believing he would one day rival the Australian. But with Hackett out injured, Davies’s time has come.

“I’ve been the bridesmaid on several occasions - I don’t even win Monopoly at Christmas time at my house,” he said. It would be great to win something. Hopefully it can happen.”

A gold would be remarkable, because at the age of 15 Davies couldn’t even win a national title in Britain. Yet his transformation accelerated with bronze medals at the Athens Olympics and last year’s world championships, when on both occasions he trailed Hackett. “David hasn’t reached his potential yet - he’s still growing,” Haller said. “He’s still learning how to swim the race. It’s Hackett with his world record at No.1, then Kieren Perkins … David’s No.4 on the all-time list, but he’s still got room for improvement.”

Although Davies has had enough of bronze, he was disappointed when he heard Hackett would not be swimming. “I thought someone was pulling my leg, to be honest,” he said. “The reason I train hard every day is to go against the best in the world. There’s no doubt that Grant [has been] the best in the world in my event for the past eight years. To go against him in his home country and Games like this would have been an amazing thing. I’m sad he’s not here.”

Davies could claim Wales’s first Commonwealth Games gold medal in the pool since 1974.

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Channel Nine has banned injured swimming star Grant Hackett from the Commonwealth Games pool deck.

But News Limited newspapers say the Nine network has backed down on a threat to also ban Hackett from the athletes’ village.

Nine, the Games broadcaster, has stopped Hackett from being on the pool deck because he’ll be working for Channel Seven during the Games.

But at the request of head swimming coach Alan Thompson, the network will allow the 1500 metres world record holder into the village so he can address the Australian squad.

Hackett will miss the Games, which begin on Wednesday, because of a shoulder injury.