Swimming is the pacesetter for sport in Australia

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MINUTES before the start of the men’s 1500m freestyle final at the national championships a few months ago, a message was relayed to security staff at the Sydney Olympic Swim Centre.

Someone had left a vehicle’s lights on in the competitors’ car park, reported a public-spirited spectator.

Now everyone who attends a major sporting fixture knows it is mandatory for venue announcers to make such an earth-shattering announcement - listing the car’s numberplate and turning the decibels as high as possible - just when silence is golden before the start of a thrilling contest. But this time there would be no such intrusion.

Instantly recognising the number plate, the announcer merely told the security man something like: “Geez, Grant’s done it again.”

After which an aide was despatched to the changerooms to secure Grant Hackett’s car keys to ensure the champ wouldn’t have to push-start his car yet again after eclipsing another national distance crown.

So there, you see. Even King Hacket is not totally perfect. Like all of us, he still puts his pants on one leg at a time and makes the same silly everyday mistakes.

Nonetheless, right now there is, aptly, no more admired and respected figure in all of Australian sport.

Not even his close friend and rival Ian Thorpe who will, no doubt, find motivation anew from Hackett’s fabulous world title performances and enthronement as the world’s new No. 1.

Nor, likewise, is there a more delightful, natural, unaffected and appreciated group of Australian sporting performers than the female swimmers who have so dominated the worlds over the past week.

Every single one of them has won their way into our hearts as much for the bubbly, natural enthusiasm they bring to their sport as their fabulous series of successes.

This in an era of unprecedented sports narcism, one in which so many mediocre athletes grow up thinking they are special and that the world revolves around them simply because they happen to be involved in elite competition. Certainly most of us believed the retirement of such notables as Susie O’Neill and Petria Thomas would stall the success of our women’s squad for some years to come.

Instead, the deeds and demeanour of those wonderful role models have instantly instilled quiet confidence and unbounded determination in their successors.

All the medal winners at the worlds - Jodie Henry, Giaan Rooney, Libby Lenton, Leisel Jones, Jade Edmistone, Danni Miatke, Jessicah Schipper, Linda Mackenzie, Alice Mills, Shayne Reese, Bronte Barrett, Brooke Hanson and Lara Carroll - showed us a personality, articulation and team spirit to match their successes.

Which, when you think more deeply about it, reflects vast credit on the Australian Swimming Union’s current administration, coaching and support structures.

Certainly that hasn’t always been the case. Ask Dawn Fraser and countless others who have been victims of past autocracy and conspiracy.

But now that it is, we should all be happy to acknowledge swimming as the undoubted pacesetter of national sporting administration and performance.