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.