Hackett battled injury in secret

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AS Grant Hackett underwent surgery on his injured shoulder yesterday, his coach Denis Cotterell revealed the Olympic champion had kept his shoulder injury a secret in an effort to “will the injury away”.

Hackett had initially complained of a niggle in his right shoulder as early as July but still managed to pick up three individual gold medals at the World Championships in Montreal that month.

He then mentioned to Cotterell that the shoulder had flared up in training soon after returning home.

But since then he had not mentioned the injury again.

“I thought we were all over it,” Cotterell said.

“I thought Grant was managing it or that it had sorted itself out, but it turns out he was keeping it from me.

“He didn’t tell me because he knew I would occasionally ask him about it and that it would be in the airwaves.

“Hiding it was probably his way of willing it away, which was more a case of hope than reality.”

Cotterell said he was as shocked as anyone when Hackett broke the news this week that he would undergo surgery immediately and miss the Commonwealth Games in March next year.

He had been slotted in for three events (4×200m relay, 400m and 1500m freestyle).

“When he told me I said ‘what?”‘ Cotterell said.

“But when I thought back over the last few weeks, I started to realise he wasn’t his normal self.”

Hackett underwent “arthroscopic debriment” in Melbourne yesterday and will be out of the pool for at least the next six weeks.

Cotterell is confident the triple-Olympic gold medallist will be back kicking in the pool by January and hopes to see Hackett compete again within six months.

“There’s no reason he can’t come back from this a better swimmer,” he said.

“I think it has been a bit fortuitous. He needed a break to recharge the batteries.”

The focus now is on finding the emerging Australian distance swimmer most likely to claim Hackett’s 1500m crown at the March Games.

Miami training partners Ky Hurst and Kurtis MacGillivray both had a good chance, said Cotterell, along with Western Australia’s Travis Nederpelt and Olympic finalist Craig Stevens.

But Cotterell is also among a growing band who are tipping unheralded teenager Trent Grimse, a product of John Rodgers at Albany Creek.

“He’s only young but he might surprise everybody,” Cotterell said.