Cate Campbell swam her way back to the top of the podium and is very relieved to be there. Everyone knew she was the favorite after leading off the 4×100 freestyle relay in 52.33. Coming into the race today, she was seeded second behind Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden. Today she touched the wall first with a time of 52.34 for the Gold Medal. In her post race interview, she was excited that her and Australia’s male sprinter, James Magnussen, were both walking away with Gold medals in the 100 meter freestyle.
“The Australians sprinters are back on top of the world!”
It was great to win the race, but more impressive was her split at the 50! She was first to the wall by .71 seconds. We have been talking all week about sprinters on the male side who have very fast first 50’s, but the women have slid under the radar. Vlad Morozov and Anthony Ervin have both been under 22 to the feet at the turn in the 100 freestyle. This is impressive because only 13 male swimmers at this meet were able to touch the wall under 22 seconds in the 50 freestyle. Cate Campbell stands out even more so. She was 24.85 seconds at the 50 of her 100, to the feet! The women’s 50 freestyle is tomorrow, and if she were to enter with her 24.85 split, she would be seeded ninth in the world! She is included in those top nine times, so there are only 8 other women faster than her 50 split this year. It will be very exciting to see what she has in store for the 50 freestyle.
New Zealand’s Lauren Boyle made some waves this morning in the women’s 800 freestyle. She swam to a time of 8:21.00. She qualified in second for the finals, only .35 behind Olympic Champion, Katie Ledecky. Her time broke the Oceanic and Swedish National Record. That is her second Oceanic Record this week. She will swim in lane 3 between Katie Ledecky and Mireia Belmonte.
I am a Canadian but lived in Australia for a while and since follow their news. I may be wrong but as far as I can tell there hasn’t been a lot of coverage of the swimming in the WC in Aussieland. The women’s water polo seemed to have higher billing. They got second btw… well done! I think after acknowledging the somewhat disappointing 4×100 relays, the media kinda focused on other things. Campbell had a couple of ‘new force in sprinting’ stories and Maggie had a few ‘redemption’ stories (I learned he was verbally harassed on the street for his Olympic performance!) Other than that, there has not been a lot (or any I have seen) hate on the… Read more »
It’s the media coverage. We are still prisoners of our TV companies etc. We watch what is showed to us. If there is no coverage, then we don’t watch it and our interest starts to fade away. I’ve seen this process happening in Finland with regard to a cross-country skiing.
It feels bad to hear if swimming is losing it’s good position in Australia. Australia has been the home of swimming. I admit, this is one of the reasons why I secretly wished that Aussies win both marquee medals and also both marquee relays. I really hope they give enough coverage on these great swims by Maggie and Cate and it helps swimming in Aussieland.
If they get a 50 medal with Cate & a relay medal then they will equal London’s 10 ( Olympic events only ) but with more gold. They will maintain funding.
But overall the problems remain in performing year after year off season. Europe & the Us has only had to do it once a decade 1991 1999 & 2007. Even 2000 was early spring.
Plus it coincides with a nice holiday & Australians are great travellers. The actual off season meet is just the beginning of most of their fun times.
As a punishment for failing I guess being ignored is the current preferred option.
We can’t put them on Manus Islamd in Papua with the Assylum people… Read more »
the failure in london was the turning point for media coverage of swimming in australia. australians have this weird tall poppy syndrome where they quick to demolish succesful people who make mistake or do a wrong turn.
it si fortunate that some australian journalists like nicole jeffery of the australian were still in europe after covering tour de france, so theres still some articles written about barcelona.
Something must be done about those men’s relays though!!
the mens coaches made blunder.
they should have known from London that they can’t put Magnussen next to Adrian, and yet they still put him in the lead off.
the bigger blunder was the 4×200 Prelims. they should have qualified easily, and yet they put in mckeon who was horrendous in the 400 free and they put all four who never had international relay experiences, while they could have asked any of: harrison, mcevoy or fraser holmes to sub, and they would have qualified easily.
I hope they don’t make blunder in the mens 400 medley relay.
in the final, they should swim dorsogna to swim fly instead of wright, as dorsogna has much beter relay experiences.
> “The Australians sprinters are back on top of the world!”
Is this why Australian coaches can keep their heads?
The last time a country has #1 male and female sprinters (WRs and gold medals) was The Netherlands in 2000 with Inge De Bruijn and Pieter Van Den Hoogenband.
Well, Australia had Sullivan and Trickett in 2008 too (WRs by both), but both won only silvers in 100.