Category: Australian Swimming

The Australian National Swim Championships promised a major dual-in-the-pool as Cameron McEvoy and Kyle Chalmers met in a highly-anticipated 100m freestyle final. McEvoy is the defending champion, winning the event in the last three national championships. Chalmers won the 100m freestyle gold medal at the Rio Olympics.

So who would win this bout?

Cameron McEvoy won the final to make it four straight championships for him. He also swam sub-48 seconds, registering a time of 47.91. Chalmers time wasn’t sub-48 but did beat the qualifying time for July’s World Championships in Budapest.

Read more about this exciting race here.

Dawn Fraser, the first woman to break a minute for 100 freestyle, is proposing a lifetime ban for the members of Australia’s 400 Freestyle relay after they admitted to taking pills before the London Olympics. The pills, Stilnox, is a sleeping pill that is not on the banned substance list.

Fraser, who spoke to reporters after receiving the honor of Australia’s greatest female sportswoman last night in a ceremony, said the lifetime ban would set a precedent for future punishments for all athletes who use prohibited substances.

“Those people who take drugs in sport should be banned forever, not to ever be allowed to come back into sport … especially in this example,” Fraser said.

Read the article…

Brooke Hanson, the Australian Olympic gold medalist, announced her retirement from swimming today. Her decision comes just nine months before the olympic games starts..

Hanson has struggled to recover after suffering an electric shock while demonstrating an Endless Pool, one of her main sponsors.

“I now know that my heart, my mind and my body have decided it is time for the next chapter in my life,” said Hansen.

At the 2004 Olympics, she won gold in the 4x100m medley relay and silver in the 100m breaststroke.

Related

Hanson loses desire to keep chasing
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
After an elite swimming career that goes back to 1994, when she made her first Australian team, Hanson, 29, yesterday announced she had decided against …
 
Australian swimmer Hanson retires
BBC Sport, UK
Australian Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer Brooke Hanson has retired nine months before the Beijing Games start. The 29-year-old made the decision to …
 
Olympic medal winner Hanson quits
CNN International
HOBART, Australia — Australian swimmer Brooke Hanson, who won gold and silver medals at the 2004 Olympics, has decided to retire, nine months before the …
 

It hasn’t taken Ian Thorpe long to find something to do with his spare time. Since hanging up his swim suit late last year, he has taken a keen interest in the environment.  He is presenting a show on FoxTel that gives him a chance to question experts about environmental issues.

“I’ve always been passionate about the environment and how we treat it, how we can do better, and the more I read and talk to experts, the more I realise we can really make a difference,” Thorpe says, with clear excitement in his voice.

Thorpe has filmed more than 800 hours of footage for a one-off Foxtel special called Fish Out of Water, in which viewers will share his journey of discovery about the Australian environment.

Source: The West Australian

Libby Lenton has retained a lawyer to appeal FINA’s decsions not to ratify her record-breaking 100m freestyle swim.  Lenton clocked a 52.99 in the Duel in the Pool exhibition meet between the US and Australian national teams in Melbourne.  This broke Britta Steffen’s current world standard of 53.30.

FINA refused to ratify the time as a world record because Lenton’s swim was a lead-off in a 4 x 100 mixed relay, which isn’t an event recognized by the governing body.

Lenton has retained the services of Tony O’Reilly, the same lawyer currently representing Ian Thrope in his battle to clear his name after a failed dope test.

Australian Swimming will start preparing for the Beijing Olympic format this weekend.  Several top-flight swimmers will compete at a Grand Prix meet in Brisbane which will have morning finals, like next year’s Olympics.  From the International Herald Tribune…

Lenton, Leisel Jones, who won the 100 and 200 breaststroke titles at Melbourne, and Jessica Schipper, second in the 100 butterfly to Lenton at the world titles, are entered in a Grand Prix meet beginning Friday at the Brisbane Aquatic Centre.

The three-day program will have 6 p.m. Friday qualifying ahead of 10 a.m. finals Saturday, followed by the same program Saturday evening and Sunday morning — the first time the format has been used in Australia.

Read the full article… 

The Australian grand prix at Brisbane from May 18-20 will offer the Dolphins their first taste of morning finals in preparation for the topsy-turvy world of Beijing 2008, one dictated by the IOC’s favouring of the US-TV dollar over the interests of the sport of swimming and its athletes.

Among those in action in Brisbane and on Europe’s Mare Nostrum Tour in May will be Grant Hackett, whose refusal to bow to the barriers life has recently thrown in his path does him great credit. Whether it will do his career any good long-term remains to be seen… read more

Source: SwimNews.com

Ian Thorpe has been granted more time to formulate his response to doping allegations.  

Thorpe and his lawyers had originally been give a late April deadline to provide an explanation for high readings of testosterone and luteinising hormone (LH) from a urine sample given last year.  However, the retired swimmer has been given an indefinite extension to submit this explanation to the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA)

Thorpe’s legal team are expected to present an unprecedented amount of detail to question the validity of current testing methods.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald,

“Medical experts have been asked to provide affidavits to support Thorpe’s claim that his testosterone ratio was naturally occurring. They have also provided written evidence that LH levels are unpredictable; that it is secreted by the body in spurts, and amounts fluctuate so wildly in individuals that recorded levels are meaningless.”

Libby Lenton suffered a double blow this week. Not only did FINA decide against to ratifying her world-record-breaking 100m freestyle, now Swimming Australia has decided that she won’t get the Aus $20,000 put up for any world-best times.

Lenton became the first female to break 53 seconds in her lead-off swim in a mixed 4 x 100m freestyle relay. Swimming head-to-head with Michael Phelps at the Duel in the Pool event, Lenton clocked a 52.99. FINA has refused to recognize the swim saying that the mixed relay is not an official FINA event.

Fujitsu, who sponsored the Duel in the Pool, said earlier this week that Lenton broken the record “fair dinkum” but that the decision to pay the Aus $20k prize money for notching a word-best time was in the hands of Swimming Australia.

However, Swimming Australia’s chief executive Glenn Tasker said that the money is not available and that the organization made a loss of Aus $150-200k.

“If you take all of the expenses of the meet — the pool, the security, the catering — the money we got from the sponsors doesn’t cover the cost of the meet.

“There are no dollars left. I don’t have the money.”

Tasker confirmed that Swimming Australia had been prepared to spend its own $20k, if FINA had ratified the swim as a world record. However, any chance of Lenton receiving the money left when FINA made its ruling.

While FINA has refused to recognize Libby Lenton’s record-breaking swim at the “Duel in the Pool” last month, Fujitsu – who sponsored the event – are willing to pay the Aus $20,ooo it offered up-front for world-best times.

Speaking with the Daily Telegraph, Fujitsu’s Marketing Manager, Miton Kaloudis, says:

 “We are happy to give the money … irrespective of what FINA says. The dollars are there for the taking but we don’t have that control.

“There was some suspicion at the time that the world record would not be recognized because it was in a mixed event. As far as we are concerned she fair dinkum broke that world record and we thought she would be recognized for that.”