Australian Olympic swim team & contrversies
John Heenan
The Australian swim team for Atlanta has been selected. This posting
lists the selected team with times swum by the selected swimmers at
Olympic events in the selection trials/Australian Open Champoionships.
Some comments are included. These trials/championships were sponsered
by telecommunications giant Telstra and have just finished.
44 team members were selected, apart from officials and other hanger
ons who were already booked onto the plane to Atlanta no matter what
happened (ah yes, that is the life). Those selected include a team
manager, an assistant team manager, eight coaches, 18 men swimmers and
16 women swimmers.
Australia is not allowed to field more than two swimmers in each
individual event at the Olympics (this may be contrary to the Olympic
charter).
The selected eight coaches are:
Glenn Beringen
John Carew
Jim Fowlie
Paul Hardman
Bill Nelson
Mark Regan
Brian Sutton
Brian Wilkinson
The selected swimmers are:
MEN WOMEN
Malcolm Allen Helen Denman
Simon Coombs Stacey Gartrell
Steven Dewick Julie Greville
Matthew Dunn Emma Johnson
Chris Fydler Angie Kennedy
Scott Goodman Haley Lewis
Toby Haenan Lisa Maree Mackie
Glen Housman Nadine Neumann
Michael Klim Susan O'Neill
Daniel Kowalski Elli Overton
Scott Logan Samantha Riley
Scott Miller Sarah Ryan
Ryan Mitchell Nicole Stevenson
Kieren Perkins Petria Thomas
Philip Rogers Karin Van Wirdum
Trent Steed Anna Windsor
Ian Van Der Wall
Jade Winter
The youngest team member is Emma Johnson at 16. The oldest are Philip
Rogers and Karin Van Wirdum. Of the 34 swimmers selected, 21 have not
participated at an Olympics before.
The times swum by selected swimmers at the selection trials are
indicated below.
Housman is being shouldered with reponsibility by the media to lead
the mens 4x200 metres freestyle relay team to a world record gold
medal for Australia.
The effect of not having Perkins on the swim team, if he had failed to
qualify, would have been widely regarded to have been devastating.
Perkins qualified for a place in the 1500 metres but failed to qualify
in the 400 metres. The media are pitching a business versus sentiment
battle to decide if Perkins will swim the 400 metres in place of
Malcolm Allen. The trials select a team. Both Perkins and Allen have
been selected for the Olympic team. The choice of two team members to
swim in any Olympic event can be taken from any of the team members,
not necessarily the events team members 'qualified' for. One
journalist has suggested a swim-off at Atlanta to decide if Allen
should be replaced by Perkins in the 400 metres. Allen's commitment
to his 'Olympic dream' makes it unacceptable to many that Allen is
replaced by Perkins in the 400 metres. 'The Sun-Herald' has reported:
"...his coach of 12 years, Bruce Sutton poured out his heart for his
protege.
""Mal is the real Aussie battler," Sutton said from the Homebush pool.
"He helped raise his brothers and sister and he had to walk more than
3km to train in the pool as well as attend his studies."
"The kid is the closest thing a coach could get to having a son. I've
helped him out financially ever since I've known him and you couldn't
get a better bloke.
"It tore my heart out when sections of the media suggested there
should be a swim-off [of the 400m] to sort out who is going to
Atlanta."
"Standing at more than 1.8m, with piercing blue eyes and shaved head,
Allen is a fearsome sight. But when he talks about the dramas
surrounding his defeat of Perkins he is almost shy."
Australians are aware of the deal made on behalf of Germany's
Franziska van Almsick with fellow team member Dagmar Hase which
enabled van Almsick to swim in 200 metres freestyle final at the last
world championships. Van Almsick won the final in world record time.
Perkins coach John Carew has stated Perkins is sick and will undergo a
medical examination following the trials. He has speculated Perkins
is suffering from an iron deficiency. The Sydney Morning Herald
reports Carew as saying Perkins's serum ferritin levels were "off the
card" two months ago. Carew has also stated Perkin's problems could
be "neuro-muscular". Perkins has made uncharacteristic statements,
possibily indicative of a psychological 'low state'. Last Friday's
Sydney Morning Herald reported Perkins as saying "One of the things
I've said for a lot of years throughout my swimming career is that
I've always wished I has a fast forward button so I could just hit
that button and get to the end of it," and "I wish it was all over.
Nothing's changed."
Scott Miller's time in the 100 metres butterfly of 52.56 was 0.02
seconds outside the current world record. Australia has a strong case
that Miller must be declared a coholder of the world record. I
challenge relevant authorities in Australia to do their duty to Miller
and Australia, and obtain coholder world record ratification of
Miller's time. I have dealt with the issue of the inappropriateness of
relying on timing tolerances to 0.01 seconds, given pool length
certification tolerances, on rec.sport.swimming and my FAQ 'FAQ HEENAN
SWIM' contains details. You can email me at
jo...@heenan.ironbark.id.au for a copy.
************************
The Australian Open Championships have just finished in Sydney at the
Homebush Complex (site of the 2000 Sydney Olympics) in the pool that
will be used for the Sydney 2000 Olympic swimming events.
The championships were sponsered by telecommunications giant Telstra.
I have been giving them a plug as I'm happy to say I've never had any
hassles with them.
These championships were used to apply selection criteria for
individual swimming events at Atlanta. The original criteria for
selection were possibly:
A. Finish in the first two and
B. Have swum with a time that is in world top eight (since Janaury 96?)
C. If B not satisfied then be judged likely to qualify for an Atlanta final?
These appear to have been relaxed, perhaps with a view to the 2000
Sydney Olympics.
Times swum by selected swimmers in non Olympic events have not been
included to avoid unnecessary confusion.
There are six relay events at the Olympics, three for men and three
for women:
4x100m Freestyle
4x100m Individual Medley
4x200m Freestyle
Normally the six fastest swimmers at trials in the 100m freestyle and
200m freestyle are selected for freestyle relay purposes.
Potential relay times will not be calculated due to the well known
starting advantage in relays of the last three relay legs.
Australia is not allowed to field more than TWO swimmers in each
individual event at the Olympics (this may be contrary to the Olympic
charter).
The times swum by selected swimmers in individual Olympic events they
finaled in follow. Swimmers who swum faster in some finals than
selected swimmers but were not selected are not listed. For example
Darren Lange and Brett Hawke both swum faster than Scott Logan in the
50 metres freestyle but neither were selected for the Olympic team.
AUSTRALIA IS ONLY ALLOWED TO FIELD TWO IN EACH INDIVIDUAL EVENT
MEN WOMEN
FREESTYLE
50m Chris Fydler 22.71 Karin Van Wirdum 25.79
Scott Logan 23.16 Sarah Ryan 26.18
Anna Windsor 26.70
Lisa Maree Mackie 26.73
Angie Kennedy 26.82
100m Chris Fydler 50.44 Susie O'Neill 56.24
Michael Klim 50.49 Julie Greville 56.48
Ian Van Der Wall 50.83 Sarah Ryan 56.58
Scott Logan 50.92 Lisa Maree Mackie 56.93
Angie Kennedy 57.34
Anna Windsor 57.34
Karin Van Wirdum 59.03
200m Michael Klim 1:48.94 Julia Greville 2:01.05
Daniel Kowalski 1:49.04 Susan O'Neill 2:01.06
Glen Housman 1:49.83 Anna Windsor 2:02.69
Ian Van Der Wall 1:50.39 Lisa Maree Mackie 2:03.01
Malcolm Allen 1:50.45 Emma Johnson ?
Matthew Dunn 1:50.63 Petria Thomas 2:03.80
Elli Overton 2:03.98
400m Daniel Kowalski 3:50.60 Haley Lewis 4:14.45
Malcolm Allen 3:51.60 Stacey Gartrell 4:17.21
Kieren Perkins 3:52.56 Emma Johnson 4:19.16
Glen Housman 3:56.66
800m Not a men's Olympic event Haley Lewis 8:36.72
Stacey Gartrell 8:38.45
1500m Daniel Kowalski 15:10.44 Not a women's Olympic event
Kieren Perkins 15:11.50
BACKSTROKE
100m Steven Dewick 55.68 Nicole Stevenson 1:02.08
Toby Haenen 56.81 Elli Overton 1:03.86
200m Steven Dewick 2:01.31 Nicole Stevenson 2:14.52
Toby Haenen 2:02.08
Malcolm Allen 2:05.84
BREASTROKE
100m Philip Rogers 1:02.66 Helen Denman 1:09.62
Jade Winter 1:03.40 Samantha Riley 1:09.79
Nadine Neumann 1:11.46
200m Ryan Mitchell 2:14.26 Nadine Neumann 2:29.65
Philip Rogers 2:14.26 Samantha Riley 2:31.12
BUTTERFLY
100m Scott Miller 52.56 Susan O'Neill 1:00.35
Michael Klim 53.51 Angie Kennedy 1:00.81
Scott Goodman 54.55 Petria Thomas 1:00.82
200m Scott Goodman 1:57.07 Susan O'Neill 2:08.78
Scott Miller 1:57.96 Petria Thomas 2:12.33
Trent Steed 2:02.40 Nadine Neumann 2:16.96
INDIVIDUAL MEDLEY
200m Simon Coombs 2:01.81 Elli Overton 2:16.26
Matthew Dunn 2:01.98 Emma Johnson 2:16.76
Michael Klim 2:05.31 Anna Windsor 2:17.19
Trent Steed 2:05.79 Lisa Maree Mackie 2:20.60
400m Matthew Dunn 4:17.65 Emma Johnson 4:43.92
Trent Steed 4:20.40 Elli Overton 4:48.73
Simon Coombs 4:23.47
--
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| John Heenan, Sydney Australia jo...@heenan.ironbark.id.au |
| John's WWW pages have the controversial SWIM FAQ (and speech!) |
| http://sydney.dialix.oz.au/~sad |
OrcaVideo
I appreciate your posting of the complete team.
To answer some of the question you raised,
1) all teams are only allowed to send two people per event.
2) Scott Logan was chosen obviously for the 4 x 100 free,
not for the 50m so it was irrelevant that the other
swimmer beat him in this event.
3) .02 is a measurable and reasonable differance to divide
world records with. You conclusion of maintaining that only the
Austrailian would be compromised by a pool length or timing inequity
overlooks that it is possible that given you assumptions that there could
be this big of a difference in the "course", it could also hold that in
reality, the Austrailian butterflyer was .02 slower and the present world
record holder is really .02 faster making their true difference .06. If we
are going to be absolute with our sport lets get real!
Congratulations to an old friend and a new friend.
Congrats to Jim Fowlie one of the coaches to make the team. If anyone in
austrailia who reads this knows Jim, tell him Mike said hello. I'd ask you
to tell him to write to me but that would be asking him to operate a
computer! Congrats to Scott Logan, a pioneer for Aussie Electronic
Swimming and obviously darn fast!!
Mike Sharadin
Scott Logan
In article <4m32k7$n...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, orca...@aol.com (OrcaVideo) says:
>
>I appreciate your posting of the complete team.
>
>To answer some of the question you raised,
>
> 1) all teams are only allowed to send two people per event.
> 2) Scott Logan was chosen obviously for the 4 x 100 free,
> not for the 50m so it was irrelevant that the other
> swimmer beat him in this event.
Just a followup to this... I will not be swimming the 50m free in Atlanta
unless I can get under the FINA time of 22.90 before July 1 and that will
be impossible for me because I will have to shave a taper again too close
to the Olympics so I have forgotten about the idea at present.
>Congratulations to an old friend and a new friend.
>Congrats to Jim Fowlie one of the coaches to make the team. If anyone in
>austrailia who reads this knows Jim, tell him Mike said hello. I'd ask you
>to tell him to write to me but that would be asking him to operate a
>computer! Congrats to Scott Logan, a pioneer for Aussie Electronic
>Swimming and obviously darn fast!!
Thanks Mike! :)
Scott!