Former 100m freestyle world champion James Magnussen has questioned Australia’s tactics in the relays at the world championships and last year’s Olympics, suggesting that the fastest swimmer should always lead off.
A strong Australia squad has yet to claim a swimming gold medal at the Budapest championships, winning a silver and bronze in the women’s relays and none at all in the men’s.
Twice world champion Magnussen, who helped Australia to an Olympic bronze in the 4x100m relay in Rio de Janeiro, skipped the meet to focus on next year’s Commonwealth Games and has been unimpressed by the strategy deployed by the coaches.
“The relays are really confusing me this meet and they did again in Rio,” Magnussen told Fox Sports TV yesterday. “The other countries are leading off with their fastest swimmers, putting leads on the rest of the field and then coming home strong to win the gold.”
“In each of the relays so far Australia has failed to lead off with their fastest swimmers, have been behind from the first leg and have then failed to feature in the medals in a couple of those events,” he said.
The men’s 4x100m team, who swam the second-fastest time in the heats, despite the absence of Magnussen and Olympic sprint champion Kyle Chalmers, were unable to get on the podium.
“It really does confuse me that ... we had Cameron McEvoy, our fastest swimmer, swimming the third leg and by the time it got to him we were already in fourth or fifth position,” Magnussen said. “There’s not much you can do swimming in that, what we call, messy water when you’re behind.”
“So I’d like to see Australia lead off with out fastest swimmers and even if we don’t win a medal, at least at the end of the race we could say we were in with a shot.”
“I’m sure there are swimmers within those teams that are frustrated with the order and selection of those relay teams and I’m sure they’d be feeling the same way I did last year at the Rio Olympics,” he said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but