Australian swimming’s glamor couple, Stephanie Rice and Eamon Sullivan, have split up just before the Olympic Games, but insist their preparations have not been affected.
Sullivan is the 50m freestyle world record holder and Rice set world marks in the 200m and 400m individual medley earlier this year, although the latter has since been eclipsed.
Both are considered hot medal contenders in Beijing.
PHOTO: AP
“It was a mutual decision. We decided to take a break to allow us to focus entirely on the Olympics,” Sullivan said yesterday in Kuala Lumpur, where the Australian team are training and acclimatizing.
“If it was going to distract us in any way then we wouldn’t have made that decision. We’re still friends and I don’t regret anything that I have done over the past two years,” he said.
He added that no one else was involved.
PHOTO: AP
Asked if they would resume the relationship after the Games, he said: “You never know what the future holds, but we are not thinking about that at the moment.”
Rice, 20, and Sullivan, 22, were hailed as Australia’s sporting power couple in the lead up to the Olympics, with marketing experts predicting a successful Games would lead to millions of dollars in sponsorships.
Party photos of the pair — showing Rice in a series of raunchy poses — helped build their image and they were back on Australia’s front pages this month promoting a new underwear brand.
Despite the love split, which was announced on their Facebook pages, Australian head coach Alan Thompson insisted yesterday both were professional enough to maintain their focus and denied it had affected the rest of the team.
“It doesn’t concern anyone else in the team, it’s not a nasty break-up, it’s a mutual decision between two kids,” he said. “I haven’t spoken to them about it much because I don’t think it is my business unless it disrupts the team and it hasn’t done that.”
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