Australia’s swimmers have admitted they buckled under pressure and underestimated how much their rivals had improved at the London Games after the squad picked up just a solitary gold as part of a 10-medal haul in the pool.
“As much as you think you’re ready for it, the difference between world championships and the Olympics is a hundred times more pressure,” freestyle specialist Eamon Sullivan told reporters on Thursday.
“We under-prepared for the expectations of the pressure and the experience of the Olympics and, unfortunately, it’s a bad time to learn lessons,” he added. “But for the next Olympics, if it’s the same team, it’ll be a different result.”
Photo: AFP
A powerhouse at previous Games, the swimming team usually gets the country off to a flying start in the first week of the Olympics, often contributing a major share of Australia’s medals.
The lone success at the London Aquatics Centre, in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay, was considered a catastrophe for a team which only four years earlier in Beijing had won six golds and 20 medals in the pool.
Australia finished 10th on the overall medals table at the July 27 to Aug. 12 Games with seven golds, 16 silvers and 12 bronzes.
“We’ve been obsessed with gold and other medals have lost their value,” argued Cate Campbell, one of the successful women’s relay team. “I can’t see the shame in having one other person in the entire world beating you.”
“It’s a tough field out there, everyone is racing incredibly fast, the world has taken a gigantic leap in swimming,” Campbell said. “We’re seeing world records from the [now banned] supersuits being broken, which lots of us thought wouldn’t happen in our lifetimes. It’s happened in a few short years.”
However, Australia’s poor return has prompted officials to launch a thorough review of what went wrong in London.
Sullivan said Australia had been “caught napping,” somewhat of an understatement considering the last time they failed to win a single individual swimming medal was at the 1976 Montreal Games.
He also said that negative press had made things harder for a team no longer able to look to titans such as Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett to lead them at major meetings.
“The younger guys do read the media and take it to heart,” Sullivan said. “It can really affect their emotional state and makes it hard to get back up when it feels like everyone’s against you. At the end of the day, we did the best we could. That’s all we could ask for.”
Brazil has four teams, more than any other country, in the expanded Club World Cup that kicked off yesterday in the US, but for SE Palmeiras, the competition holds a special meaning: winning it would provide some redemption. Under coach Abel Ferreira since 2020, Palmeiras lifted two Copa Libertadores titles, plus Brazilian league, cup and state championships. Even before Ferreira, it boasted another South American crown and 11 league titles. The only major trophy missing is a world champions’ title. Other Brazilian clubs like Fluminense FC and Botafogo FR, also in the tournament, have never won it either, but the problem for Palmeiras
Paris Saint-Germain’s Lee Kang-in has pleaded with South Korea fans to get behind the team at the 2026 FIFA World Cup after more boos were aimed at coach Hong Myung-bo despite leading them to qualification. South Korea reached next year’s finals in North America without losing a game, but that does not tell the whole story. The country’s soccer association has been in the firing line, having scrambled about to find a successor after sacking the unpopular Jurgen Klinsmann in February last year. They eventually settled on Hong, the decorated former skipper who had an unsuccessful stint as coach in 2013-2014, during which
Lionel Messi drew vast crowds and showed flashes of his brilliance when his Inter Miami side were held to a goalless draw by African giants Al-Ahly as the revamped FIFA Club World Cup got off to a festive start on Saturday. Fans showed up en masse for the Group A clash at the Hard Rock Stadium, home to the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, but Messi could not fully deliver, his best chance coming through a last-second attempt that was deflected onto the crossbar. Inter Miami next face FC Porto on Thursday in Atlanta, while Al-Ahly, who benefited from raucous, massive support, are to
Ferrari’s F1 fortunes might be flagging, but the Italian team start this weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans as favorites, targeting a third consecutive triumph in motorsport’s fabled endurance classic. Roger Federer is acting as celebrity starter with the tennis icon getting the 93rd edition of the jewel in four-wheeled endurance racing’s crown under way tomorrow. Twenty-four hours later, through daylight, darkness and dawn, the 21 elite hypercars are to battle it out over 300 laps (more than 4,000km) in front of a sold-out 320,000 crowd burning the midnight oil with copious quantities of coffee and beer. Ferrari made a triumphant return after
RSS