Swim: Coach back to haunt Aussie swimmers
By Janelle Miles and Laine Clark
MANCHESTER, Aug 1 AAP - Australian coach Bill Sweetenham's defection to English rankshas come back to haunt Australia's swimming team at the Commonwealth Games.
Sweetenham, Australia's former national youth coach, has done a remarkable job of resurrectingEnglish swimming since his appointment as Great Britain's national performance director.
He took over the reins after the Brits' disastrous Sydney Olympics where they finishedwithout a medal for the first time since the 1930s.
Within 12 months, Sweetenham had resuscitated British swimming to the point where theyequalled their best previous effort at last year's world titles in Japan with one gold,two silver and four bronze.
And his expertise has clearly lifted the English to a whole new level at the Commonwealth Games.
At the halfway mark of competition, England had six gold medals - one more than theirentire tally from the 1998 Kuala Lumpur Games.
And the third night of competition produced a wonderful gold medal duel between theworld champion Aussies and the English, with the Australians winning 5-4 thanks in partto Ben Austin's world record swim in the one disabled event.
The four golds was England's greatest result from one night of a major championship.
"You've got to give a lot of credit to Bill Sweetenham," English backstroker SarahPrice said after powering to a gold medal in the 100m over Australians Dyana Calub andGiaan Rooney.
"He's told us that the Ian Thorpes of this world are beatable. The major part of Bill'ssuccess is team bonding. We have more team meetings. I think we are much more togetheras a team under him."
The Sweetenham factor has also clearly been a talking point in the Australian camp this week.
"We knew they were on the way up. They fell in a hole there for a while but with Billtaking over, he had a lot to prove coming from Australia," said world butterfly championGeoff Huegill after his 50m `fly win.
"We knew they would target us at this meet. They've proved they're going to be theones to beat in the next couple of years."
The new self-belief in the English camp was mirrored by James Goddard who started thethird night English charge with the 200m backstroke gold.
"We have given Australia a good scare - as a team we have shocked them big time becausewe have got a few golds and a world record," said Goddard.
The good news is that the English resurgence has also revived the Commonwealth Gamesswimming competition which was in danger of becoming boring with the Aussies annihilatingthe opposition at every Games for more than a decade.
Like in KL four years ago when Australia won 23 of the 32 gold medals.
Australia will still clearly dominate the Manchester medal table, but it won't be asembarrassing.
The days of Australia winning almost everything appear to be gone and it can only begood for the sport.
"A lot of people have underestimated the strength of some of the other teams and justpresumed that Australia would make a whitewash of the competition and that was never goingto be the case," Thorpe said.
AAP jhm/lc/nh/md
KEYWORD: GAMES SWIM AUST NIGHTLEAD
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