What Now For Aussie Swimming?

Aussie swimmers have done a tremendous job in the pool at the Beijing Olympic Games, bringing home a total of 20 medals. Head Coach Alan Thompson talks about how they did it and the future of Australian swimming.

Triple gold medallist Stephanie Rice helped Australia maintain its tradition of Olympic success in the pool.

Editorial Review

Australia's success in swimming has long been a cornerstone of our Olympic identity. We haven't always won many medals in other sports, but there's always swimming.

In fact nearly half of Australia's Olympic gold medals - 58 of 137 - have come in the swimming pool.

When the Australian Olympic Committee named the top 50 Olympians of all time, 18 were swimmers.

With the retirement of gold-medal-winning machine Ian Thorpe, backstroke specialist Matt Welsh and Michael Klim (amongst others) following the Athens Games, no-one was really sure what we should expect from the swim team in Beijing.

So bringing home 20 medals, a record for a single Games, is a huge effort.

Add to that the fact that 33 of the 42 swimmers in the team are coming home with medals, and it's little wonder that swimming is front and centre in Australia when the Olympics are on - and at plenty of other times, too.

Head coach Alan Thompson says a plan was put in place more than three years ago to make relays a focus, and it's paid off.

"It's the first time any Australian team has achieved a medal in every relay and it's the first time that an Australian relay team has backed-up, winning at two Olympics in a row - that was our women's medley," he said.

Thompson also says that Australia will continue to be an all-round swimming nation, not concentrating on one or two strokes, or men's or women's programs, as some countries have.

"We've now set the bar higher for ourselves so we have to work even harder over the next four years to work towards our goal of being the Number One swimming team in the world."

Now that's no easy task. In Beijing, the USA won 12 gold medals, nine silver and 10 bronze in the pool, while the Aussies collected six, six and eight.

And 19 different nations were represented on the medal-winners list, so the swimming world is bigger than it's ever been.

As a footnote, Australia's most successful Olympics for swimming was actually Melbourne in 1956, when we won eight gold medals. At that time, there were only 13 available, compared to 32 now.

Murray Brust in Beijing for Citysearch

View Citysearch's TV guide for details of Olympic Games coverage.