BIRMINGHAM, England: Australian swimmers basked in a dominating performance at the Commonwealth Games on Thursday, but only for a moment as they eye the big prize – the Paris 2024 Olympics.
After bringing their senior team of Olympic and world record holders to Birmingham, the Australians besieged the Sandwell Aquatic Center and won nearly half (65) of the 156 medals on offer, including 25 of the 52 gold medals.
While their efforts lit up the Sandwell Aquatic Center, the Australian swimmers moved on quickly, some returning to the practice pool on Thursday and others making their way home to prepare for the pool duel on August 20-21 against the Arch rivals USA prepare in Sydney.
“Everything I do now is for Paris,” said Ariarne Titmus, winner of four gold medals at Birmingham. Every meeting I make takes me to Paris.
“That’s what I’m thinking about.”
And so is every member of the Australian team.
There were podium finishes, a world record in the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay and a mountain of medals to show, but with a number of top swimming nations like the USA absent from Birmingham, team management viewed the performance as an Olympic one Lens.
“It was always a stepping stone to Paris. Paris is the next big thing,” said Australia team spokesman Ian Hanson. “That was our problem, in the past we focused too much on the events in between and not on the big picture.”
What the Commonwealth Games and the World Championships in June showed is that the swimming competition in Paris could produce some of the biggest competitions of the last Olympic Games.
Already some are predicting that the women’s 400m freestyle could be the most hyped race since the ‘race of the century’ at the Athens 2004 Olympics than Michael Phelps, Ian Thorpe, Pieter van den Hoogenband and Grant Hackett met in the 200m freestyle final.
Two years later, all signs point to a classic: American Katie Ledecky, long the dominant force in women’s freestyle, meets Titmus, who snatched her 400m world record.
At the Summer Games in Tokyo, Titmus took gold in the 200 and 400 m while Ledecky took first place on the podium in the 800 and 1,500 m.
Summer McIntosh, the 15-year-old Canadian winner of six medals in Birmingham, is also expected to be in contention for gold and perhaps another Australian threat will be 18-year-old Mollie O’Callaghan.
“There’s a lot of hype about it (her rivalry with Ledecky) because it’s such an amazing rivalry,” Titmus said. “Who would have thought that two women could swim as fast as we do over the 400 meters at the same time.
“It doesn’t matter to me who I’m racing against, whether it’s Katie or Summer or anyone else in the field.
“I’m going to prepare with the confidence that hopefully I can go into any race knowing I’m good enough to win.”