Bertrand Says Aussies “Aim To Be No. 1” By 2020

Australians take tremendous pride in the success of their national swimming team; Shane Gould, Dawn Fraser, Susie O’Neill, Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett and Murray Rose are sporting royalty and household names in the Land Down Under.

John Bertrand AM, President of Swimming Australia, is determined to create a structure that will not only add more names to that list, but also develop Australia into the world’s top swimming nation.

“By 2020, and this is the big vision, we aim to be the No. 1 swimming nation in the world, from the Olympic podium and Paralympic podium through to grassroots,” said Bertrand in his President’s message which was published on the Inside the Games website.

Bertrand pointed to the Americans as the benchmark of excellence in the sport after they collected 16 gold, 6 silver and 9 bronze in London.

“It’s a huge challenge.”

“It is an exciting challenge.”

It certainly is.

The Australians finished seventh in the medals standings in London coming home with 1 gold, 6 silver and 3 bronze, their worst showing since the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. Recently this is an unfamiliar position for the Australians, but it was not too long ago that they suffered an even bigger disappointment, earning three medals, 1 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze, at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.

It was after those games that the Australian brass brought Don Talbot back to his homeland to change the culture within the sport and to pursue the same goal that Bertrand now has; to become the No. 1 swimming nation in the world. Talbot came in with an uncompromising and unrelenting attitude, he reorganized the structure of the sport and changed expectations.

He wasn’t always popular, but he got results.

In 1992 the Australians finished sixth in the medal standings with 1 gold, 3 silver and 5 bronze. By the 2000 Olympics in Sydney they finished in second place to the United States, winning 5 gold, 9 silver and 4 bronze compared to the Americans who collected 14 gold, 8 silver and 11 bronze.

The moment of triumph for the Talbot regime came at the 2001 World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan when the Australians found themselves on top of the medal standings and were the No. 1 swimming nation in the world. In Japan the Australians won 13 gold, 4 silver and 6 bronze. The Chinese finished second with 10 gold, 6 silver and 4 bronze followed by the United States that collected 9 gold, 9 silver and 8 bronze.

Talbot retired after Fukuoka and the team now finds themselves in a similar position to when he took over 25 years ago.

After disappointing results in London and suffering public embarrassment due to the behaviour of not only their athletes out of the water, but the organization’s leadership, the face of Australian swimming has changed dramatically.

Swimming Australia hired Mark Anderson as their CEO, Michael Scott as their High Performance Director and Jacco Verhaeren as their National Team Head Coach. Bertrand himself only took over as the President of Swimming Australia in August of last year.

“Swimming Australia has certainly undergone major change,” said Bertrand, who won Olympic sailing bronze at Montreal 1976, and skippered the Australia II yacht to victory in the 1983 America’s Cup.

“We have undertaken reviews, evaluations, strategic thinking, planning and preparation.”

“As a result we have introduced new personnel, structures, programmes, values and beliefs.”

“We are in the business of creating a high-performance team to lead our sport, in and out of the pool.”

“To achieve the vision of world best in high performance, we have formed a team led by Michael Scott and Jacco Verhaeren.”

“In Jacco’s short time in Australia he has already started to make an impression.”

“He talks about process and the only expectation that he has, and that is, that athletes and coaches do everything they can to ensure the process is right.”

It took 12 years for Talbot to take the Australians to the top of the swimming world, Swimming Australia’s new leadership group looks to match that accomplishment in eight.

As Bertrand stated, “It’s a huge challenge.”