Swimming Australia is holding a sprint relay at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra this week, which is an important pre-Olympic step. Swimming Australia head coach Leigh Nugent put the camp together to prepare the relays for a final run headed toward London.
This camp is especially important for the men’s 400 free relay, that will face a huge challenge to remain on top after winning the 400 free relay at last year’s World Championships.
The men’s camp will include James Roberts, Matt Targett, Eamon Sullivan, Tommaso D’Orsogna, Hayden Stoeckel, Daniel Arnamnart, Christian Sprenger and Jayden Hadler. The women’s group will include Cate Campbell, Brittany Elmslie, Yolane Kukla, Libby Trickett, Alicia Coutts, Emily Seebohm, Belinda Hocking, Leisel Jones and Jessicah Schipper.
The breadth of the invitees doesn’t narrow down relay expectations much. There are a few swimmers absent, including Brenton Rickard, Cameron McEvoy, Leiston Pickett and Melanie Schlanger, as they are on the annual Australia spring (their fall) hiatus on altitude training in Mexico.
But there’s one more big name absent from the camp. A huge name, in fact. And that’s the name in Australian sprint relays: James Magnussen. According to Swimming Australia’s official Twitter account, Magnussen has pulled out of the camp at the last-minute with a “chest infection,” and will instead stay home in Sydney to recover.
We’ve seen this story before. Mangussen was reported to be struck with a bout of pneumonia just prior to last year’s World Championships, and just a few weeks later became the fastest man ever in a textile swim suit.
He has since blown through that time, at this year’s Olympic Trials from a month ago, where he swam a 47.10 in the 100. He also found some serious 50 freestyle speed with a 21.74 that leads the world (at least prior to next week’s Maria Lenk Trophy).
But one could imagine that an illness at this point of the season, where he should be back in heavier-style training (though his in-season speed seems to indicate that he never really gets up to massive yardages) could be even more disruptive to the training cycle. Of course, by that same token, the fact that he’s never doing oversized yardage (like, for example, the Gators Swim Club might do in the states), a mid-season interruption wouldn’t be as disruptive come year’s end.
Brenton Rickard, Cameron McEvoy, Leiston Pickett and Melanie Schlanger