Australia's golden week in pool vindication for nine-year overhaul

CANBERRA, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- A nine-year Swimming Australia recovery project has culminated in the country's best-ever performance in the pool at the Tokyo Olympics.

Australian swimmers won nine gold medals over nine days of competition at the Tokyo Aquatics Center - more than at the previous two games combined - breaking the previous record of eight swimming golds set at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne.

For governing body Swimming Australia, it represents vindication for a widespread overhaul of the sport.

Tokyo's triumph came nine years after the nadir of Australian swimming when the country won only one gold medal in the pool at the 2012 London Olympics, prompting a review that uncovered a "toxic" team culture that led to bullying and misuse of prescription drugs.

The review found there was "increasingly desperate emphasis on gold" within Swimming Australia and that athletes were left feeling "undefended, alone, alienated" in the absence of success.

It was a sobering moment for a sport that is more ingrained in Australia's culture than any other Olympic event, with Australians taught to swim at beaches, pools and schools from a young age.

According to the latest edition of AusPlay - an annual Sport Australia survey that measures participation in sports - swimming is the third most common form of physical activity undertaken by Australians behind only walking and attending gyms.

Because of the sport's popularity, Australian swimmers come under significantly more pressure to perform at the Olympics than athletes in any other field, making failures like 2012 untenable.

In the wake of what became known as the "Lonely Olympics" in 2012 where Australia only had one gold in the pool, Swimming Australia appointed a new president in John Bertrand, a former Olympic sailor turned sports administrator, to salvage the sport's reputation.

"Coming out of London the organization was broken and dysfunctional," Bertrand recently told The Age and Sydney Morning Herald (SMH).

"That was the reality of the situation. Where we are now is something that we can celebrate as a nation."

Despite stringent resistance to change within the loosely-governed sport, Bertrand - who was replaced as president by Kieren Perkins in 2020 - oversaw a significant culture shift within Australia's swimming hierarchy.

"There were a lot of naysayers, no question. There were a lot of very successful, old generation coaches and officials on the fringes who were shaking their heads at different times," he said.

In 2014 Jacco Verhaeren was brought in as Australia's head swimming coach - a role he held until stepping down for personal reasons in mid-2020.

After starting in the role Verhaeren identified structural weaknesses in how Australia prepared for major tournaments.

In the lead-up to the Rio Olympics, where Australians won three gold medals in the pool, there was a 16-week gap between the end of Australia's swimming trials and the start of the Games.

At Verhaeren's behest that gap was cut to about six weeks, with most swimmers going straight from trials in Adelaide to a training camp in northern Queensland before departing for Tokyo.

"I do really believe that at this point in time, the Australians are simply the best prepared team," the Dutch coach told SMH.

"What Australia has done in this moment is remarkable. Watching it on TV, I've seen a calm, confident team that knows exactly what they are doing."

Verhaeren and his second-in-command - and now successor - Rohan Taylor implemented a training program with a focus on relays that paid dividends, with Australia winning medals in six out of the seven relay events in Tokyo.

Having made significant changes to the team culture and training regime, Swimming Australia was left with one major missing piece of the puzzle; elite swimmers.

In Emma McKeon, it found its golden girl.

McKeon, from Wollongong south of Sydney, was 18 when she missed selection for the 2012 Olympic team.

In Tokyo, she became the first female swimmer in history to win seven medals at a single Olympics, taking home four golds and three bronzes.

It takes her career Olympic medal tally to 11 - two more than any other Australian in history.

After winning gold in the 50m freestyle and 4x100m medley relay on Sunday in both Olympic record times, McKeon paid tribute to her long-time coach Michael Bohl.

"I've been at these kind of meets before where I've been up and down, so I knew what to expect. I feel like me and Bohl prepared for that," she said on Sunday.

"I feel like it has been a bit of a rollercoaster getting a gold medal and trying to keep the emotions at bay. It will take a while to sink in because I've been focusing on myself to keep my cool."