Year off makes a world record of difference
AUSTRALIAN swimming head coach Jacco Verhaeren fully supported Cate Campbell’s decision to have a year off after Rio and said the result of the break spoke for itself following her shortcourse world record last week.
Campbell, 25, returned to racing for the first time since her 2016 Olympic disappointment by breaking the 100m freestyle world record at the national shortcourse championships in Adelaide.
The Queenslander swam 50.25 sec to take 0.33 sec off the mark and showed she had regained the hunger before the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in April.
“A world record is always special and the margin in which she breaks it after a season where she made some different decisions for all the right reasons is great to see her back on that level,” Verhaeren said.
“I think she is very excited and she should be after breaking a world record, but more importantly she is really enjoying racing and training.
“She’s going to do some World Cups as well and to create that hunger again and feel like ‘I’ve got this, I can race’, that has been very important for her.”
Verhaeren said he was pleased with the three days of racing in Adelaide which also featured strong performances from Emily Seebohm, Emma McKeon, David Morgan and Kyle Chalmers who claimed his first senior national title in the 100m freestyle.
Gold Coast star Cameron McEvoy and Mitch Larkin were among those to skip the short course titles but McEvoy will return to racing at the next two World Cup meets in Beijing and Tokyo.