Change of lanes
emma.greenwood@news.com..au SWIMMING Australia will use a home Commonwealth Games to simulate the pressure athletes will face at the Olympics in a bid to have their team on song in Tokyo in 2020.
While the world championships are usually among the most intense meets of the fouryear cycle, Swimming Australia chief Mark Anderson said the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games was seen as a “pinnacle meet” in the fouryear cycle leading into Tokyo.
And while it will be more competitive, with swimming powers such as the US, Japan and the European nations present, this month’s world championships in Budapest is seen as a less important meet in the big picture.
“We’re taking a different approach across this cycle,” Anderson said.
“What we’re doing is looking to Tokyo and almost reverse engineering backwards.
“When we stared in the last Olympic cycle (leading into the 2016 Rio Games), we were having to rebuild and every time the team stepped up, we needed to show improvement and we understood that we needed to do that.
“In this cycle, we’re looking at Tokyo and what we need to do and clearly, the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games (is a key meet) and it’s about getting up for those pinnacle moments.”
Anderson said that did not “undersell the importance” of the world championships, where Australia will head to without a single athlete ranked No.1 in their discipline.
“(The world championships) gives our athletes high quality international experience that you just don’t get the chance to experience regularly,” Anderson said.
“So it’s an amazing opportunity for our athletes to perform with the best but less pressure going in, this is about the four-year cycle and the two pinnacle events.”
With Canada, England, Scotland and New Zealand all performing well on the world stage, the Commonwealth Games will not be the easy picking it once was for Aussies.
But Anderson said the biggest plus for the Gold Coast event was the increased pressure that would be on the athletes in a home Games and the chance to replicate what they will face in Tokyo in 2020.