Schedule change irks Aussie coach

BEIJING — The rivalry in the pool between the United States and Australia may be missing controversial American Gary Hall Jr. in these Olympics, but it still has Australia's Alan Thompson.

The Aussies' head swim coach spiced up his team's introductory press conference Tuesday by throwing out some bulletin-board material and revisiting an issue he complained about two years ago - the new format for these games that will have the swimming finals in the morning instead of the more traditional nighttime races.

The move to morning swim finals allowed those high-profile races to be televised live in prime time in the United States by NBC, which paid in the neighborhood of $900 million for the rights to the Beijing Games.

That might be great for American TV viewers, but the Australian swim coach has other priorities.

"My problem with the schedule change is that money bought tradition in the sport," Thompson said Tuesday. "Whether the finals are in the morning or the afternoon doesn't really matter to us, our performance. We've done everything we need to do to be prepared for that. But I think in this day and age loyalty is very lacking in sport and I think that often money talks too loudly."

While he was at it, Thompson tossed a verbal volley toward the U.S 400-meter freestyle relay squad, which should include Michael Phelps, veteran Jason Lezak and Texas ex Garrett Weber-Gale.

"I think the French have been big improvers," Thompson said, "and I think that after their trials they're probably - well I'm sure - they're the favorites in the men's (400-meter) freestyle relay."

The Australians trotted out their big guns Tuesday: six world record-holders, four of them women.

Mark Schubert, the head coach and general manager of USA Swimming, has already conceded the favorite's role to the Aussie women with such stars as Lisbeth Trickett, Jessicah Schipper, Leisel Jones and Stephanie Rice.

"We just enjoy competing against the Australians because they just seem to be our natural rivals," Schubert said last weekend in Singapore. "When we have a chance to race them, we always seem to just relish in it. I think part of that has to do with how swimming is viewed in Australia, which for us, we're a little bit jealous of swimming getting that much attention."

One U.S. swimmer who had a knack for getting noticed Down Under was Hall. Now 33, the former Longhorn failed this summer in an attempt to make his fourth American Olympic team.

Perhaps his all-time best one-liner came in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, when he said he hoped the U.S. men's 400 freestyle relay team would smash the Australians like guitars. The Aussies won that race and then celebrated by playing air guitars on the pool deck.

With Hall now history, most of the Australian swimmers displayed their usual humbler-than-thou attitude Tuesday, not promising any gold medals or world records. Several Aussies, however, stand directly in the way of swimmers with Texas ties and medal hopes.

Much is being made of a showdown between U.S. star Katie Hoff and Rice, 20, in the 200 and 400 individual medleys. Those races, however, will also feature Kirsty Coventry, a volunteer assistant women's swim coach at UT who is swimming for Zimbabwe.

As Rice said, Coventry has been flying under the radar recently. Unlike Australia and the U.S., Zimbabwe had no need for Olympic swim trials, so Coventry didn't have to post an eye-popping time this year to get to Beijing.

Schippper's specialty is the 200 butterfly, an event incoming UT freshman Kathleen Hersey would like to own one day.

On the men's side, Australia's Eamon Sullivan will face Weber-Gale, among other challengers, in the 50 and 100 freestyle.

"I like to think that I always tend to find a little bit more up my sleeve every time I swim and I think that's what got me to where I am today," Sullivan noted. "But the Olympics is a whole different ball game."

Weber-Gale has said he has never raced Sullivan head-to-head, but it will also be the first time that Sullivan will swim individual events in the games. Sullivan said there are maybe eight to 10 swimmers who could win his events.

"This won't be a two-horse race," Thompson predicted. "I'm sure you'll see a spread of medals. It's going to take the fastest times we've ever seen to make the semis and maybe the fastest again to make the finals, so I think we're in for a pretty good meet."

John Maher writes for the Austin American-Statesman.