Dutchman Jacco Verhaeren has been at the helm of the Australian National Swimming Team since October 2013, helping the squad weather the post-London Olympic scandal storm and pointing the nation back towards its traditionally talent-heavy, powerhouse path.
But even when the green and gold carried three double World Champions into the 2016 Olympic Games in the form of Mitch Larkin, Bronte Campbell and Emily Seebohm, plus the fastest 100m frestyler ever in a textile suit, Cameron McEvoy, this elite cluster only produced one individual silver among them in Rio.
Overall as a team, the Australians won 3 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze in the medal standings, but fell well short of the medal haul for which Swimming Australia leadership was hoping. Since the Games, such leadership has conducted a thorough review of the culture, training and coaching involved with the Olympians who stemmed from throughout Australia. Verhaeren himself reportedly made the rounds to the 19 coaches who had a hand in each Olympic swimmer’s career leading up tot the Games, conducting a debriefing of sorts with each.
The Australian reports that future competition calendar and allocation of podium centre funding decisions would be made as a result of Verhaeren’s coaching visits, but one change concerning the Australian Trials for the 2017 World Championships has already been announced.
Next year’s National Championships, which double as the Trials for Worlds, will be reduced from the meet’s traditional 8-day program to just 5 days, according to The Australian. Additionally, the now-5-day competition will only have heats and finals, skipping the semi-final step which has been a part of the meet for years. Swimmers must now prove themselves immediately in the heats, as only the final 8 move on to the finals, eliminating the mid-step of semi’s.
As to this new format, Verhaeren says he doesn’t believe that the Trials’ traditional practice of prelims/semi-finals/finals ‘was preparing the swimmers for the competition they would fact at the international level’. “We don’t have the depth to have making semi-finals a real challenge for the top athletes, so we want to put more pressure on the heats’, resulting in ‘more hardened competitors.’ Verhaeren insists that this decision was made prior to the 2016 Olympics.
Expect more changes to ripple through the entirety of Swimming Australia, as last March, Verhaeren already announced that Aussie swimmers set to compete at the Commonwealth Games in 2018 will be pre-selected. This is a radical change from the traditional process in place for 40 years, where swimmers earn the Games’ roster spots via specific trials, akin to qualifying for the Olympics via trials.
At the time, Verhaeren said he saw the new, experimental selection process is simply an alternative, saying “it’s worth considering if this is ultimately the best system to select a team.”
Ditch the semis to create hardened competitors?
Surviving two tiers of elimination creates more hardened competitors than just one. Sure, heats don’t threaten the alpha competitors, but the pressure Verhaeren cites will come in the semis anyway.
Is this the best coaching admin can come up with? It will probably fool the bureaucratic paymasters Verhaeren is answerable to, but any coach can see this is just shuffling the deck chairs of the Titanic.
The heats/final/semis issue is the tiniest aspect of our overall approach to success, anyway. Verhaeren is simply tinkering at the edges to appease scrutiny.
His statement on the new selection process – “It is worth considering if this is ultimately the best system… Read more »
“We need more quality racing”
so, get rid of Semi’s ?
Better for the top end, but RIP juniors with semis in their sights
That’s Verhaeren for you. He gears everything towards the elite few, whilst basically the rest of the country suffers.
Given the timing of the 2018 Commonwealth Games it seems like an opportunity to test a different method since the games are at the same time as the trials would normally happen. Maybe use the 3rd slot for the top swimmer at Jr Worlds.