Bree’s personal best ideal boost ahead of 200m
His time of 1:01.76 beat his own national record which he set at 1:01.83 and while it was good enough for second place in the heat behind Mike Brown (Canada), 1:00.98, it was not good enough to get him back into the pool for yesterday’s semi-finals.
“I am pretty happy with it,” he said. “It is a small personal best but obviously not good enough to get me through to the semi-finals.
“But it is my first swim out of the way and I am now looking forward to Tuesday (200m). Again I was concerned about a few things. In particular, my finish was a wee bit ugly. But then this was the 100 and not all of my work was geared towards it. I’ll probably find on Tuesday I will go out in the 200 and I’ll be really smooth.”
Michael Phelps had just set the first of his world records as he spoke and he concurred with the general consensus that there will be some really fast times set in this pool.
“It is a fast pool and it feels good,” he said. “There are definitely a couple of hundredths of a second I could have improved on.
“Tonight I felt pretty good. I feel strong. All my work has been geared for the 200m so, after that, I am getting pretty excited.
“I am very happy and I’ll sleep good tonight. Then I’ll rest up and get back at it. I have two days. I have had some very good swims in training and I am pretty excited about getting out and doing the 200.
“It’s great to be back in the Olympic pool again. And it is just great to be here especially after all the craziness of this year — good to be racing against the best in the world.
“I was just a teenager in Sydney — 19-years-of-age — and I did not know what I was doing. I was a bit of a rookie. But the eight years have gone by really, really fast — so fast it’s scary. I’ll probably be back talking to you all again in London, who knows.”
Aisling Cooney definitely had London on her mind when she made her Olympic debut in the women’s 100m backstroke last night. She finished seventh in her heat in 1:02.50, marginally outside her best time, but she, too, was more than happy with the performance pointing out that she had learned a lot from it.
“I went out really, really fast — 30 seconds dead at the turn — and that is definitely the fastest split I have ever done,” she said. “Now I just have to learn how to come back faster — it gives me something to work on.”
And the future is what her performance and her very presence in Beijing is all about having been selected on a B standard with London 2012 in mind.
“I feel I have already learned a lot out here,” she said. “Looking at all the other really, really talented people here they have been so happy and relaxed and focused. I know that’s the key thing to do. That’s what gets them to where they want to go.
“The Olympics are so different from any other competition. The atmosphere is so much different. Being in the call room I thought I was going to get really scared but it wasn’t actually like that at all — not the huge pressure I expected — so that’s good. But I need to know that it can be the other way — that there can be a lot of pressure. So I have to look out for that kind of stuff and, at the same time, focus on what I want to do.
“There is so much more to do and so much to come and so many other big competitions. They all are stepping stones to the next Olympics. Hopefully I will learn from all those competitions too. I feel this is definitely the start of something. I am still only 18 so I have so much to keep going for.
“Come London I feel I will be quite used to the atmosphere in the Village. I am enjoying it at the moment. All the big stars are there, maybe getting a bit starstruck, so I should have definitely got all that out of my system. I’m already looking forward to London.”
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