Bree not far off the mark
He knocked over two seconds off his old national record on Tuesday evening when he won his heat in 2:10.91 which got him through to the semi-finals. And he returned to the Olympic Aquatic Centre yesterday morning to reduce his record to 2:10.16 for fifth place behind the world record holder, Kosuke Kitajima (Japan) who reduced the Olympic record to 2:08.61.
It was a career best performance for Bree but he admitted he was surprised at the overall standard.
“Today you had to be in the 2:10 and under club to be in the top eight,” he said. “There were a lot of 2:09 highs today.
“But I have to be happy with my own performance. I know I am going to look at it now and see something I could have improved on, but that’s a learning experience.
“I felt pretty good — relaxed. I don’t know what my splits were but hopefully my last 50 was faster than last night because that’s what the plan was — to bring it back a wee bit harder. I am up there now with a lot of fast swimmers and I can only improve. I feel that I have really just tapped into my potential.
“No way anyone would have predicted that it was going to take 2:09 to make the final. An Australian coach said to me yesterday that 2:10 low would definitely make the final and I was not thinking I have to do that, I was just thinking swim fast, swim fast. But it just shows the standard. Now that you have got those guys on 2:08 it is very difficult to make a final.
“But this has been a very positive Games for me. It is just unfortunate that they only come around every four years. It is good in terms of getting my name out there and being up in the mix.
“The world championships in Rome next June is another opportunity for me to get after it. I feel good in this company. I feel like I am starting to learn how to take care of it and how to get into it. Obviously there is a slight disappointment there at not having made the final but I can’t dwell on that because it’s all done and dusted.”
He admitted he had gone through a traumatic period in the lead up to the Olympic Games after testing positive for a banned medication which he unknowingly took in an inhaler he was using for a head cold.
“It has been a pretty crazy year on account of that,” he said. “But I did not let it creep too much into my reality in terms of not focusing on it.
“From day one when this thing happened, my coach kept telling me I was going to Beijing — just train like you are going to Beijing. It almost spurred me on to train faster and better than ever.
“It just seemed around that time — the start of April — everything started to come together. We moved into a new facility and I started recovering better after practices and I started training better.
“The fact that I was in Knoxville and not dealing with the media and all that I was able to detach myself from it. I was just focusing on what I was doing. I knew at the end of the day I would not get into trouble for using a Vicks vapour inhaler the size of my small finger. There are a lot worse cases going on.
“Maybe it’s bad because my name will probably be associated with it. But that’s not my worry. If people want to think that they can think it.”
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