Things you miss out on overseas...

I totally forgot about the Australian National Swimming competiton was happening over the last few days in sydney..

I love Swiming, and all things about it...

I hate the fact that i wasn't there this year for the olympic trials, i've been every year for the last 13 years... whether competing or just cheering on those i knew... or just oggling the male specimens!!

i was gutted to find out i missed the excitment of trials...

i was just catching up on all the goss... when on earth did libby lenton get married?
had me confused for a bit reading the gossip about this Libby Trickett, before clicking that it must be lenton...
i love her, she's just an awesome person all round, and swims fantastically too..

and look at little Stephanie rice, (little no more) how awesome was she in the both the 200 & 400 IM settting world records and such...

and finally it looks as if we've got someone decent to represent in the women's backstroke..

I think our best so far has been Nicole Stevenson, and she was 7th if i remember correctly, pretty sure Rooney crashed and burned at all the major events..

and on the coaching side, it's good to see Alan Thompson up there being head coach, he's been part of much scrutiny in his career

poor Matty welsh though, anouncing his retirement after not qualifying.. bit of a prat in real life, but definitely a fine specimen to gaze longingly at on pool deck... mmmm

i was there the night Sam Riley announced her retirement, after coming third in the 100 breastroke, everyone was on their feet for her, and it was all rather emotional..

It'd be awful to come so close to qualifying and missout by just a few hundredths of a second... but that is life...

By the looks of the times these guys were swimming, (with 8 world records at the trials, and these guys are in heavy training), ... seems there might be more than a few medals for the taking, looks as if everyones on par to do well and the relay teams look promising too,
I cant wait to see how they all go

just going to have to work out where i'll have to go to catch most of the action... possibly might have to bring myself to enter an aussie pub, in order to get the aussie athletes!

The Australian swimming team 2008

Angie Bainbridge
4 x 200m Freestyle - Women
Bronte Barratt
400m Freestyle - Women
Grant Brits
4 x 200m Freestyle - Men
Leith Brodie
200m Individual Medley - Men
Ashley Callus
50m Freestyle - Men
Cate Campbell
50m Freestyle - Women
Alicia Coutts
200m Individual Medley - Women
Nick D'arcy
200m Butterfly - Men
Lara Davenport
4 x 200m Freestyle - Women
Ashley Delaney
200m Backstroke - Men
Sophie Edington
100m Backstroke - Women
Nicholas Ffrost
4 x 200m Freestyle - Men
Sally Foster
200m Breaststroke - Women
Felicity Galvez
4 x 200m Freestyle - Women
Grant Hackett
400m Freestyle - Men
Samantha Hamill
400m Individual Medley - Women
Belinda Hocking
200m Backstroke - Women
Leisel Jones
200m Breaststroke - Women
Andrew Lauterstein
100m Butterfly - Men
Linda MacKenzie
400m Freestyle - Women
Alice Mills
4 x 200m Freestyle - Women
Kenrick John Monk
200m Freestyle - Men
Patrick Murphy
4 x 200m Freestyle - Men
Meagen Nay
200m Backstroke - Women
Travis Nederpelt
400m Individual Medley - Men
Kirk Palmer
4 x 200m Freestyle - Men
Kylie Palmer
800m Freestyle - Women
Adam Pine
100m Butterfly - Men
Shayne Reese
4 x 200m Freestyle - Women
Stephanie Rice
200m Individual Medley - Women
Brenton Rickard
200m Breaststroke - Men
Jessicah Schipper
200m Butterfly - Women
Melanie Schlanger
4 x 200m Freestyle - Women
Emily Seebohm
100m Backstroke - Women
Christian Sprenger
200m Breaststroke - Men
Nicholas Sprenger
200m Freestyle - Men
Craig Stevens
400m Freestyle - Men
Hayden Stoeckel
200m Backstroke - Men
Eamon Sullivan
50m Freestyle - Men
Matthew Targett
100m Freestyle - Men
Lisbeth Trickett
50m Freestyle - Women
Tarnee White
100m Breaststroke - Women

There's some oldies in there but also a sea of new faces... It's so exciting... i love the Olympics... not long now!