Alicia Coutts looks to overcome issues and perform well at the Australian Nationals – Swimming news
Commonwealth Games five-time gold medallist, Alicia Coutts, is set to face her most talented rival, Stephanie Rice, at the Australian Open National Swimming Championships in Sydney.
The presence of her rival at the National Championships has given space to fear in Coutts’s heart, as she feels insecure of her titles at these championships. Coutts won five gold medals at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games while Stephanie Rice was unable
to enter the Games as she faced a shoulder injury.
Coutts admits to be fighting her fear from a very long time and told that her coach has put her in a new event, the 200m freestyle, which reminds her of a very bad memory. Coutts said that she used to race the same event as a kid but then something bad happened
and she parted her ways from the event. Since then, she never competed in the 200m event but now she is happy to be back in it, as her coach wants to determine her performance in the event.
Coutts said, “When I was 14, I went to Australian Schools' Nationals in Perth and on the third turn of the 200m freestyle I blacked out.”
Coutts said she blanked for a few seconds but managed to finish the race without hitting the wall. She said that after the incident, she is afraid of the 200m freestyle and has been trying for many years to work on her phobia. She seems very hopeful that
she will not collapse in the race and touch the wall successfully.
Coutts was unable to reach the podium at the 2008 Beijing Olympics while Rice won three gold medals there. Moreover, Coutts won the gold medals of 100m freestyle, 100m butterfly, 200m individual medley and the two relays at 2010 Delhi Games. As the medals
were won in the absence of Rice, so Coutts does not consider them for her qualification in the Australian team at the World Championships.
Australian head coach, Leigh Nugent said, “I think Alicia would have gained a huge amount of confidence from what she did last year, and even though you set yourself up in a way as being the front-runner, that's the position you've got to be able to deal
with and hopefully she has developed the mental skills to do that.”
Moreover, the two Australian champions will face each other twice at the eight-day Nationals in the events of 100m butterfly and 200m IM, in order to qualify for the 2011 Shanghai World Championships.
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