Leigh Nugent expects Australian swimmers to improve the early world rankings of 2011 – Swimming news
National head coach to Swimming Australia, Leigh Nugent, has expressed hopes of expecting much better timings from Australian swimmers at the Australian National Championships in Sydney, on Friday. These Championships are also a trial selection for the Australian
Swimming team to compete against the rest of the world at the 2011 Shanghai World Championships, in July.
Swimming Australia has been through an upsetting 2010, as for the first time in two decades, no Australian was able to rank first in the world in any event.
On the other side, Nugent expressed happiness saying that now the Australian Dolphins have a chance to improve the early world rankings of 2011. Nugent said, “I think we're going to see a pretty high standard of swimming here and it's probably an advantage
now for us to have seen the British posting their times and also the Dutch and the French, because we've got some benchmarks now to go after.”
Nugent said that it is a good opportunity for their swimmers to have something to aim for, as the disappointment last year can help a lot in boosting the timings in various events. While elevating the hopes of his swimmers, he said, “I think if we can lift
ourselves to a high platform and make sure our preparation is as good as we'll plan it to be between now and the world championships, they'll rise to another level, which they'll certainly have to do to be successful.”
Nugent, who is determined to increase the level of swimming in Australia, said that four stars entered the top four last year which included Geoff Huegill, Emily Seebohm, Leisel Jones and Alicia Coutts. He also said that now is the time to enter the superior
level of swimming and announced that he will select only those swimmers for China who will qualify in a time under the top-12 swimmers of the world. He also highlighted that he will take only 35 to 40 swimmers for the World Championships although he is allowed
to take 52 of them.
The reason for doing so is Nugent’s aim to set a target for his swimmers and give them a challenge so Australian swimmers try to fall in the given criteria and this will ultimately improve the standard of swimming in Australia.
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