Let’s take a reality check before we bag Australia’s swimming team

Should we panic just because we won no individual gold? Not really. After all, swimming is one of the most competitive of Olympic Games sports with many nations now bidding for medals. With China again on the scene, along with many other aspiring nations likely to bid for medals at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, Australia (with its relatively small population) may again find it hard to win gold medals.

Is the answer merely to spend more money? Perhaps, but Great Britain’s considerable expenditure in that sport only delivered 3 minor medals in 2012.

Perhaps we now expect now too much given recent success from 2000 to 2008 without recognising that our 2012 performance compares favourably with medals won from 1976 to 1992.

We have recently become accustomed to great Olympic Games swimming champions with multiple individual gold medal winners including Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett and Stephanie Rice. After Australia’s demise from 1976 to 1996, a period when Australia won a collective seven gold medals in six Olympic Games, we were able to win a staggering 18 gold medals in the four Olympic Games between 1996 and 2008

But winning gold medals has always been difficult in one of the most difficult and prestigious of Olympic Games sports.

Rather than bag our team, we should remind ourselves that Australia remains a great swimming nation with the sport able to harness high levels of participation relative to other populations. 

Who knows what the 2016 Olympic Games will deliver in terms of Australian swimming success, but the 2012 experience was not a disaster given Australia was the fourth most successful nation in terms of medals won, despite winning just one gold medal?