RICE IN BUSY RACE SCHEDULE FOR TELSTRA CHAMPIONSHIPS

Sydney, February 3: 

• COUNTDOWN TO THE TRIALS....2009 Telstra Australian Swimming Championships (selection trials for the FINA World Championships, Rome).

Australia's triple Olympic gold medallist Stephanie Rice will have a busy time during this year's 2009 Telstra Australian Swimming Championships - racing up to a dozen times over the six day program between March 17 and 22.

Rice, the Olympic champion over 200 and 400 IM and the 4x200m freestyle relay, will definitely race her signature medley events as well as the 200m freestyle and the 100m butterfly.

She will also enter the 200m butterfly, 100m backstroke and 100m freestyle, but may not follow through to semi-finals in the 100s and the finals, in what is a cramped week of racing.

Rice will have a busy start and finish to the compact program, contesting both the 200IM and the 200m freestyle on day one and the 200m butterfly and the 400m individual medley on the final night.

"Steph will definitely contest both medleys, the 200m freestyle and the 100m butterfly but the rest we will be playing by ear," said her coach Michael Bohl.

"The final night is also a tricky one with not much time between the 200m butterfly and the 400 IM but at least there is the 1500m for men in between them now - so that gives us more rest."

Swimming Australia has adjusted the program to allow those swimmers like Rice and fellow Olympian Samantha Hamill to concentrate on the two gruelling events - which will be swum on separate days in Rome.

Bohl's reasoning on Rice's busy program is to keep his super charge racing through the back end of the meet.

"Stephanie will also race the 100m butterfly, 100m backstroke and 100m freestyle and we'll wait and see if she swims semis and finals," said Bohl.

"It is important for her to keep racing, it is much better for her."

Rice joined the rest of Bohl's squad at the Brisbane Metropolitan Championships at the weekend, training and racing through Thursday, Friday and Saturday until she attended the men's Australian Open Tennis final in Melbourne on Sunday.

Her next stop will be the NSW Open Championships at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre from February 13-15, which will be the major warm up meet for the Telstra Australian Championships.

The majority of World Championship team contenders, including the AIS squads and NSW "Super Squad" of Libby Trickett, Eamon Sullivan, Andrew Lauterstein and Geoff Huegill, will converge on the NSW meet to put the finishing touches to their preparations.

One girl who won't be part of the plans will be emerging butterfly hope, Amy Smith, who has been ear-marked as one of Australia's real emerging butterfly talents.

Bohl revealed today that Smith had suffered a broken arm in the gym last week and would almost certainly miss the Australian Championships.

Her arm is in a plaster cast and Bohl was waiting on a report from her doctor as to her immediate future.

Smith was a member of the 2008 Australian Commonwealth Games Youth Team and the recent Junior Pan Pac team in Guam, where she won silver and bronze medals in the 100 and 200m butterfly events.

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