HURLEY TO FILL BIG SHOES AT TELSTRA AUSTRALIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
March 12: Emerging AIS-based Illawarra swim star Robert Hurley heads into next week's 2009 Telstra Australian Swimming Championships with some big shoes to fill.
For the first time since 1996 the names Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett will not appear among the starting lists for the National Championships - just next to the records.
And either will the name Craig Stevens - who has joined the two superstars at the last two Olympic campaigns in Athens and Beijing - and now also in retirement.
Enter a new era in Australian swimming and enter a new generation of Australian swimmers.
Australia's National head coach Alan Thompson is excited about the prospects as he prepares his team for this year's FINA World Championships in Rome and long term, the 2012 Olympics in London.
"This year will all be about opportunities for many swimmers and in particular where we have had the dominance of swimmers like Thorpe, Hackett and Stevens," said Thompson.
"I think some of our young boys will stand up next week and say - this is my time," said Thompson.
"Boys like Hurley, who has been quietly chipping away could be just one of the names on people's lips at the end of the week."
Hurley, just 20, finished third to Hackett and Stevens in the 400 metres at last year's Olympic Trials.
He has since carved a name for himself in backstroke and over 1500 metres - events his coach Vince Raleigh will keep next to his name at least for the next two years.
"He's a very talented, hard working young man who thrives on the multiplicity of his program and we're not going to change that at the moment," said Raleigh, the former rugby league front rower and school teacher, who is now one of our most astute Olympic coaches.
"Down the track we know we are going to have to specialise but for the moment he is young enough and talented enough to swim everything."
Everything at next week's six-day meet at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre means the 200, 400 and 1500m freestyle and the 100 and 200 metres backstroke.
(There is some respite: he has dropped the 50m backstroke - the event he set his only world record in at the FINA World Cup in Sydney last year.)
The scheduling pans out perfectly for Hurley who will start the week with the 400 metres on day one, move on to the 200m freestyle on day two, the 200m backstroke on day three, the 100m backstroke on days four and five and the1500 metres on days five and six.
The 400m on the opening night will see Hurley attempting to climb up an impressive Australian ladder in an event which we have dominated internationally since 1994 when Kieren Perkins established his first world record in 1992.
Thorpe re-wrote the record books between 1999 and 2002 and his world mark of 3:40.08, set at the Manchester Commonwealth Games still stands today.
Behind Thorpe stands Hackett (3:42.51), then Perkins (3:43.80) and Stevens (3:46.64), before Hurley sticks his nose in at 3:47 - a time set at the NSW Championships in January.
It should be noted that Hurley now comes in faster than people like 1999 Olympic silver medallist Duncan Armstrong, 1992 Olympian Ian Brown, 1996 Olympic silver medallist Daniel Kowalski, another emerging youngster in Ryan Napoleon and 2004 Olympic 4x200m freestyle relay gold medallist Nicholas Sprenger.
Raleigh believes there is no reason why his young charge can't get under 3:46 - leaving just the greats Thorpe, Hackett and Perkins ahead of him.
"He is certainly capable of that - there is no doubt about that," says Raleigh.
"Everything he has done so far this season suggests he can, the rest is up to him. But he's got faith in his own ability and that's a key factor."
Napoleon, who won the 400 and 800 metres freestyle at this year's Junior Pan Pacs in Guam, is thriving under the coaching of Michael Bohl.
He will also line up in the 200, 400 and 1500 metres freestyle - an event he will tackle for the first time.
The 1500 metres will certainly be a "different final", with only the second name apart from Hackett to set to appear on the winners list since 1997 (the other was Kurtis MacGillivary in 2006).
Hurley and Napoleon will be joined by Australian five and 10km open water champion Trent Grimsey, who was third to Hackett and Stevens in the Olympic Trials last year; Queensland's Cameron Smith, NSWIS trio Christopher Ashwood, Theo Pasialis and Andrew Beato.
The battle of the next generation could see indications of another rising distance star to follow some of the greats of the sport.