Australians Invade Europe With Eyes On The Prize
The Age
Thursday August 5, 2004
Eight days to go and the Australians are ready. The nation's Olympic athletes are scattered around Europe plotting their paths to Athens and putting the finishing touches to training.
As the world's thoughts turn to Greece and the Games, most of Australia's track and field athletes are based in Varese, Italy, a tourist mecca known for its silk and leather, but chances are the premier sprinters have had little chance to sample them.Australia's swimmers are holed away in Sindelfingen, a small German town on the outskirts of Stuttgart that has been their European base for the past three years.The training camps, in warm, sleepy European locations, enable the athletes to get used to the sort of heat they will encounter in Athens, and to prepare mentally.In Sindelfingen, where Australia's biggest star Ian Thorpe is being protected from the media gaze that will inevitably settle on him after the swimming team lands in Athens on a chartered plane, the camp is an opportunity for the swimmers to put the finishing touches to their training and gather themselves for the competition.They will arrive in the Olympic village five days before the opening ceremony, which will mark the Games beginning in their traditional home on August 13."This week (in Germany) consolidates everything, it brings us in, it helps us pack down, and makes us feel like we are a unit," Australia's head swimming coach Leigh Nugent said."It is reinforcement of what we're here to do and the opportunity to just get ready with everyone else getting ready for the same thing together. We're going to be prepared as a group, not as 42 individuals," Nugent said."You can see them starting to get ready. Just little changes in their demeanour, and that's natural for the build-up and you'd want that," he added.Australia's other great hope, hurdler Jana Pittman, will compete in Zurich this week in the hope of boosting her confidence after a problematic preparation, while her colleagues, marathon runners Lee Troop and Kerryn McCann, have been running through the forests of St Moritz.While Australia's track cycling team, riven by drug controversies, has sought refuge in Buettgen, Germany, their roadriding and mountainbiking counterparts are set to arrive in Reggio Emilia, an ancient town about an hour-and-a-half from Milan that was founded by the Romans and has become a centre for the arts. While Olympic fencers Evelyn Halls and Seamus Robinson are training in Budapest, the triathletes are going through their final paces in Aix-les-Bains, France, waiting for the Games to begin. -- with Michael Cowley
© 2004 The Age