SWIMMING: Two of the champions of the Australian swim team, Bronte Barratt and Alicia Coutts, will tonight contest the last individual Olympic finals of their illustrious careers.
Barratt, the longest serving member of the team, will join Emma McKeon in the final of the women’s 200m freestyle, while Coutts will race in the final of the women’s 200m individual medley.
Based on times, both Barratt and Coutts are outside medal chances in their respective finals, but both plan to make their final individual races in Olympic competition one to remember.
McKeon qualified sixth fastest for tonight’s final in a time of 1min 56.29 seconds, with Barratt securing the final lane in a time of 1:56:63.
The Aussie women face a huge task if they are to catch Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom and American Katie Ledecky, who posted times almost two seconds faster in the second semi-final, which the Swede won in a time of 1:54.65, with Ledecky second in 1:54.81.
For London 2012 bronze medallist Barratt, making a second consecutive women’s 200m freestyle Olympic final is a proud achievement.
And the three-time Olympic medallist, a member of Australia’s gold medal-winning 4x200m freestyle relay at the Beijing 2008 Games, is hoping a lucky omen may deliver one more magic Olympic moment.
“It was certainly an anxious wait to see my name come up … I knew the second heat would be quicker,” Barratt said of the semi-finals.
“I am just relieved to be in the final at my last Olympics ... and eight is my lucky number, so anything is possible.
“Kieren (Perkins) did it (from Lane 8 in the 1500m in 1996 at Atlanta) and (South African) Chad le Clos had a crack in the men’s (200m freestyle) race tonight and stole the silver from lane one.
“Maybe that will be me tomorrow night.”
For Coutts, simply making the final is the perfect reward for her determination to reach a third Olympics.
A winner of five medals at the London 2012 Games, which equalled Ian Thorpe and Shane Gould’s Australia’s record for most medals at a single Olympics, Coutts missed last year’s world championships and contemplated retirement before deciding she wanted to embark on one last Olympics campaign.
The reality that her Olympic career is coming to a close has made it an emotional few days for Coutts, who confessed she shed a few tears ahead of her semi-final.
“I just tried to go into the race with the mindset that this could be your last race of your career, so just enjoy it,” Coutts said. “I tried to be calm but obviously once you hit the water a million things are running through your head.
“It definitely hurt a lot more than this morning. I didn’t feel as good in the warm-up or anything, but my coach always says to me, ‘feelings are for Valentine’s Day’, so I let them get to me too much. “I actually was pretty emotional tonight knowing that this could quite possibly be the last race of my career, so I did have a little bit of a cry to Mummy Fowlie (team manager Lynn Fowlie).
‘I had a talk to my coach tonight and he just kind of reiterated to me, you know, I did this for myself, I came back from injury and I was going to retire 12 months ago, so to make it to my third Olympics, I’m really proud of what I’ve done … 27 international medals, three Olympics. I can leave the sport knowing I’ve done everything I wanted to. Coutts qualified in sixth for tonight’s final but the Australian and the rest of the field face a daunting task trying to upstage world champion Katinka Hosszu.
The Hungarian star, nicknamed the ‘Iron Lady’, was the second fastest qualifier for the final and along with fastest qualifier Great Britain’s Siobhan Marie O’Connor, they are the hot favourites tonight.
But in true Olympic spirit, Coutts intends to make the last trace of her career one to remember.
“Never say never, you’ve got to be in it to win it,” Coutts said.
“You know, someone might swim a lot slower than they did tonight or everyone could step up and do great times. It’s really hard to gauge how people are going.
“I have watched a few finals where people have swum really fast in the heats and the finals have be a fair bit slower, so you never know.”
Tonight’s finals at the Olympic Aquatics Centre start at 22:00 (11:00 AEST Wednesday, 10 August)
Kyle Monck and David Taylor
olympics.com.au
