But it could just as easily apply to the Australian swimming team itself.

Swimming is, by far, Australia’s most successful Olympic sport, with 58 gold medals won in the pool, second only to the USA. There is the pressure of just living up to that fabled history. Yet the fact that the sport is always held in the first week of the Games makes the spotlight even harsher still.

There is always a level of expectation that the swimmers will get the medal tally moving. Still, Australian head swimming coach Rohan Taylor and his squad would have it no other way.

Taylor, shaping up for his first Olympics as head coach after taking over from Jacco Verhaeren in June last year, knows his Games history well enough to realise there have also been plenty of dry spells between golden eras peaks around the 1956 and 2004 Olympics.

It is, as Taylor explained, one of the reasons Australia shifted its selection trials from a standard three months out from the target event to just five weeks.

“We believe that is the key to converting (good training into sharp racing),” Taylor said. “If we can do that, we can have a good competition. We’re going to go well. At the Olympics, a lot of other athletes want the same thing you do so it is going to come down to who has the racing IQ at the time.”

But while he is sufficiently cautious not to predict a medal onslaught, he is comfortable with allowing statistics to do his talking for him.

“Some 50 percent of the swimmers ranked number one in the world in their event go on to win the gold medal,” said Taylor, knowing that Australians will head the seedings in no fewer than 11 Olympic events.

“We want to be on that side of it. Some 85 percent of medals come from the top five. We’ve got a number of chances, that’s for sure.”

Ones to watch

Kaylee McKeown is ranked No.1 in the world for the 100m and 200m backstroke, and the 200m individual medley which she withdrew from only days ago – to concentrate on backstroke. Emma McKeon has the fastest time on the planet this year for the 50m and 100m freestyle, ditto Titmus for the 200m-400m freestyle, while Elijah Winnington holds down pole position going into the men's 400m freestyle.

Emma McKeon was Australia’s most successful swimmer in Rio, finishing with one gold and two silvers from the three women’s relays and an individual bronze in the 200m freestyle.

Ironically, though she qualified for the event in Tokyo and indeed is ranked fourth in the world, she has decided to jettison the 200m freestyle here, reducing her schedule to an only slightly more manageable seven events. Between her individual events and Australia’s relays she could surpass her stunning achievements in 2016. 

Titmus is set to become the face of the Olympics after sensationally staring down the seemingly unbeatable Ledecky and beating her in the 400m freestyle at the last world titles in Gwangju, South Korea in July 2019. When the giant American TV network NBC realised what a rivalry was building around that race – the legendary Ledecky against the battler from Down Under – it decided to make women’s middle-distance races the centrepiece of their coverage.

Taylor would have ice water flowing through his veins if that showdown didn’t get him excited, though he insists he can’t play favourites.

“The swimmers are like my children….I don’t really have one favourite,” he quipped.

Australia capable of medals in all relay events

The relays really do get Taylor’s pulse racing. And the Australians are aiming for success in all seven of the relays on the Tokyo 2020 program.

Australia has always had a fascination with swimming’s team events. The gold and silver medallists in the first Olympic women’s swimming final ever held, the 1912 Stockholm Games 100m freestyle, Fanny Durack and Wilhelmina Wylie, were the only Australian females at those Olympics but were so keen to swim the 4x100m freestyle relay that they volunteered to each swim 200m. Sadly, officials knocked them back but their enthusiasm for relays stood in stark contrast to the disinterest many Australians displayed during the 1970’s and 1980’s. But then Taylor’s predecessor Don Talbot breathed new life into the relays which now have become the mainstay of the Australian team.

Cate Campbell has experienced the ups and down of competing for Australia but win or lose in her individual events, she has dominated women’s relays internationally, posting the six fastest 100m freestyle relay splits ever recorded. Not only has Australia ridden on her back for a gold-gold-bronze return in the last three 4x100m relays but she now gets a chance to wow the world in the first mixed replay event ever staged at an Olympics.

She swam the anchor leg of freestyle against American rival Simone Manuel to win gold at the last world titles in Gwangju but the real drama came in the butterfly leg of that race where McKeon found herself having to fight off the alpha male of the American team, Caeleb Dressel.

The mixed relay will be one of three new events on the program, the others being a women’s 1500m freestyle and an 800m freestyle for men.

It is the second attempt FINA has made to introduce the men’s half-mile to the Olympic program, with FINA staging an 880 yard race during the 1904 Games. That only led to confusion, with America claiming the silver medal taken by Francis Gailey, one of four medals he won at those Olympics. Even now, the USA continues to claim those medals – the equal second-best return ever from one Games in Olympic swimming history – though Gailey was, at the time, an Australian citizen and returned to Brisbane after the Olympics before relocating in 1906 to the States.

Yet one doesn't need to trawl back into Olympic history to find controversy. There has been more than enough of that in the lead-up to these Games, with Australia's brutal selection standards coming under fire.

Swimmers had to place first or second and equal or better the time required to make their final in Gwangju in order to get selected. Many worthy competitors failed to make the team.

Yet the end result is that the 35-strong team chosen is battle-hardened and ready to race. And the same applies to the open water team, with Kareena Lee and Kai Edwards set to do Australia proud in the 10km event.

“That was the whole point in putting that (selection policy) in place,” Taylor said.

Medals decided in the morning

The results will speak for themselves when the Australian swim team put it all on the line at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre from Day 1 (24 July) to Day 9 (1 August). The heats will be swum at night from 7:00pm (AEST) with the medals decided in the morning session from 10:30am (AEST). There are 35 gold medals up for grabs in the pool and the rivalry between the Americans will be friendly yet fierce chasing that coveted top spot.

Wayne Smith

Swimming Snapshot