Jessica Long (3rd from right) is one to watch in London.

On Thursday Morning (Australian time) the London Paralympics will kick off amid much excitement and expectation from around the world. Over the last few weeks I’ve fielded the question of if I believe the Paralympics should be a stand alone event or included with the Olympics, and for me it isn’t something that I need to give much thought.

Why should we be forced to share the spotlight with able-bodied athletes ? There is a lot of momentum behind the thought that “disabled people already go through so much, so they deserve to get proper recognition”.

That in itself is something that I couldn’t disagree more with.

My having Cerebral Palsy doesn’t mean I’ve been through a lot, it simply means that I have to deal with day-to-day activities in a modified fashion.

It doesn’t make me special, a role model, an inspiration or anything like that.

Every disabled person would tell you the same if you gave them the chance.

Back to the topic at hand.

We train just as hard, we give up just as much, we have the same dreams of hearing the national anthem with the flag being raised.

Just like our able-bodied counterparts we deserve our moment in the sun, and if the two Games were combined this will be lost.

I’m under no illusion  this directly contradicts what I mentioned above in suggesting that we shouldn’t be looked at any differently, yet it is a difference which is noticeable  when side by side with able-bodied athletes.

If you buy swimming tickets would you be paying to see Jessica Long or Michael Phelps ? Do you know who Jessica Long is ? If not google her and look at the success she’s had in and out of the pool.

The joint revenue would be great for the IPC and the crowds would be at capacity, which is something that we may see over the next two weeks, with Paralympics tickets continuing to sell fast.

There is the argument that a joint Games would lead to greater media exposure, wrong again.

Would that be the same exposure that sees networks take commercial breaks during the disabled events at the Australian Swimming Championships ?

However you want to sugar coat that you can’t deny that the majority of networks treat disabled athletes as second class.

Imagine the outrage if they chose to ignore the Olympics in favour of showing over 16 hours of Paralympic action a day.

In the end it doesn’t matter because we aren’t on the same level currently and the only way that will change is by continuing  showing why Paralympians are equal athletes, despite not being seen as equal humans.

Jason Varitek is the man to put the fight back in the Red Sox.

The disunity among the Boston Red Sox this season has been nothing short of disgusting. It isn’t entirely the fault of Bobby Valentine but he is the guy calling the plays, so that is where the buck stops. As the saying goes, it’s easier to sack one manager than nine players. For this reason Jason Varitek is the only reasonable replacement as the Sox look to return to the summit of the AL East in 2013.

When it was announced that Valentine had signed a contract with the Red Sox, I like many others thought that he was the man to lead us to a third World Series title in eight years.

When questioned about the rivalry with the Yankees in his introductory press conference he responded with something along the lines of “I don’t think about them, nor do I care about them, so I won’t waste time talking about them.”

For  proud Yankee haters like myself this was what we needed, someone who wouldn’t take any rubbish and would stick it to those who stuck it to us.

Then April rolled around and the reality of what we thought was going to a landmark season struck hard.

1-5 after the first six games felt slightly better than the fantastic 2-8 mark that was achieved in 2011, yet the season never really improved.

Depending on what you believe, senior players called a meeting management in Mid-June to discuss the problems they have with Valentine (The players have said management called the meeting).

This meeting was the nail in the coffin of the former ESPN Pundit, who is yet to be officially told his services won’t be required for next season.

Many Red Sox fans have Varitek pinned as the ideal replacement, and with two World Championships, a Little League World Series, College World Series, Olympic representation as well as being a member of Team USA at the World Baseball Classic (The only player ever to achieve all of those feats), what’s not to like?

Sure he doesn’t have any managerial experience, but former catchers have done well for themselves at the top level and there is no reason that he would bring those stats down.

22 of the 107 World Series that have been played have been won by a side who was managed by a former catcher. That is a little over one out of every five. Give any Red Sox fan another championship to celebrate by the end of 2017 and I’m certain they’d take it.

He knows Fenway. Having spent 15 Big League seasons playing in the park, Varitek’s intimate knowledge means that when it comes to vital in-game decisions, he’d make the right ones, something you could argue we haven’t seen too much of this season from our alleged fearless leader.

Remember when Varitek had a swipe at A-Rod ? Of course you do, that day will never be forgotten by any member of Red Sox Nation.

Even though some may have viewed it as an unprofessional act, it gives a great insight into the character of the manager-in-waiting.

He was our captain, and in many ways he still is.

A leader both on and off the field who the players committed to, and would have done anything for.

From 1918 to 2004 (Everything can come back to this if you need it to) the Sox lacked somebody who was able to grab the bull by the horns and make something happen and on July the 24th 2004 when he put A-Rod in his place that changed.

We not only saw a come from behind victory, but the side went on to post the best record in the Majors from that day until the end of the Regular Season.

Does it bother me that the guy we should hire has no experience ? Bobby Valentine led the Mets to a World Series (Which says something) and now looks like he wouldn’t know which end of a bat to hold.

For me the Red Sox have always been about doing what feels right, and Jason Varitek standing in the dugout for the home opener in 2013 would be the highlight of my life, outside of the 2004 and 2007 championships.

Does Red Sox ownership, who have made some poor decisions in the last few years *CARL CRAWFORD*, finally get one right and hire the one man who everybody knows will take us once more to the promised land ?

The London Paralympics are just 16 days away.

After two weeks of intense sporting action the circus wound up for another four years this morning, but don’t fret because the Paralympics are a short 16 days away.

While the media coverage in most countries isn’t the same and the athletes aren’t as well known, there are a million reasons to be excited for the Paralympics, yet as listing them all would result in a long post, I’ll just give you a few::

• We’re going to have more success than we did at the Olympics. Expect a top 10 and more than likely a top five finish from the team who finished fifth in Beijing with a 23 Gold-29 Silver-27 Bronze -79 total medal breakdown.
• The media coverage exists, but it won’t be the only thing we hear about for two weeks. With the Olympics on for 16 hours a day on Nine and Foxtel having eight exclusive channels, we didn’t see a lot else in the last two weeks. While that coverage would be great for the Paralympics, we aren’t in a position where that is going to happen for another few games, or realistically, ever. The ABC will cover both ceremonies live, while showing live events from 4am-8.30am and a one hour highlights package daily. I will write a post of the basics of the system in a few days time.
• The classification system means you get more of every individual sport. Many who don’t know disabled sport find the classification system confusing, heck many who do are still confused by it.
• Athletes who work equally as hard as their Olympic counterparts get the once in four year recognition they deserve. We saw it with the Olympics in the smaller sports. Who is going to follow sailing for the next four years just to track how our Olympic gold medallists are going ? It’s the same for any Paralympian, regardless of sport. This is the ten days they get treated like stars in what is otherwise a very low key life.
• It’s sport. This one speaks for itself. If you’d watch the Olympics and lose sleep for two weeks over things you usually wouldn’t care about then you better replicate it for the Paralympics. I’d love to say the glamour is the same, but what is the same is that you get competition and the best athletes slogging it out for what they’ve chased for years.

Personally ? I can’t wait to see people I shared some of the best years of my life doing what they do best.

We’re as confused as you Michael.

There has been a lot made of the use of post-race interviews at the London Olympics and how successful they’ve been. I’m happy to acknowledge how much insight they bring, I’m not sure if I like the way they are being done though.

I understand Giaan Rooney asking James Magnussen if he feels disappointed. What I don’t get is why she did it three times in three separate ways, yet seemed surprised when she ended up with the same answer on each occasion.

I love the style of Tony Jones. He looks like he fits, he knows how to get interesting information out of an athlete and leaves us with just enough information that we’re craving more at the end of the 45 second slot.

I’d love to say that there is a fine line between what the two are doing, but it’s a line thicker than the divide between Australia and New Zealand on the medal tally before we were able to add two Gold’s this morning to pull us level with our neighbours.

Jones is a near thirty year qualified veteran, while Rooney is the typical “athlete who has enough insight to land her a gig, even though there are others more deserving” journalist. As someone who has (and still is) working hard to become the sort of Journalist that Tony Jones is, I am ever frustrated by the likes of Rooney and Hackett, even though I know why the networks choose them, a decision which very rarely fails.

Before I go any further I’d like to clarify I have no problem with Giaan, she’s a great person who on every encounter I’ve had with her she has been up for a chat and offered great  insight into the Swimming . My frustration comes from knowing that she’s doing what she’s instructed to do by Nine, yet at the same time has the capabilities to do much better than she is.

One of the first things I learnt at University was to ask the obvious questions first. I’m not a huge fan of saying “A big loss out there, must not feel too good?” but you never know what you are going to get from an athlete and something they say can be used as a lead-in to a more in-depth question. For this reason and the fact that the majority of athletes have ZERO media qualifications, I respect the way that they are going about their business.

Sure, ex-athletes are given media training, but that’s a different beast to being qualified. With the  time that they have on their hands, perhaps the organisations employing them should mandate them becoming qualified as  it is only going to strengthen their overall product.

So how do we get rid of those predictable post-event interviews ? A network hires the ex-athlete because of the knowledge that they have, so why isn’t that knowledge being used in these interviews ?

If I’m poolside talking to James Magnussen here’s what I’m asking him:

• You appear to be lacking the killer punch at the start of the back-end of the 100, is this something you’ve modified in the last few months ?
• Has there been something other than nerves that has contributed to the lack of sleep over the last few nights ?
• Can you feel your stroke shortening up towards the end of your race ?
• Why when you have such a great height advantage to you wait till the last portion of your race to bring in the big kick ?
• Even though only a small thing, is consideration to the beard going especially given you’ve fallen short of your target  by such a small margin ?

There is a lot more I’d want to ask him, but given the time constraints I wouldn’t have the chance. End result, an interview with insight into how he raced as opposed to how he is feeling after it, which is all that most people want.

And what’s to stop Rooney asking all of those questions ? Absolutely nothing. She just didn’t know what to look for and the public backlash may see her not have another chance, with the role potentially going to another in Rio should Nine have Free To Air rights.

Why fix what isn’t broken ?

When you write for a living it gets to a point where you are almost on auto-pilot. You know what you’re going to write about, how many words you need and how to fill the space . Every once in a while something happens that brings it all together and makes the picture clearer. How you hold on to that is the important thing.

My first memory of the Olympics is watching the Swimming from Barcelona in 1992. I can’t remember the event and I didn’t understand the spectacle that was in front of me, let alone how much it was going to shape my life in the future.

in 2000, I like nearly every other Australian was captivated by what was for many of us our first (and last) home Olympics. From Cathy lighting the flame to Jane Saville’s disqualification in the last 500m of the 20km walk on the final day of the Games, it was two weeks crammed with memories that will never be forgotten.

Flash forward twelve years and I’m looking at the Olympics in a completely different light. Given my current profession, it’s tough for me not to see things from a media perspective and the Olympics for us, just as it is for the athletes competing, is the absolute pinnacle of the industry.

The fact that I don’t have Foxtel means that I haven’t been able to see how well their multi-channel platform is being used, but from all reports it’s offering a complete service, much broader than their FTA counterparts. I have previously written about watching the Olympics on the cheap , something I have been more than happy to do. While Nine haven’t timed some things well, they have the idea right and should they get the rights to Rio 2016 I expect big things.

The coverage that has received little attention is that of ABC Grandstand. For my entire life I’ve been a Grandstand tragic, often having footy on in the afternoons while I would play in the backyard as a kid. The amount of moments I have heard through Grandstand and not seen on the screen is a long list, and in many cases Grandstand have provided coverage that has been able to spark my imagination in ways that over coverage hasn’t.

This Olympics have again proven to be no different, with the ABC Radio iPhone proving to be a godsend for me when it comes to how much coverage I can take in.  The usual pattern has been watch as much as I can on Channel Nine, before putting the iPhone app on and listening to at least another half an hour before I fall asleep. In that time, it’s like going back to the days when radio was the primary source of information.

When it comes to broadcasting sport, radio has always been the tougher medium than television, because you are responsible for not only getting the action to the listener but painting a picture of what surrounds you. From experience I can attest to how difficult it is to do, especially when many of the commentators are going to be covering sports they’ve never covered before.

With the ABC sending all of their full-time Grandstand staff to cover the Games, it is easy to see why they have been the source of inspiration of late. I grew up as an ABC admirer and even though my love affair with radio has at times waned the respect for what can be produced has not. What they have done in London goes to show sometimes the best way to do something is also the simplest.

There hasn’t been one specific moment that has set everything in place, yet watching and listening to the stories that are being told of the athletes coming from nowhere to medals, not about how much sleep James Magnussen is or isn’t getting, has really put some perspective on why I love what I do.

It isn’t about  using fancy words or asking the obvious questions because you have to, it’s about both the passion and desire needed to tell a good story. When it comes to sport this is something that I know I have in spades. While it sounds cliché the Olympics is the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory of sport, and to quote said film “There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination.” Sport lends us a chance to use that imagination, to see the outcome we want, to dream of that feeling we’ve never experienced, even if it is beyond the realms of possibility. Sport on the radio it to another level as you are responsible for how you want to see the reality.

Sometimes you don’t need to be lost to find what you’re looking for, so do yourself a favour by tuning into the ABC’s coverage over the next week. Following the Olympics ABC TV will be covering the Paralympics. Given the commitment and standard they have set with previous Paralympics London  is set up to be a huge success with live coverage of both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, a one-hour highlights package nightly and live coverage from 4-8.30am daily.

Edwin Flack – The original “Greatest ever Olympian”.

Michael Phelps just won his twentieth Olympic medal. To put this in perspective – If you’re a human being with all of your digits you need to use them all to count the medals he has won at an event that is held every four years. I hate to break it to you he still isn’t the best ever Olympian and here’s why…

Some time ago, 116 years ago in fact, a man called Edwin Flack made his way to Athens for the first modern Olympic Games. Competing in the 800m, 1500m, marathon and singles and doubles tennis, winning Gold in the 800 and 1500 both athletic events and finishing third in the Doubles (Bronze medals were not awarded in 1896).

Flack was the first of ten athletes in the history of the modern games to have won medals in two sports, meaning that on average this is an achievement that happens once every three Olympics.

What makes this achievement more special was that he took a month off work to travel to the Games, something that many modern-day athletes don’t have to worry about with their endorsement deals.

What about Mark Spitz ? I hear you saying “Phelps won eight Gold in 2008, so he is better than Spitz”. We might have to agree to disagree on that one.

Quantity doesn’t always beat quality and Spitz swum at a time when the Soviet nations were rising to prominence in the water.

The technology available to Spitz was far different, with fast suits a thing of the future.

Does it matter how many medals are won as to how great an Olympian you are ?

I don’t think it does, and the whole concept of “greatest ever Olympian” is nothing more than a debate for the sake of debating.

Phelps is a great athlete, certainly the best Swimmer I’ve ever seen, but ten years ago we weren’t ever going to see anyone better than Ian Thorpe.

Greatness comes down to how you want to perceive it and whether you like it or not, it’s nigh on impossible to compare athletes who are never going to have the chance to race each other (not that I wouldn’t want to see Spitz and Phelps go at it).

Rather than continuing what is a fun yet tiring debate, people should look at the real answer.

There isn’t ever going to be a greatest Olympian, especially given an Olympian is something you are forever, it doesn’t stop once the games are over.

Johnny Weissmuller was a multiple sport Gold Medallist who played Tarzan in the 1932 hit Tarzan the ape man, surely a case can be made for him ?

Another fact that is all too often forgotten as that we’ll never know or remember the names of 95% of the athletes who compete in any given Olympics, because for them being an Olympian is success enough.

In saying that, I’d love to know who you think the greatest Olympian of all-time is, because who doesn’t enjoy weighing in on this debate as pointless as it is.

The now famous gun photo featuring Australian Swimmers Nick D’Arcy and Kenrick Monk.

The Olympic Games is supposedly the best two-week period every four years for sports fans. Not that’d you’d know it if you lived in Australia during the London Games.

If Australians do one thing well besides competing in sport, it’s creating a level of off-field drama to go with it.

First it was Stilnox, Nick D’Arcy and Kenrick Monk took photos with some guns, then Natalie Cook chipped in about who should carry the flag and this was all before we’d seen action in London.

Since the action kicked off last Friday we’ve seen many of our athletes criticised for only finishing second, Boxer Damien Hooper find himself at the centre of a uniform debate and Rower and rower Josh Booth was arrested and then hospitalised after collapsing in custody.

To be honest, I’ve had enough.

Athletes supposedly work their whole life to be an Olympian yet some of them are happy to throw it away over absolutely nothing.

What’s worse than this is the fact that many fantastic performances are being overlooked, because the majority of the media love a story where someone does something wrong.

There is obviously no need to focus on the likes of Christian Sprenger, who came from nowhere to grab Silver, or eighteen year-old Jessica Fox who also won Silver, in the K1 Slalom event and said post race that being at the Olympics let alone winning a medal was beyond her wildest dreams.

This is what the Olympics are about, yet more of the focus is being dragged from stories like Fox and Sprenger.

Winning is nice, but it isn’t everything.

What I would love to see for the last ten days of the Olympics is that the athletes and media who are in London for the Games focus solely on that.

Let’s try to make the second week of this sporting christmas what it is intended to be.

I want athletes who are proud to wear their colours, journalists who are able to tell a story that most don’t know exist and broadcasters who make me feel like I am right there watching the action unfold.

Because that’s what the Olympics is meant to be about.

Emily Seebohm after the 100 Backstroke final.

After a dynamite heat and a semi-final which was a touch slower, Emily Seebohm came into the final of the 100 backstroke yesterday morning in the box seat to take gold, but as we know in sport their are no certainties. 

After finishing a “disappointing” second behind Missy Franklin of the United States, Seebohm was unable to contain her emotions when interviewed by Giaan Rooney after the race.

Some have labelled her a “sook” for showing her raw emotions after coming agonisingly close the the holy grail of Swimming.

This is fine if you’re an outsider with no knowledge of what goes on away from the tv cameras, in fact i’d be shocked if the majority of those never involved with the sport didn’t have that same thought.

As a former swimmer myself, I wasn’t surprised at her reaction to the loss, because losing is never fun and the higher you climb in life the further you have to fall.

Seebohm saying she was influenced by her own hype, and that she didn’t give herself enough time to get inside her own head as a result of a social media addiction (who doesn’t have one of those these days), may have had some influence over the race, but she knows, and has acknowledged that this was not the reason she lost.

Fast forward to Seebohm speaking poolside.

She was not only disappointed in herself, but worried that she had let down everyone around her – The Australian team, her parents, her coach, the Australian public, even getting to a point where she questioned if her parents would still love her.

Again, sounds stupid, but that pressure is real.

It’s real because when you swim, you put it there, even though it doesn’t exist to anyone else.

The chain of events with Seebohm triggered something inside my head, from a perspective I had never thought of before.

There was one race in my career where I felt that pressure, and it is a race I’ve written about countless times (I won’t give away too much here as it’s an issue that still burns 8 years later).

It was February 2004 and I had one swim left to qualify for the 50 Breaststroke for Open Nationals.

I’d qualified for three other events, so this wasn’t the be all and end all race, but it was the event that I always thought was going to be the first one I’d qualify for.

The qualifying time for the event was 48.10 , a time that I had only got within a second of so I knew it was going to take something special, and that’s exactly what the build up to the event was, but not for reasons I care to remember.

Earlier that week one of my Grandparents had passed away, so on top of trying to deal with the grieving process, I needed to get my head right for what I had worked so hard to achieve for the last three years.

The race came and went and I  swam 48.11 , sure it was a personal best but .01 of a second is an immeasurable amount of time and the list of things I could have done to get that time down is  fairly long.

After the race (in which I finished third, winning my first ever State Open medal in the process) I felt as if I was functioning outside my own body.

I was numb, I was on the verge of tears and much like Emily Seebohm yesterday, I thought I’d failed a lot of people.

When your parents decide they are going to drive you to the pool before the sun comes up and pick you up after it has gone down so that you can chase your dream, there aren’t many opportunities where you can say “here’s the reward”.

That day was one of them.

Given everything that had happened in the week previous I knew that if things went right that would be a small bit of relief, and when things went horribly wrong by the smallest of margins it made the situation a lot worse.

The strange thing is that it didn’t. Everybody around me knew how tough the week had been and how badly I wanted to succeed.

People were disappointed for me and not disappointed in me and that’s how we should feel for Seebohm.

It makes no difference how she releases what she is feeling, we should support all of our athletes through thick and thin, something that has been lacking at this Olympics.

Whether it’s an Olympic Gold Medal or qualifying in a race you so desperately want, missing out hurts, but it’s made better knowing that those around you will never judge you on that one performance.

Are you happy with the coverage of London 2012 ?

For those complaining about not being able to watch more of the Olympics, you should have brought Foxtel. If you want something in life you have to pay for it, regardless of what it is. I’m one of the millions who are sitting through the Coverage of Nine Network, but unlike many I am more than impressed.

The London Olympics are going to be remembered for many things, in particular the use of social media during the Games. A prime example of this is the following which posted was on Nine Network’s Facebook page on Monday night:

Dear Channel 9 any chance you could possibly re think your approach to covering London 2012.

Maybe some volleyball, badminton, table tennis, archery etc in prime times instead of swimming, repeats of swimming, interviews of swimming, analysis of swimming, previews of swimming!

Give the other sports some exposure and recognition for what they have achieved and what they have accomplished!

Kind regards, the rest of Australia!

The  post had more than 75 000 likes by midday the next day, with that number sure to continue to rise as the post gets spread across Facebook.

It raises a few valid points – Nine have run the swimming program like it is a full telecast, Seven did the same thing for the duration of their Olympic coverage. It is the nature of the networks to run the sports which are going to give them the highest ratings as it’s one way they make their money.

What I don’t like is the assumption that because Nine have shown the full Swimming program they aren’t going to show anything else. In the last 60 hours during prime time I have seen – Swimming, Hockey, Diving, Equestrian, Badminton, Canoeing, Water Polo, Rowing, Gymnastics, Cycling and Judo. That’s 11 sports out of the 28 on offer, taking into account that not all of them are on in the first week.

You can look at this figure one of two ways – 11/28 sports is less than a pass mark OR 11/28 sports shows that they are making an effort to cover as much as they can given that they don’t have the same luxuries as Foxtel do.

But I can hear you saying “Nine have a digital channel, why isn’t that being utilised? ” While there has been no explanation from Nine, it must be assumed that they would have to have paid extra for rights to the additional channel. Given this channel isn’t a large chunk of their viewing pie, the money probably wasn’t put on the table for it at any point.

We’ve become spoilt for choice in Australia in the last decade and fans of every sport expect to see what the want when they want, and while this hasn’t been delivered at time during the games on Free To Air, what we have seen is better coverage than what has been offered by many other nations and yes I am referring to the programming gods at NBC in America.

With the choice not to show the Opening Ceremony live coming down to the fact that the audience available to watch it because of work commitments wouldn’t justify it, NBC have continued to treat the American public with contempt.

Coverage tonight will start at 8pm on the West Coast, which is long after events have concluded in London, so not only are they getting condensed coverage, but they are seeing things that they would have already had access to online.

So why would NBC pay so much for the rights to this global sporting feast if they aren’t going to use them ? Because there is a lure to being able to advertise yourself as the “Olympic Network” for the other three years and fifty weeks of the cycle.

I don’t think Nine should be making any commitments to Rio and beyond until their executives are able to sit down and look at what they could have done better at the end of the Games, but I do think there is one key fact that is going to determine what future coverage is like regardless of which network we are glued to.

This is accepting what we have or doing something about it if we have to pay for more coverage.

Australian sports fans have to realise there are going to be fans who aren’t happy with the coverage because their favourite sport isn’t getting more air time,  I’d love to see every game of European Handball throughout the tournament, but sometimes you can’t please everyone.

A distraught James Magnussen ponders what might have been.

The 4 X 100 freestyle relay in the early hours of Monday morning was seen as the best chance for a gold medal from the Australian male swimming team in the early stages of the competition. After qualifying fastest  for the final  there wasn’t much that was going to stand in their way.

 Speaking with Nine Network after the heat swim on Sunday night (Australian time), James Magnussen was happy to state that not only did he have more in the tank, but the team would go faster in the finals session that night.

To the Australian public this reads as “We’ve got this one in the bag guys.”

The 4 X 100 is the one event I want us to win every four years. Since Gary Hall Jr stated the Americans were going to “Smash us like guitars” in Sydney, with Ian Thorpe ensuring that they did anything but, the drive to beat the Americans has never left.

After a disappointing finish leaving Australia in fourth position in the final, it was obvious that the team were distraught, yet the waiting public wanted a scapegoat and got one in the reigning world champion.

It seems that fans have already forgotten that Magnussen was one of four swimmers in the pool for us.

The purpose of having him swim first was so he could have a crack at the 100  freestyle World Record and while he wasn’t even close to reaching the mark, it seems as if this is the only thing that team management did right.

With Eamon Sullivan, James Roberts and Matt Targett rounding out the four, the biggest mistake that the team made was in fact made by the officials with the order of swimmers.

Magnusssen as the faster swimmer should have swum last, and I would have had Sullivan behind him and Roberts leading off.

The adrenaline kick from a relay is different to what is felt in an individual event and if Magnussen swum last he may have been able to put together a better leg in chasing down the American and French outfits.

Even if the four men in Green and Gold could have put together better individual efforts, it is unlikely that they would have beaten either the gold or silver medalists, who to their credit both swam fantastically planned and put together races.

Isn’t that the problem with Australia at the Olympics ? We only ever focus on what we could have done and assume everything else would have fallen into place and until this attitude changes we’re always going to look for someone to blame.