The story behind a rumoured feud between Tracey Wickham and Michelle Ford has been revealed

One of Australian swimming’s longest and most divisive mysteries has finally been solved, almost half a century after the rumoured feud erupted between Tracey Wickham and Michelle Ford.

One of Australian swimming’s longest and most divisive mysteries has finally been solved almost half a century after the feud erupted.

Long before any of Australia’s current Olympic swimmers were born, Australia boasted the two greatest middle-distance freestylers in the world, in Michelle Ford and Tracey Wickham.

While the West was preoccupied with countering the might of the East Germans, who engaged in state-sponsored doping to create the most powerful swimming team the world has ever seen, two Aussie teenagers were staging their own battle.

Too fast for even their drug-aided Communist rivals, Ford and Wickham were locked in a duel for supremacy in the 800m freestyle that captivated the Australian public and has remained unresolved all these years.

Michelle Ford after winning the 800m freestyle final at the 1980 Olympics.

Michelle Ford was one of Australia’s greatest ever swimmers. Picture: Sebastien Moret

During a seven-month stretch in 1978, they each broke the world record twice, but their intense rivalry turned bitter after a cheeky incident that almost ended up in court.

Ford, who went on to win gold at the Moscow Olympics, broke East German Olympic champion Petra Thumer’s 800m freestyle record in January 1978, then lowered it again two weeks later.

Just a month after that, Wickham claimed the record from her fellow Australian.

They were already rivals, but the next day Wickham received a bouquet of flowers with a note that read: “Congratulations Tracey. It won’t be so easy next time! Love. Michelle.”

Wickham was unimpressed and the story about the flowers and the note soon got leaked to Australian media, which went into overdrive adding fuel to the escalating feud.

The pair – who were just 15 at the time – were never the best of friends, but the fallout over the flowers became so intense it almost led to legal proceedings.

Tracey Wickham salutes the crowd after Commonwealth Games victory.

Tracey Wickham being presented with her 800m freestyle gold medal by Queen Elizabeth during the 1982 Commonwealth Games.

Ford has always maintained she never sent the flowers or the provocative note but no one has known the identity of the real culprit.

Until now.

It was legendary coach Bill Sweetenham, who coached both women at different times.

A master motivator, he was always looking for ways to get the best out of his swimmers so would sometimes engage in sneaky mind games.

He’d kept the story secret for years but finally came clean in an interview with British investigative journalist Craig Lord, who co-wrote Ford’s autobiography Turning The Tide: The Story of an Olympic champion.

“I had the flowers and the card sent!” Sweetenham said.

“Here’s what happened. I used Michelle as a whipping post for Tracey, who would rest on her laurels pretty easily if you let her. So, I’d be on to Tracey saying ‘look Michelle’s down there in Sydney breaking world records, so how about it’, as a way of getting her to do it.

“The day after, I thought ‘now she’s got the world record, how am I going to motivate her?’.

“So I got … a young coach learning the ropes at the time to whip round to the flower shop and get a huge bunch of flowers and write on the card … and send it to the Valley Pool.

Bill Sweetenham training his superstar swimmer Tracey Wickham.

“I felt guilty about that from the moment I did it. I shouldn’t have done it but sport is an uncompromising battle and in those days we were living through very dark days where the things the East Germans were doing forced us to think of ways to get the girls to unlock the very best of themselves.”

To this day, Ford has never known for certain who sent the flowers but told this masthead she had been told Sweetenham was behind it.

“I’ve never spoken to Bill about this,” she said.

“But he apparently sent the flowers to Tracey, saying ‘I’ll get you next time’.

“It always had a bit of a twist to it.

“I’ve never I never had a chance to confirm it with Tracey. The sad thing was we were teenage kids and we had no idea.”