Olympic legend Dawn Fraser says Rio swim team can bury demons from London Games

OLYMPIC legend Dawn Fraser refuses to make any gold medal predictions for our swimmers but believes the current crop can bury the demons of the past in Rio.

Scott Gullan

2 min read

April 27, 2016 - 4:28PM

Olympics

Don't miss out on the headlines from Olympics. Followed categories will be added to My News.

OLYMPIC legend Dawn Fraser is confident the Australian swimming team is ready to bury the demons of the past at the Rio Games.

The swimmers were the biggest flop of the London 2012 Games, winning just one gold medal amid a backdrop of scandal and misbehaviour.

But Fraser, who attended the selection trials in Adelaide earlier this month, is glowing about the youthful excitement being generated by the next wave of swimmers heading to Rio.

Dawn Fraser has supreme faith in Australia’s Rio swim team.

“I’m not one to predict medals, I’m not one to put pressure on any of our athletes but we have got a very good swimming team,” she said.

“They are compatible and compassionate, they have all the right things working for them and we may see quite a few medals.”

Fraser, who won the 100m freestyle at three consecutive Olympic Games, was particularly taken by the women’s 100m backstroke trial which was won by superstar Emily Seebohm.

“I was very impressed with the women’s 100m backstroke where we had five swimmers go under the minute,” she said.

“I don’t think we will see that in the world at all in the next couple of months, any country will not have five backstroke swimmers go under the minute.”

Fraser was in Melbourne for the unveiling of the official team luggage where she shared the stage with a number of Olympic debutants including 200m sprinter Alex Hartmann.

The 23-year-old is one of the best rags to riches stories for the Rio team given he was stacking shelves at Big W 12 months ago.

“I was just thinking about it the other day, gone from stacking shelves to representing Australia, it’s pretty cool,” Hartmann said.

“A lot has happened in a year and that was probably the best decision I ever made to give that up and pursue an athletics career.

“This has been a dream forever and to be actually living out a dream, it’s awesome and hopefully inspiring a few people along the way.”

Hartmann lowered his 200m personal best to 20.45sec in Canberra in February before winning his second national title which booked him a spot for Rio.

Alex Hartmann says it would be an honour to race Usain Bolt in the 200m in Rio.

He plans to stay in Brisbane in the lead-up to his Olympic debut rather than competing overseas.

The obvious dream is to line-up alongside world record holder Usain Bolt in the opening round.

“It would be an honour to race him but at the same time it would be like you’ve drawn the short straw in respect to that he would smash you,” Hartmann said.

“I know I haven’t got the luxury of taking it easy so I’ll be going pretty much flat stick from the get go and I’m probably going to have to run a PB to get through to the semis.”