Olympic swimming trials: Belinda Hocking beats Emily Seebohm in 200m backstroke to make third Games

BELINDA Hocking caused the biggest upset of the Olympic swimming trials by beating world champion Emily Seebohm in the 200m backstroke on Wednesday night.

SWIMMING

THE biggest comeback of this week’s Rio Olympic swimming trials was supposed to belong to Grant Hackett but on Wednesday night Belinda Hocking announced her return to the national team after a six-month sabbatical from the pool.

The 25-year-old caused the biggest upset of the week by beating reigning world champion Emily Seebohm in the women’s 200m backstroke to secure a spot at her third Olympics.

The pair both swam an impressive 2mins 6secs and were separated by just .10 of a second.

Belinda Hocking edged out Emily Seebohm in a thrilling finish.

Last year Hocking walked away from swimming as the world number one in her pet event, the Commonwealth Games and Pan Pacs champion, after being forced from the pool by burning her finger, crashing her car and suffering concussion and injuring her knee.

A dinner conversation with retired swimming champion Chris Fydler convinced her to take a six-month break from the sport and without it she says she would never be going to Rio.

By the time she decided to come back, Hocking had changed her gym coach and her psychologist and has recently got engaged and now owns a puppy which she refers to as her baby. Her engagement party is still scheduled for two weeks’ time but wedding plans will now need to be juggled with preparation for the Rio Games in August.

“I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, life is pretty good,” Hocking said.

“Taking that six months out, a lot of people didn’t think it was the best idea, my parents, I don’t think my coach did, but I thought it was and I think it’s paid off tonight.

“I had confidence knowing it was my life journey and no matter what the result tonight I’d be happy.

“Knowing I’m 25 years old, I’ve been to two Olympics, I know what I need to do in the pool and having the trust (in myself) really helped making those big decisions.”

Despite her big-race history, Hocking still admitted to nerves in qualifying.

“Excuse my French but I was s****ting myself in the heats, but I really felt at peace tonight coming into this,” she said.

“I have a fantastic life that I’ve built up over the last six months with my support system and I couldn’t be happier, and tonight just shows when I’m at peace with everything the performance will show.”

After winning two gold medals - her first international gold - at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, Hocking said she felt deflated when she got home.

“I assumed that my life would be different, I don’t know how it would have been, but I thought things would change and I came home and life was exactly the same,” she said.

Belinda Hocking powers through the water to grab the 200m backstroke title.

“Then things started to go wrong and I needed to take the six months to really think about why I was swimming and not do it for anyone else but me.”

When she did return to the sport, Hocking found newfound depth not only in her specialist stroke but across the board of Australian swimming.

“We all know what happened (in London) in 2012 and I think we’ve come back bigger and better,” she said.

“The best thing is the culture of the team is fantastic, we’ve go the support system in every single stroke and I think it’s really exciting going into Rio.”

In other finals, Queenslander Jessica Ashwood took out “the double” winning the 800m freestyle to go with her win in the 400m freestyle, giving her two individual swims in Rio.

Her time of 8:18.42 was just .1 of a second outside her Australian record of 8:18.41 set in August last year.

David Morgan won the men’s 100m butterfly from Grant Irvine but both were outside the Olympic qualifying time.

Originally published as Olympic swimming trials: Belinda Hocking beats Emily Seebohm in 200m backstroke to make third Games