The 100 day countdown is on and the Rio Olympics could be Australia’s most successful ever

THE countdown to Rio 2016 is on! Australians will have plenty of stars to cheer over two unforgettable weeks. So grab your maracas and start counting those 100 days.

IT’S ON. The 100 day countdown to the Games of the XXXI Olympiad starts today, and Australians have every reason to take their lead from Peter Allen and “follow the beatin’ of their hearts” all the way to Rio.

Following the stunning results of our swimmers at the team trials held recently in Adelaide, Australia’s Olympic athletes are showing every sign that this will be an epic Games — four-time gold medallist Dawn Fraser going so far as to predict we will see as much, if not more, success in the pool than achieved by the legendary team of 1956.

Which, even for Our Dawn, is a big statement. The 1956 Australian swimmers — spearheaded by Fraser, Murray Rose, Lorraine Crapp, Jon Hendricks and David Theile — won 13 medals, including a record eight gold.

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A reachable goal, or wishful thinking? The Olympic Games are almost impossible to predict.

As Cam McEvoy so rightly noted in Adelaide after swimming the fastest-ever 100m freestyle in a textile suit, “the Olympics has a history of world number one’s going in first and not coming out with the gold. The Olympics are notorious for that because the mental games of being able to step up on the day are levels above anywhere else.”

As McEvoy knows only too well. He was a member of the heat team that qualified fastest in the 4x100m freestyle relay at the London Olympics four years ago, then stood by and watched in disbelief along with the rest of Australia as the highly-fancied “A Team” finished out of the medals.

So why should this team be any better? Probably because of the lessons learnt four years ago. No-one in the current group is talking up his or her chances, but their performances in Adelaide spoke volumes.

Australians will have plenty of stars – old and new - to cheer on over two unforgettable weeks in August.

At the end of the trials, based on that day’s world rankings and the times set by those who made the team, Australian swimmers were placed to win 25 medals — nine gold, 10 silver, six bronze.

It is a huge ask, but in McEvoy and the likes of the Campbell sisters, Cate and Bronte — the former and current world 100m freestyle champs — and current backstroke world champions Emily Seebohm and Mitch Larkin, Australia has swimmers capable of winning individual gold. The women’s 4x100m freestyle relay team will be odds-on favourite to retain their Olympic title, and keep your eye on Mack Horton who, in the last race of the trials, knocked Kieren Perkins out of second spot on Australia’s all-time fastest 1500m freestyle list.

Australian swimming stars Cate and Bronte Campbell 100 days out from the Rio Olympics. Picture Gregg Porteous

And that’s just the ones we know about. As 2004 and 2008 Olympic gold medallist Libby Trickett said: “The great thing about swimming, and especially in an Olympic year, is that anything can happen. Champions miss semi-finals and finals, 15 year-olds get up and win the gold medal, you just never know.”

Which of course is true of all Olympic sports, not just swimming, and Australians will have plenty of stars — old and new — to cheer on over two unforgettable weeks in August.

Some names, like those of defending gold medallists, hurdler Sally Pearson, cyclist Anna Pearson, walker Jared Tallent, sailors Mathew Belcher, Nathan Outteridge and Ian Jensen, and kayakers Murray Stewart and Jacob Clear (and Ken Wallace who won gold in Beijing) we know well after following them through the ups and downs of previous Olympics.

Others, like slalom canoe world champ Jessica Fox, we will cheering to go one better than the silver medal she won in London, and then there will be others again whose names we don’t recognise yet — but will be will be as familiar as old friends by the time of the Closing Ceremony.

There are our world champion team pursuit cyclists, a team of youngsters who the British press have already nicknamed “The Boy Band”, and the Australian women’s rugby sevens team who are on track to win the first-ever World Series and favoured to do the same when the sport makes its debut in Rio.

Representatives from the Australian Olympic team unveil their competition uniforms in Sydney.

Speaking of new sports, what odds golfer Jason Day adding an Olympic gold medal to his trophy cabinet?

And who will be this year’s Leisel Jones, Jodie Henry or Natalie Cook — the kid, the bolter and the stayer — who will come from the clouds to give us memories that will last lifetimes?

If all that doesn’t get your heart beatin’, nothing will. So come on, grab your maracas, put on a Carmen Miranda fruit hat and start counting down those 100 days.

As Peter Allen would say, it’s almost time to go to Rio ... de Janeiro … my-oh me-oh.

The Olympic flame has started its trip to Rio from Athens.

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Originally published as The 100 day countdown is on and the Rio Olympics could be Australia’s most successful ever