FINA world championship: Seebohm aims to hunt down hometown girl

Everywhere that Emily Seebohm goes in Budapest she sees Katinka Hosszu.

Emily Seebohm: ‘‘I got back in the water in January and I haven’t looked back since’’

Everywhere that Emily Seebohm goes in Budapest, she sees Katinka Hosszu.

It’s hard to avoid the triple Olympic gold medallist and hometown favourite because she’s on every second billboard in the host city of this year’s world championships.

The Hungarian poster girl will be just as hard to avoid in the water.

Among the six events the indefatigable Hosszu has entered in Budapest are both the 100m and 200m backstroke in which Seebohm is the defending champion.

Hosszu upset the specialist backstrokers to win the 100m backstroke at the Rio Olympics and finish second in the 200m while Seebohm was out of sorts.

A reason for Seebohm’s (at the time) inexplicable loss of form ­became apparent later in the year, when she underwent surgery for two unrelated health concerns, endometriosis, which caused her considerable pain and disruption during the Olympic year, and the removal of her wisdom teeth.

“I think last year I really struggled and tried to really push that aside and fight for what I wanted (at the Olympics) and it probably didn’t help me in the end,’’ she said before the world championships started last night.

“I got a lot of (surgical) work down at the end of the year and I got back in the water in January and I haven’t looked back since.’’

This year she appears to be back to the swimmer who has been the most consistently outstanding backstroker in the world over the past decade.

Seebohm is still only 25 but she will begin her sixth world championships campaign in the 100m backstroke today and looks a rejuvenated athlete.

She has never finished worse than fourth in the 100m, since making her debut in Melbourne in 2007, has won four medals in that event alone, and reached her high point with gold medals in both the 100m and 200m in Kazan two years ago.

Seebohm appears to be approaching that form again.

She has no illusions about what it will be like racing the hometown favourite at Duna Arena in front of 12,000, mostly Hungarian, spectators.

“I think it’s going to be very loud, as loud as it’s going to get and I look forward to hearing that and using it to my advantage as well. I’m looking forward to getting up there and seeing what I can do after everything that happened last year,’’ she said.

After last year’s aberration, she has resumed normal service this year and is ranked No 3 in the world in the 100m (58.62sec), ­behind rising stars Kylie Masse of Canada (58.21sec) and American Kathleen Baker (58.57sec), but ­neither of those youngsters are yet battle-hardened.

Baker, 20, leads the 200m rankings (2:06.38) from Seebohm (2:06.66), who set her best mark in mid-season last month at the Mare Nostrum meeting in France. That indicates she has made progress since the Australian trials in April and she will need to improve to hold off the challengers, old and new.

Of the three Australians who are defending world titles in Budapest (her partner Mitch Larkin and Bronte Campbell are the others), she seems the one most likely to retain her crown this week.

Campbell is struggling with ­injuries to both shoulders, while Olympic silver medallist Larkin has switched coaches to Simon Cusack and made a late start on his preparation after an extended post-Games break.

He will start his 100m backstroke defence tonight but will be hard-pressed to fend off Olympic champion Ryan Murphy, his predecessor Matt Grevers and ­Chinese threat Xu Xiaju, the only man to breach 52 seconds this year.

Cusack expects Larkin to take a year or two to adjust to his very different training regime, which emphasises intensity rather than mileage.

Larkin is virtually back to his normal racing weight.