Tokyo Olympics: Medallists only in Swimming Australia’s brutal selection policy

Swimming Australia’s cold-blooded criteria ignores the ability of athletes to rise to the occasion — something its president Kieren Perkins should know better than anyone.

Heartbroken Matt Wilson realises he has fallen just short of a place at the Olympics

It all came down to 0.24 of a second. Less time than it takes to blink, shorter than a heartbeat.

All the years of early mornings and rigid training routines and hours every day up and down the pool came to nothing. Matt Wilson is not going to the Tokyo Olympics because of 0.24 of a second.

Wilson, as dedicated a member of the Australian swim team as you could find, hit the wall second in the final of the 200m breaststroke at the Olympic trials in Adelaide, but that is not enough to get him to Tokyo.

He fell victim to Swimming Australia’s cold-blooded selection policy, which means meeting the official qualifying standard is not enough. Aussie swimmers not only have to finish first or second at the national trials and go under the official Olympic qualifying standard, they also have to post a time that would get them into the final in their event. We want potential medal winners only, forget the rest.

In this case, the Australian qualifying cut-off time is the eighth fastest time at the 2019 World Championships and Wilson missed the mark by 0.24 of a second.

Australian Olympic legend Kieren Perkins after placing second in the 1500m freestyle at the selection trials for the 1996 Games.

He suffered the same fate in 2016 and missed the Rio Olympics and after not qualifying in the 100m breaststroke, he will miss the 2021 Games as well. Devastating.

But he won’t be the only one. When the Australian swim team to go to Tokyo is named after the last event of the trials on Thursday night, there will be tales of triumph and jubilation, but also of heartbreak for those who didn’t come up to Swimming Australia’s hard-nosed standard.

SA introduced the medal-winners only policy after the London Olympics, when Australia’s swimmers won just 10 medals. Forget all the other things that went wrong for the swim team in London, apparently it was the selection policy that was at fault.

Daniel Cave comforts a distraught Matthew Wilson after the 200m breaststroke final at the Olympic trials. Picture: Getty Images

It worked well. At the Rio Olympics, under the new policy, Australian swimmers won … 10 medals.

The policy completely ignores the fact that some swimmers are pure racers who will lift when they get to the Olympics.

My colleague Julian Linden has pointed out that Swimming Australia’s current president Kieren Perkins struggled to make the team for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and only snuck into the 1500m final in lane eight. But he lifted in the final to produce one of the greatest performances in Australian Olympic history, leading all the way to win the gold.

Australian swimming history is littered with examples of gutsy racers, people just like Wilson, who qualified by the skin of their teeth and went on to glory.

Imagine if we applied the finalists-only policy to other Olympic sports. If we were only taking track and field athletes with a chance of winning a medal, the team would be tiny. No sprinters, maybe a couple of hurdlers, perhaps one or two middle distance runners, no marathon runners, a javelin thrower, a couple of high jumpers. That’s about it. Would Chloe Esposito, who came from the clouds to win gold in the modern pentathlon in Rio, even have been selected in the team if swimming’s selection policy had applied to athletics?

1988 Olympic Games gold medallist Duncan Armstrong.

In dozens of sports, Australian athletes aren’t among the world-beaters. We are a middle-level sporting nation, even if some would say we punch above our weight. But our athletes bust a gut in training and preparation for years and then go to the Olympics and give it their best shot.

Competing at the Olympics is about more than just winning medals. It is about putting the best we have to offer on the world stage, giving them the chance to represent their nation with pride. The crowning achievement for most of our athletes is not winning a medal, but simply getting to an Olympics and competing for Australia.

If you’ve earned the right to be there by being among the two fastest in Australia and meeting the Olympic standard – as Wilson has done – surely you deserve to be on the team.