Swim team finds silver lining to lack of gold medals

National swim coach Jacco Verhaeren has redefined success at this early stage of the Olympic cycle.

Ariarne Titmus of Australia during the women's 400m freestyle heats in Budapest

Gold medals are looking thin on the ground for the Australian team at the world championships in Budapest, but national head coach Jacco Verhaeren has redefined success at this early stage of the Olympic cycle.

“The way athletes are performing here in comparison with trials … we have had a big turnaround with a lot of good swims with a lot of personal best times, season’s best times,’’ he said. “Success here is for the ones who can get to the podium to be there, but to me success is seeing a good performing team and we see that now.

“If you have an Olympic champion not being able to swim here (Kyle Chalmers); if you don’t have another world-class swimmer (Cate Campbell) you are going to feel it in the relays. But I think it’s more important to look to the future rather than just counting gold medals.’’

Verhaeren said Australia won seven gold medals at the last world titles in Kazan in 2015, but that did not convert to a swag of gold at Rio a year later, where the team tallied just three.

“In 2015 we learned that gold medals aren’t a guarantee for the next year,’’ he said. “That doesn’t mean that we don’t want to get them … but at the same time we’re on a four-year trajectory (to the Tokyo Olympics).”

His goal for now is to establish a pattern of improvement from the trials to the major championship, because he believes that will improve the medal count. Rookies Ariarne Titmus, Jack Cartwright and Clyde Lewis have registered personal bests.