SWIMMING: Mollie O’Callaghan ready to go for gold at the Paris Games

Mollie O’Callaghan won the 100m freestyle at the Olympic trials. Here’s the curious thing. The shy and anxious 20-year-old seems somewhat clueless about how great she actually is.

Shayna Jack and Mollie O'Callaghan after competing in the Women’s 100m Freestyle Final during the Australian Swimming Trials. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

In his spectacular prime, Ian Thorpe preferred water to land. His ungainly walk put him at grave risk of tripping on a piece of furniture or bumping his head on a door frame at any given moment. He was fortunate to get to the starting blocks without falling flat on his handsome face. Then he’d dive into an Olympic pool and take off with the ease and speed of a giant black marlin.

Mollie O’Callaghan mirrors the magnificent Thorpe in this regard. Her pigeon-toed, rolling gait on terra firma is both endearing and awkward enough to make her a danger to herself and others. But as soon as she suits up, whacks on her goggles and goes for a competitive dip, this shy and rather anxious 20-year-old becomes as beautifully natural a swimmer as you could ever hope to see.

Thorpe’s freestyle was a lullaby of a stroke and kick. Mollie O’s sprinting technique is amped up, by comparison, but her Australian crawl is equally eye-catching and instinctive. “Basically a land-based dolphin,” is how her childhood coach, Paul “Cowboy” Sansby, has described her to my land-based colleague, Jessica Halloran, and Flipper couldn’t have won the 100m freestyle more convincingly than Mollie O at the Olympic trials on Friday night.

She was gazumped by Ariarne Titmus in their ding-dong, singsong 200m freestyle battle on Wednesday evening, but the 100m is Mollie O’s real race, her best race, her preferred race, her pet race, and she clocked 52.33sec to trump the resurgent Shayna Jack’s 52.72sec. Only a school of salmon, flathead or barramundi, or the great Thorpedo, now a great commentator alongside the excellent Giaan Rooney, or a real dolphin, might have beaten her to the wall. If they had an especially good night.

“That was all right. I’m not too happy with the time,” she said.

Here’s a curious thing about the 100 world champion and Olympic favourite. Mollie O seems clueless about how great she is. She admitted to being “eaten by nerves” at the trials when really, she could have qualified blindfolded for the Paris Games. She’s imperfect in interviews and public appearances, getting embarrassed and breathless and muddling her words a bit, but let’s hope she never becomes too polished. She’s sorta perfect just the way she is: A fish out of water.

Mollie O will be as popular as the Matildas if everything goes to plan and she wins the blue-ribbon sprint in Paris. Because freestyle is the stroke we swoon over. The stroke we’ve all had a crack at. Most of our legendary Olympic swimmers, from Frederick Lane to Fanny Durack to Murray Rose to Shane Gould to Dawn Fraser to Kieren Perkins to Grant Hackett to Thorpe, were freestylers. We can relate to it, we roar for it. Why doesn’t the mega-successful Kaylee McKeown attract the same following as Mollie O and Titmus? Because she’s not a freestyler. Backstroke and individual medley carry inferior prestige.

Shy. Nervous. Anxious. Outrageously talented. Perfectly imperfect. A freestyler. What’s there not to love? Mollie O will go, go, go for a possible six gold medals in Paris.