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Australia Announces World Cup Team
Oct 23, 2000
OLYMPIC gold medallists Michael Klim and Grant Hackett and backstroke wonderboy Matt Welsh have been joined by National Age star Ashley Anderson and comeback queen Lori Munz in the Telstra Dolphins Australian swimming team for the Fina World Cup in Melbourne in December.
Australian Swimming has named a 20-strong team of 10 men and 10 women with Jim Fowlie as head coach and Otto Sonnleitner and Ian Pope as his assistants.
The Dolphins will compete in Melbourne's first World Cup meet against some of the best swimmers in the world on December 5,6 and 7 at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre.
Klim, the winner of two gold and two silver medals at the Olympics, was forced out of the recent Telstra Australian Short Course Championships with a back injury, while Welsh and Hackett were in sizzling form.
But Klim has assured National head-coach Don Talbot he will be right to return to competition in front of his home crowd in a meet which is certain to draw sell-out crowds to the Melbourne venue at Albert Park.
Welsh's short course 200m backstroke world mark at the Australian Championships even drew congratulations from the backstroke king himself, the man he stole the record off, American Lenny Krayzelburg.
Krayzelburg said from Los Angeles today: "Give Matt my personal congratulations on great swimming and tell him to keep it up. I am sincerely looking forard to the rivalry we'll have in the next four years."
Hackett was only just outside Kieren Perkins short course 800 metres freestyle world record. He has been joined on the team by his Miami team mate, Australian short course 400m champion, Stephen Penfold, who along with Ashley Anderson and Tasmanian butterflyer Nicole Hunter, were all members of this year's Millenium Commonwealth Games Youth Team, which scooped the pool in Edinburgh.
Anderson, 16, is an extraordinary talent, who has won 15 National Age championships and is the first aboriginal swimmer to win selection on an Australian Swimming Team.
The brilliant all-rounder from Rockhampton, who is coached by the wily Sonnleitner, has been rewarded for his outstanding showing at the Telstra Short Course Nationals, which saw him finish fourth to Welsh in both the 50 and 100m backsroke events. Anderson clocked 25.68 in the 50m backstroke and 55.13 in the 100m backstroke.
He as also been named on the Dolphins World Cup team to compete in Rio de Janeiro (Nov 10-12); Washington (Nov 15-16) and Edmonton (Nov 18-19).
Selection on the Melbourne World Cup team for Melbourne and the Dolphins team for Europe in January is the first step back for Lori Munz, who has fought her way back after a car accident threatened her career and ruined her Olympic dream just eight-weeks before the Olympic Trials.
"I'm back," said Munz after winning four gold medals at the Short Course Nationals in the 100 and 200m IM and the 100 and 200m freestyle.
She has also been named on the Dolphins team for the first tour to Europe, along with fellow Victorians Jordana Webb and Brooke Hanson - who were also on the team for Melbourne.
Hanson bounced back to win the 50,100 and 200m breaststroke treble after just missing her second Olympic team, the first swimmer since Linley Frame in 1992, to win all three breaststroke titles.
