{"id":196,"date":"2012-10-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/nugent-defends-under-fire-swimmers\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T00:27:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T00:27:05","slug":"nugent-defends-under-fire-swimmers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/nugent-defends-under-fire-swimmers\/","title":{"rendered":"Nugent defends under-fire swimmers"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Head coach Leigh Nugent has been forced to answer criticism of Australia\u2019s swimmers\u2019 work ethic as he promised a post-mortem into the team\u2019s belly-flop at the London Olympics.<\/p>\n

Australia did not win any medals in the pool on day six and has only one gold \u2013 in the women\u2019s 4\u00d7100 metres \u2013 to show, with two days of competition remaining.<\/p>\n

London may end up delivering Australia\u2019s worst Olympic swimming result in 20 years \u2013 prompting dual gold medallist Susie O\u2019Neill to join the queue of those lining up to question what has gone wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really difficult in my situation to feel like I\u2019m bagging the current athletes, and it\u2019s easy to do that as a past athlete,\u201d O\u2019Neill said as part of her expert comments for Fox Sports.<\/p>\n

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What I\u2019ve been hearing a little bit from different people is the work ethic from Australian swimmers is maybe not the same as it used to be 10 years ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Susie O\u2019Neill<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[But] talent gets you this far in an Olympics, work ethic gets you across the line.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019ve been hearing a little bit from different people is the work ethic from Australian swimmers is maybe not the same as it used to be 10 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nugent says O\u2019Neill\u2019s comments are wide of the mark.<\/p>\n

\u201cSusie obviously is very authoritative,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is a great swimmer and we all have a lot of respect for her, but work can be interpreted in so many different ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey work at high intensities. They work very hard in the gym. It is not so much about volumes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings have changed a lot as far as what people do in the swimming pool over the last 10 or 12 years.<\/p>\n

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Australia at the Olympics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Games<\/th>\nAthletes<\/th>\nG<\/th>\nS<\/th>\nB<\/th>\nTotal<\/th>\nRank<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
2012 London*<\/td>\n410<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n7<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n11<\/td>\n16<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2008 Beijing<\/td>\n433<\/td>\n14<\/td>\n15<\/td>\n17<\/td>\n46<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2004 Athens<\/td>\n482<\/td>\n17<\/td>\n16<\/td>\n16<\/td>\n49<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2000 Sydney<\/td>\n630<\/td>\n16<\/td>\n25<\/td>\n17<\/td>\n58<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1996 Atlanta<\/td>\n424<\/td>\n9<\/td>\n9<\/td>\n23<\/td>\n41<\/td>\n7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1992 Barcelona<\/td>\n290<\/td>\n7<\/td>\n9<\/td>\n11<\/td>\n27<\/td>\n10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1988 Seoul<\/td>\n270<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n14<\/td>\n15<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Susie was a hard worker and most of the people on our team are incredibly hard workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nugent was quick to point out that Australia is still third on the overall medal tally in the pool with one gold, five silver and and two bronze.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, we are not dead,\u201d Nugent said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are currently third on the medal tally. We have a number of silvers and there are more (events) to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to look at this over a longer period of time and get on with our preparation beyond this Olympics, but keep doing what we can here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nugent admitted the Australians were being \u201cout-raced\u201d by an in-form, all-star American team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our team is not loaded with stars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe US team is at the minute and that might change for them when these great performing men like (Ryan) Lochte and (Michael) Phelps leave their scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will be looking to a situation like we had with (Ian) Thorpe and (Grant) Hackett going, but you just rebuild and it is not an annual thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a progressive thing in our sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nugent said a post-mortem will be conducted after the Games, but he preferred to call it an \u201cevaluation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Weight of expectation<\/h2>\n
\"Emily<\/a><\/div>\n

The weight of expectation is one factor seemingly taking its toll on Australia\u2019s swimmers.<\/p>\n

James Magnussen, Emily Seebohm and Belinda Hocking have set gold medal winning times close to the Games, only to falter on the Olympic stage.<\/p>\n

Seebohm struggled to contain her emotions in having to settle for silver in the 100m backstroke, and after all the hype, the \u2018Missile Magnussen has been misfiring. He came sixth in last night\u2019s 50m semi-finals to miss a place in the final.<\/p>\n

He admits he is struggling.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been a very stressful week, especially after losing in the relay (Australia was fourth in the 4x100m freestyle), so I had no expectations on myself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel mentally exhausted and physically not far behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nugent says Magnussen has had to deal with a lot over the past week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he is just a bit jaded now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is massive expectation on him coming here and he has done a good job up to this point.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe needs a rest. He has got the relay on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to see Original Content<\/a><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/span>
\nMikheil Kharebov specializes in helping people on the subject of making money online from home through highly profitable & successful home based business. His website, www.EmpowerNetwork.com\/0325geo<\/a> provide a wealth of informative articles and resources on everything you\u2019ll ever need to know about earning money online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Head coach Leigh Nugent has been forced to answer criticism of Australia\u2019s swimmers\u2019 work ethic as he promised a post-mortem into the team\u2019s belly-flop at the London Olympics. Australia did not win any medals in the pool on day six and has only one gold \u2013 in the women\u2019s 4\u00d7100 metres \u2013 to show, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":630,"featured_media":244,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[143,159],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-sport","tag-swimming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/630"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":246,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions\/246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/0325geo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}