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Plays of the Week
From tight corners to trick shots, these are the most exciting, silly and downright crazy plays in the sport world this week.
PT2M13S 620 349At the vanguard of Australia's assault on the Olympic pool will be an aspiring astrophysicist, a pair of sisters who likely have never uttered a cuss-word in their life, a backstroker that goes to pony club, another mild-mannered enough to be Clark Kent and a distance swimmer that needs prescription goggles just to see his times.
If London - and the meltdown that followed - was the sport's version of Animal House , Rio might be closer to Revenge of the Nerds , with the latter ably doubling as stone-cold assassins once they dunk their textile suits in the chlorine.
Swimming Australia had been spruiking its transformative process to anyone that would listen and the proof has been in the pudding at the Olympic trials in Adelaide, which wrapped up on Thursday night with the traditional 1500m.
New attitude: Emily Seebohm and the Australian swimming team have changed - for the good. Photo: Getty Images
The laddish, frat-boy culture that would come to trademark London's flop has been overhauled by a group of sobering, driven athletes primed to put on a clinic in Rio.
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Dawn Fraser, who may have been caught up in the poolside vibe, suggested this group could be the greatest we've sent to a Games, going past the legends of 1956.
The trials, telecast live on Seven, could barely have been a better PR exercise for a sport that has been desperate to thrust its new generation of athletes under the nose of a disconnected public. Swimmers aren't on your Weet-Bix packets much these days, although that might be about to change.
Even James Magnussen, London's great panto villain, has undergone the most thorough of reversals when it comes to the fickle Australian sports fan.
Grace in defeat (although he has made the team as a relay swimmer) has endeared him more than two world titles and an Olympic silver medal ever could.
Those within the sport will tell you the generational change that has propelled a heap of clean-living, fast swimming guns to the top tier of the sport has been happening for years, it's just that nobody has had cause to take much notice. Such is the Olympic cycle.
Eighteen medals at the FINA World Championships last year, including eight golds, was a strong indication of what may be about to unfold. Prior to London, where Australia failed to win a single individual gold medal in the pool, only Magnussen would win an event at the preceding year's worlds.
Now he has become the ultimate team man, ready to help the 4 x 100m relay make amends in Rio.
In truth, this campaign will belong to the likes of Cameron McEvoy (the scientist), Emily Seebohm (loves ponies), Mitch Larkin (Man of Steel) and the Campbell sisters, Cate and Bronte (straight shooters, clinical swimmers). Their time has arrived.
Dutchman Jacco Verhaeren has done such an impressive job of bringing together the pieces of Swimming Australia that his contract has been extended to Tokyo 2020.
The team is flying, the swimmers are happy and so is the gaffer, who takes great care not to offer medal predictions but knows the quality he has at his disposal.
"This is one of the best teams I've ever seen. Again, you can't predict what other competitors are going to do. You can't predict what we are going to do. But it is a fantastic team indeed," Verhaeren said.
"We're not alone in this world, there will be great competitors. It is a really strong and really good team."
Approachable and easy to like, Verhaeren has poked his head up on the Adelaide pool deck to watch his swimmers rattle off world-class time after world-class time.
He rates McEvoy's 100m triumph as the greatest he's seen in that event, discarding the pair of supersuit times that remain stuck on top of the history books.
He wasn't in London with the Australians, nor was he here when Ian Thorpe and Susie O'Neill had profiles comparable to star footballers.
But he is starting to believe the sport is weaving its way back into the national psyche. Rio could send it through the roof.
"It's difficult for me to compare, because I wasn't there in the golden era, when swimmers were like celebrities.
"So it's not easy to compare. But I must say I've felt a lot of excitement. I think swimming gets its mojo back, which is a great thing. And where I really believe it should be in Australia," he said.
The team was officially announced late on Thursday night, a mix of old heads like Magnussen, comeback kids like Belinda Hocking and budding superstars like McEvoy, who could be the first Australian swimmer to win six medals at a Games if he fires in Rio.