Coutts faces Rice and her fear of drowning
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday April 1, 2011
IT'S hardly surprising Alicia Coutts feels some trepidation about competing at this week's world championships trials.But it has little to do with living up to high expectations as she competes for the first time since becoming the sport's new "it" girl with five gold medals at the Delhi Commonwealth Games last October, or with her coming face to face with the woman she replaced in that role, Stephanie Rice, who missed the Delhi Games due to injury.It's all about a fear of drowning as Coutts tries to overcome a phobia she has had for almost a decade."I'm swimming the 200m freestyle [this week] and it's a new event for me," Coutts, 23, said. "My coach has put me in that event to see how I go. I had a bit of a bad experience with that when I was younger, so I have stepped away from it, but now I'm coming back."When I was 14, I went to Australian Schools' Nationals in Perth and on the third turn of the 200m freestyle I blacked out."It was only for "a few seconds", and after coming to she managed to finish the final lap before collapsing. "It kind of gave me a bit of a phobia of it [the 200m] for a few years. I've been doing a little bit of work in training for it and hopefully I can make it to the end without drowning."Coutts admits she had not expected her great successes in Delhi, where she won the 100m freestyle, 100m butterfly and 200m individual medley, plus two relay golds. She had been training well and finished third in the butterfly at the Pan Pacific titles in the US in August but was simply focusing on "getting better and working harder, and it obviously paid off".While Delhi was a remarkable jump for the 2008 Olympian, it is London next year that matters."Last year is last year, isn't it?" head coach Leigh Nugent said. "I'm pretty sure most of our coaches and athletes have adopted the futuristic approach."I think Alicia would have gained a huge amount of confidence from what she did last year, and even though you set yourself up in a way as being the front-runner, that's the position you've got to be able to deal with and hopefully she has developed the mental skills to do that."Coutts begins her campaign at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre today in the heats and semi-finals of the 100m butterfly and the 200m individual medley, racing Rice in both. "It will be tough having two of my main events on the one day," Coutts said.National titles Trials for theworld titles in Shanghai in July April 1-8 at Sydney Olympic Par Aquatic Centre. Heats: 10am, Finals 7pm TV: One HD. Tomorrow‚„s highlight:Women‚„s 100m butterfly ‚€œ Stephanie Rice, Alicia Coutts, Jess Schipper, Emily Seebohm, Yolane Kukla, Marieke Guehrer
© 2011 Sydney Morning Herald
