The new boss of Australia's Olympic team has used the year-to-go milestone before the Rio games to call for an easing of pressure on the nation's top swimmers.
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The timing of the statement about a cohort of athletes that provided multiple headaches at the London Olympics in 2012 is somewhat unusual, though not entirely surprising, in light of recent history in and out of the pool.
New chef de mission Kitty Chiller, replacing Nick Green as team boss after a far-from-smooth last Games campaign for Australia, said athletes from other sports must help alleviate the expectation on swimmers who have historically collected about a third of the nation's total medal haul at Olympic Games.
The Australian Olympic Committee is projecting that Australia can finish in the top five on both the gold medal and overall medal counts in Rio next August. To achieve it, though, Chiller says the spread of medals across sports is crucial. At the Sydney 2000 Games Australia medalled in 20 sports. By comparison, in London three years ago, it achieved podium finishes in 13 sports.
Chiller challenged Australia's volleyballers, triathletes, archers, shooters, equestrian and taekwondo athletes to return to the Olympic podium in Brazil, as they were in Australia's last summer Olympics.
"The swimmers should not carry the burden of medal success for the entire Team," Chiller said before a day of activity in Sydney to mark the countdown to Rio's opening ceremony.
"History shows the swimmers win around a third of our medals at the Games. In London they won 10 and we finished with 35 medals. There have been big developments and if the swimmers produce 15 medals in Rio that points to us winning around 45 medals. An excellent result but I feel we need to take the pressure off the swimmers, we should not rely on them to always deliver the bulk of our medals. It is time the other sports stepped up."
Swimming's world championships are on in Russia this week. Australia missed the podium in two finals on Monday night but world short course champion Mitch Larkin has been a highlight, setting a Commonwealth record in Tuesday's 100m backstroke final.
Australia will send around 470 athletes to Rio next August. It's hoped a major fundraiser where AOC president John Coates will host Brazil's ambassador to Australia, the New South Wales premier, head of the Australian Sports Commission and around 60 Australian Olympians in Sydney on Wednesday night will raise around $700,000 for athletes through corporate support.
"We need a much better spread of medals in Rio. We need to turn 7 gold medals in London into 14 gold in Rio. It is an aspirational goal but achievable," Chiller said before the major formal function.
"Our athletes need to be competition ready and also need to be podium ready – they need to do all the little one percenters in the next 12 months to make sure they are ready, physically and mentally, for a podium performance."
