SWIMMING:THE OLYMPIC swimming pool is about nothing if not time and motion and yesterday evening Ireland's Melanie Nocher was on the money when she marvelled at the speed of racing in these Olympics. "World records aren't just being broken by single seconds, they are going by four seconds" after her debut race.
As if to illustrate the point, Italy's Federica Pellegrini broke the world record in the women's 200 metres freestyle with a time of 1:55.45. Just minutes earlier, Nocher had left the pool struggling to come to terms with the fact that a leaking pair of goggles had left her virtually blind throughout her own heat in the same event.
"As soon as I dived in they filled up with water and I stopped and put them back up and then I couldn't see anything to spot my turns," she said, her voice sounding half shocked as she recounted the experience.
It was, not however, a case of her eyewear being at fault. The problems with the design on the hats for the Irish team threw her preparation for this heat into disarray. Earlier this week, Nocher was told she couldn't use the hat she was used to because the logos contravened regulations and so she had to adapt to a standard regulation hat.
It meant that she had to strap her goggles outside the new hat rather than inside, which has always been her routine. Ninety-nine times out of a 100 the new option would probably work out fine, but on her Olympic debut it did not and given the speed with which they run off Olympic heats, there was simply no time to ask for another set or to adjust the strap.
"I usually wear them inside," she explained, half laughing in disbelief. "So I think that is what did it. This [hat] isn't mine. So there was a bit of panic last night for hats. They have ordered new ones in but they couldn't get them here for this race. I think they are here tomorrow."
Nocher's disappointment was slightly tempered by the fact that she was using this event as practice for her stronger discipline, the 200-metre backstroke, in which she races on Thursday. But having any Olympic swim compromised by something as elemental as eyewear is a terrible encumbrance and the question will be asked of Swim Ireland as to why the hats originally designed for the team did not meet the stated criteria.
"There was a bit of confusion," acknowledged Swim Ireland head coach Keith Bewley last night. "The Irish logo was fine but we had two Speedo logos on the hat and you are supposed to have one. We have used these hats at meets before and there has been no problem but the Olympic rules are a bit different."
Bewley said that he expected the newly-ordered hats with the Irish shamrock logo to have arrived in Beijing tomorrow and added that if necessary, they could blacken one of the illegal logos prior to the next Irish race - Andrew Bree goes in the 200 metres breast stroke this evening.
Nocher started her heat in lane three and had posted the second fastest qualifying time of the competing field. However, given her difficulties, her finishing time here was a full two seconds outside her qualifying time of 2.02.04. Elina Partoka of Estonia, who swam a 2.00.64 race, posted the winning time in the heat.
The annoying thing for Nocher is that she has no idea how she might have fared, all things being equal. Her ambition is to swim a record Irish time on Thursday and see where that takes her.
"I wasn't nervous or anything. I still felt pretty strong in the water. This is hard but these things happen. I probably went out and came back at the same speed so I had the fitness for it. If I get this hat situation sorted, I will be all right. I am aiming for an Irish record. I haven't really been training front crawl."
The disappointment was compounded by the fact that she had been enjoying the build-up to this heat and with the atmosphere in the Water Cube, which has staged a phenomenal opening two days of swimming.
"It's amazing. I felt really good and strong in the water. That was just a warm-up. I wasn't nervous going out at all. It is so well run."
That was why she could hardly believe she was encountering the sort of problems you have when you start swimming lessons. "Nothing like that ever happens," she sighed. "So for it to happen at the Olympics is a bit of a bummer. I was considering just pulling my goggles off and I probably should have. I can train without goggles. But then, there is a lot of chlorine in that pool for obvious reasons so I don't know. Everything has gone well - except for that race! I have been training well. The perception was we were prospects for 2012 but I still felt that I had earned it and not just been given a place I don't want to repeat myself but I couldn't see where I was going and that is always a bit of a negative when you are trying to swim!"
In an interview during the week, Nocher observed that four years ago, her times were comparable to the semi-final standard at the Athens games. Since then, the pace has gotten even faster and securing a spot in the last 16 of the backstroke would be adequate atonement for this setback. "It is a fast Olympics! World records aren't just being broken by single seconds they are going by four seconds. It has been an eye opener already."
And hopefully in her next swim, she will at least be given a sporting chance to keep them open in the water.
Rebecca Adlington yesterday became the first British woman to win Olympic swimming gold for 48 years with a brilliant victory in the 400 metres freestyle. Adlington snatched gold ahead of American Katie Hoff, winning by 0.07 seconds in four minutes 3.22 seconds with team-mate Joanne Jackson third in 4:03.52 seconds.
Australia's Libby Trickett took gold in the women's 100 metres butterfly final, clocking a time of 56.73.
Zimbabwe's Kirsty Coventry broke the world record in the semi-finals of the women's 100 metres backstroke in a time of 58.77.
