Alicia Coutts has admitted to engaging in a bit of cloak in dagger in qualifying third for Friday night's 100 metre butterfly final. Coutts went against convention and deliberately avoided claiming the No.4 lane allocated to the top seed.
The swimmers enter the pool arena one by one, and the Olympic and world championship silver medallist believed that the order would be called from lane eight to lane one, which as the fastest qualifier would have given her enough time to complete her normal pre-race routine. However, the swimmers were called out from slowest qualifier to fastest, which has been the common practice of the past couple of years, and Coutts felt particularly rushed to the blocks.
She decided that she did not want to have the same distraction before the final. Therefore, she left plenty in reserve as England's Siobhan O'Connor and Canada's Katerine Savard snared the top two positions in 57.57 seconds and 57.83 respectively. Coutts posted a 58.07.
"There's was a little bit of strategy going on there," Coutts said.
"I didn't want to be in lane four for the final because they didn't give you enough time to get ready behind the blocks.
"I didn't have time to my arm swings. I barely had time to wet myself ... I don't like to be rushed.
"I like to be able to have a routine, a stretch my arms and everything before. I didn't talk about it with (coach) John (Fowlie) because I didn't really know that's how they were doing it. I just thought I don't want to be in lane four."
Australia will be looking to back up its successful opening day of the swimming competition where they won six medals, including gold medals to the women's 4x100m freestyle relay team, in a world-record, Emma McKeon, who was also a member of the relay team, in the 200m freestyle and Rowan Crothers in the para-swimming 100m freestyle (S9).
Cameron McEvoy will get his first hit out in the Tollcross pool in the 200m freestyle alongside Thomas Fraser-Holmes and 400m freestyle silver medallist David McKeon. Three other members of the women's 4x100m freestyle relay team, Cate Campbell, Bronte Campbell and Mel Schlanger will be competing in the 50 metres freestyle while Australia's youngest Paralympic gold medallist para-swimmers Madison Elliott and Lakeisha Patterson will 100m freestyle (S8).
However, 100m breaststroke world champion Christian Sprenger's confidence before his expected showdown with South African Olympic champion Cameron van der Burgh took a hit when he finished eighth in the 200 breaststroke final on the opening night.
Sprenger was reluctant to include the four-lapper in his program but did so after encouraging performances at the national titles in April. However, after being in contention at half-way be faded badly behind surprise winner Ross Murdoch.
"I just didn't have the efficiency. It's just one of those things, hopefully that doesn't affect me in the 100 and I can keep up that front-end speed," Sprenger said.
"It's going to be a very strong competition and I've just got to try and push through and convince myself that I'm still in great shape."
"It's a completely different race so I've just got to wait and see."
