The Girl with the Goalden Boot

Monday, August 23, 2004

 

Thomas breaks a leg in curtain call
By Michael Cowley
(SMH: August 23, 2004)

Some stay too long, some leave prematurely, but for a sportsman or woman, there is no more perfect way to make an exit, than when perched atop your field.

On Saturday night in Athens, when Petria Thomas climbed to the top step of the victory dais, she was in effect ascending to swimming's version of Mount Everest and then bidding the sport farewell.

While she has produced some tremendous results throughout the eight-day event, Thomas's last swim in the Australian colours, in the butterfly leg of the medley relay, was extra special. She dragged Australia back into the contest, making up a deficit of 1.68s, then giving freestyle swimmer Jodie Henry a 0.46s lead. Thomas had just swam 56.67s, the fastest relay split in history.

The Australians went on to win, breaking the world record as they did so. That gave Thomas - a three-time silver and one-time bronze medal winner at the Olympics before Athens - three gold, a silver, two world records, and one fastest ever relay split, from these Games.

She - and Henry simultaneously - joined Shane Gould in having won three golds in a single Olympics, the record for an Australian woman in the pool. Thomas's career ends with eight Olympic medals, the equal best for an Australian woman, alongside Susie O'Neill and Dawn Fraser.

"If anything I wanted to enjoy it," Thomas said of her last ever swim. "After I got the 200m 'fly and 4x200m relay out of the way I probably felt a little bit flat and then I think the excitement just built and built and built.

"I was so excited to swim this [the relay]. It's one of those really special teams to be a part of and I just wanted everyone to go out there and swim well regardless of the result, and it really did turn out perfectly. I think the way I saw it in my head happening, was the way it turned out tonight."

It was the perfect way for the women's team to end the program. Four gold, three silver and two bronze, second only to the best women's performance - the 1972 team led by Shane Gould. They won five gold.

"It's outstanding," Thomas said of the women's team. "I think the women have come a long way in the last four years. We were talking about some of the press we had to deal with when perhaps we weren't performing as well as people expected.

"I'm proud that I was able to be a part of it in some way - probably not leading the way - but a part of it.

"Now the guys are probably going through a bit of a rebuilding phase and down the track they are going to be as good as they have ever been as well. It's a bit cyclical. Maybe one day we can get the whole team going great at once, then look out.

"I'm not really surprised how we have gone. We have a great mix of older experienced swimmers and young enthusiastic swimmers. I think when you put those two things together anything can happen and we've proven that here. The future looks extremely bright for Australian swimming and I'm pretty sad that I won't be a part of that for the next few years."

Henry leaves Athens with three gold medals and three world records. She, too, was proud of the way the women's team had performed in Greece

"We're kicking arse, aren't we?" she said immediately after the relay win. "It's just been a great meet, I'm so stoked. I never imagined coming here I'd get three gold medals.

"It's just a dream, my first Olympics, and I've got three gold medals and three world records ... it's weird."

Giaan Rooney, who led the team in backstroke, revealed the swimmers had watched Grant Hackett's stirring victory in the 1500m freestyle before their race and it had inspired them.

"What a way to finish this meet off," Rooney said. "It's been such a privilege and an honour, not only to swim with these three individual medallists, but to swim with Petria in her last race ... unless we can convince her to come back.

"It's capped off a fantastic week for all of us. Watching Hacky tonight, we were all in the marshalling area cheering for Grant those last couple of laps and that was a big inspiration for us because he fought with his heart and we knew we wanted to do it the same."


Medley crew: Petria Thomas, Giaan Rooney and Leisel Jones cheer for Jodie Henry on the way to the medley relay gold. Photo: Vince Caligiuri

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