Test of nerve for record-shattering De Bruijn

Sydney: Dutch swimmer Inge de Bruijn, world record breaker and Olympic gold medal favourite, says she was once such a nervous wreck that she could not race.

The 27-year-old Dutchwoman, who dropped out of the sport and missed the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, has returned with a vengeance to lead the world in sprint freestyle and butterfly this year.

She broke seven world records and equalled one between May and July and now is favourite for Olympic gold in the 50 and 100 metres freestyle and 100 metres butterfly in the Homebush Bay pool, where the most severe test of nerve begins on Saturday.

No pressure could be greater for a swimmer than the weight of expectation on an Olympic favourite but De Bruijn says she is ready for action and no longer beset by nerves.

"That's what I was in the past, totally," she told journalists at the Athletes Olympic Village on Thursday.

First wins

"It was a big victory for me not to be nervous any more in the European championships in Istanbul, where I won, and also at the world short-course championships in Hong Kong, where I beat Jenny Thompson."

Those first major championship victories came in 1999, when she defeated top American Thompson in the 50 freestyle at the Hong Kong meet in April and won the 50 freestyle and 100 butterfly at the Europeans in Istanbul in July and August.

Now, she says, nerves are no longer a worry.

"For me it doesn't matter any more. I need the adrenalin in my body to help me, and the crowd is going to help me swim in Sydney," she said.

"Right now I feel really confident, I feel I'm ready and I feel I did my best in training and I worked very hard. I'm ready ... I just need to go out and show it."

A world championship and Olympic finalist in her teens, De Bruijn picked up European championship medals, including a relay gold, but never won an individual title in the first phase of her career.

After missing the Atlanta Games she decided to give the sport a second, more determined try.

American move

She moved to the United States to train with American coach Paul Bergen as well as her own coach Jacco Verhaeren. The new regime has much more land-based training, with weights, running and cycling.

The world record spree -- which took her from Monaco to Sheffield in England, back to the Dutch town of Drachten and on to Rio de Janeiro and Federal Way, Washington -- was stunning but came as no surprise to her coach?

"I was never really concerned," Verhaeren said. "I was more surprised that she could go so fast without tapering.

"I wasn't really concerned about Inge being able to swim as fast as she did. I was a little bit surprised she did the times in hard training."

De Bruijn will be in action in the opening session on Sunday, with the 100 butterfly -- her favourite event -- starting her highly demanding programme."I feel ready to jump on the blocks and go," she said.



(c) Reuters Limited.