Perkins hopes to defy age to achieve glory

Sydney: Alexander Popov and Kieren Perkins, defying the years, chase historic golden trebles, while the precociously brilliant Ian Thorpe looks destined for Olympic greatness in eight days of spectacular swimming at the Sydney Games.

Popov, who turns 29 in November, and Perkins, 27, aim to become the first male swimmers to win the same individual title at three consecutive Olympics, with the Russian appearing far the more likely of the two to achieve the feat.

Popov, based in Australia since 1993, has taken a new lease of swimming life this year, spurred perhaps by a pair of heavy defeats in 1999 to confound those who would consign him to the past. He smashed the 10-year-old 50 metres freestyle world record in May and came within 0.06 seconds of the 100 freestyle world mark he himself set in 1994.

"If you can win one Olympics you become famous, if you win two Olympics you become probably great and if you win three you become history," Popov once said.

Now, looking more of a winner than ever, he has two shots at history and the triple feat achieved only by Australia's Dawn Fraser (100 freestyle) and Hungary's Krisztina Egerszegi (200 backstroke).

Perkins, by contrast, has not won a major race since he staged his own resurrection at the 1996 Atlanta Games to retain his 1,500 metres freestyle title after looking extremely fallible in the preceding months and flirting with elimination in the Olympic heats.

Perkins, who set the last of his 11 world records back in 1994, has been supplanted as world champion by Grant Hackett, a fellow Queenslander who has been winning all his 1,500s for the past four years and is now favourite to seize the Olympic crown.

Their highly-anticipated battle on the last day of swimming in the 17,500-capacity Homebush Bay indoor pool will possibly provide the climax of the whole Games for Australian fans, who will cheer on their men and trust that no foreign interloper - such as Erik Vendt, the first American to break the 15-minute barrier - will spoil their party.

Thorpe likely to have a smooth sailing

Nobody looks remotely capable of disturbing the party for Thorpe, the 17-year-old local boy with the size 17 flipper-feet which provide a kick to propel him out of reach of rivals who have come nowhere near his world record-breaking times in the 200 and 400 metres freestyle this year.The "Thorpedo" has truly proved a phenomenon since he became the youngest men's world champion ever when he burst past Hackett in the 400 freestyle in Perth in January 1998 and has set 10 individual world records in the past two years. Three Olympic golds - 200 and 400 freestyle and 4 x 200 freestyle relay - now appear his for the taking.Popov faces sterner challenges in the sprint freestyle arena he has calmly dominated for a decade with a stroke of smooth and unhurried perfection.Foremost among the would-be kings are Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband, Popov's nemesis in both the 50 and the 100 at the 1999 European championships in Istanbul, American trio Gary Hall, Neil Walker and Anthony Ervin and Popov's Canberra training partner Michael Klim.Van den Hoogenband, six-gold hero of Istanbul, was in heavy training and unrested for this July's European championships in Helsinki, where Popov reclaimed his titles, but will be a vastly different proposition in Sydney.Inge de Bruijn's record breaking featInge de Bruijn has laid down a fearsome challenge in the women's sprint freestyle and butterfly, whirling away with seven world records broken and one equalled in a sizzling summer's swimming.American trio Dara Torres, Jenny Thompson and Amy Van Dyken take on the Dutchwoman in the 50 and 100 freestyle and 100 butterfly, hoping to dispel the doubts of 1972 Munich Olympic star Mark Spitz, who said on Tuesday he feared that the US women's team might fail to win a single individual swimming gold.Australian hopes of women's titles rest chiefly on Susan O'Neill, who defends her Olympic 200 metres butterfly crown boosted by having at last broken the 1981 world record of American Mary T Meagher.O'Neill is also fastest this year in the 200 freestyle in which Costa Rica's Claudia Poll defends the title and Germany's Franziska van Almsick, silver medallist in 1992 and 1996, will once more chase the elusive Olympic gold.China, who dominated women's swimming before a succession of drug scandals overtook them, have been depleted after more dope test troubles.They have come without three (two women and one man) of their four 1998 world championship medallists and, with the fourth - individual medley swimmer Chen Yan - way short of her best in the Olympic trials, their prospects look none too rosy.



(c) Reuters Limited.