DUBLIN, 11 December 2003 — Triple world champion Hannah Stockbauer and double Olympic gold medalist Pieter van den Hoogenband return to the international fray at this week’s European short-course championships on one more stepping-stone to the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Stockbauer and fellow world champions Thomas Rupprath and Antje Buschschulte feature in a German team depleted by the last-minute withdrawal through illness of Franziska van Almsick.
Van Almsick, who smashed her own long-standing 200 meters freestyle world record at the 2002 European championships, skipped July’s world championships to concentrate on her preparations for a last tilt at Olympic after silvers in 1992 and 1996.
Her absence, due to sinusitis, is a big blow but there are plenty of other strong performers competing in Ireland’s new National Aquatics Centre in the four-day meeting starting today.
Newly crowned World Female Swimmer of the Year Stockbauer completed a unique treble of 400, 800 and 1500 meters freestyle world titles in Barcelona, while Rupprath, 50 backstroke world champion, collected three individual titles at the last edition of the championships in Riesa, Germany. Buschschulte, women’s 100 backstroke world champion, will defend her 50 and 100 backstroke titles.
Van den Hoogenband, Olympic 100 and 200 freestyle champion, had to settle for two silvers and a bronze at the world championships, where he was suffering from the after-effects of food poisoning. But there will be no rematch in Dublin with veteran Russian Alexander Popov, who beat the Dutchman to regain the 50 and 100 freestyle world titles in Barcelona but is not contesting these championships. Italy’s Massimiliano Rosolino and Romania’s Diana Mocanu are the other Olympic gold medalists in a record entry of nearly 500 swimmers from 40 nations. Britain, resurgent under their Australian national performance director Bill Sweetenham, provide the biggest squad of 55, the largest national swimming team the country has ever assembled.
Former world short-course champion Mark Foster and freestylers Karen Pickering and Alison Sheppard bring plenty of experience to the squad.
Katy Sexton, who won the 200 backstroke in Barcelona to become Britain’s first individual world long-course champion at an Olympic distance since David Wilkie in 1975, and James Gibson, world champion in the non-Olympic 50 breaststroke, will also figure prominently in the British challenge.
