Baby 'in way of Olympic bid'

Australian Water Polo champion Keli Lane attended a wedding where she drank and danced hours after allegedly killing her newborn daughter. Photo / Getty Images

Keli Lane, an Australian water polo champion, had an "overriding ambition" to compete at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

So when she got pregnant five times in the years leading up to the Games, she had two abortions, had two babies adopted - and allegedly killed the fifth.

Lane, who has gone on trial for murdering her 2-day-old daughter, Tegan, hid her pregnancies from her friends and family, and even her boyfriends. Several hours after allegedly killing Tegan, she attended a wedding, where she drank, danced and socialised.

The Crown prosecutor, Mark Tedeschi, QC, told the New South Wales Supreme Court that Lane, now 35, was set on representing Australia at the Sydney Games, where water polo was introduced as an Olympic sport.

"A child was not part of this picture," Tedeschi said.

The elite athlete allegedly disguised her swelling stomach by wearing loose clothes and tying jumpers around her waist. When she played polo, she would wrap herself in a towel before slipping into the pool.

This aroused the suspicions of her teammates, who donned goggles to scrutinise her under water.

While it might seem strange that a woman could conceal three full-term pregnancies from those around her, Tedeschi said, "It does happen".

He said that after each birth Lane immediately resumed her active sporting, social and sex life. She drank heavily and would "keep up with the boys", sometimes vomiting - which might explain her serial pregnancies despite taking the pill.

Lane - who was not, in the end, part of Australia's gold medal-winning water polo team in Sydney - had abortions in 1992 and 1994. The following year, she gave birth hours after playing in a grand final for her Balmain club, in Sydney. The jury heard that, after the contractions started, she left post-match drinks and took herself to nearby Balmain Hospital.

Tegan was the result of her fourth pregnancy, in 1996. Tedeschi said Lane discharged herself from hospital after two days, probably leaving with the baby via a fire escape in order to avoid the nurses' station.