Swimming: Pewle upsets bad enough - but what about that duck?

People are asking two things in Melbourne. The first worries them. "What went wrong in the pool?"

The second confuses them. "What the hell was that duck all about?

Australia won only one gold medal in the pool on the first night of Games action. While Kiwis might play down their chances before a sporting contest, that's not a condition that affects the Australian swimming fraternity. The pre-Games boasts that they would "clean up the pewle" were not infrequent.

Despite the loss of their two best swimmers, Grant Hackett and Ian Thorpe, through injury and illness, columnist Ray Chesterton suggested the dominance was such that Australian swimmers should represent their own states to make the competition more interesting.

The Australian women will probably dominate their events, but the first night showed that it won't be to the extent they were hoping.

Libby Lenton was expected to crush her opposition in the 200m freestyle on her way to seven gold medals, but she was upstaged by a swimmer she'd never heard of, Scotland's Caitlin McClatchey. The Aussies were agape.

New Zealand's Moss Burmester then rolled the local hopes in the 200m butterfly and another Scot, David Carry, swamped Thorpe replacement Craig Stevens in the 400m freestyle.

You could be forgiven for thinking you were on a different planet reading yesterday's Melbourne newspapers.

The Age headlined with "Birth of a new golden girl", highlighting the win of unknown Queenslander Stephanie Rice over two fellow Australians in the 200m individual medley.

And the Herald-Sun's front page blared "Golden Trio", celebrating the medal wins of Rice and cycling stars Anna Meares and Ben Kersten.

On page 50 the tabloid told us Australian Travis Nederpelt "just failed to reel in runaway New Zealander Moss Burmester" in the 200m butterfly final.

Should "just failed to reel in" conjure up an image of a fingernail photo finish, Burmester actually won by a comfortable body length.

Only three Aussie gold medals on the first day.

They have some catching to do to make their dream of 100 for the Games. Not that they have time to work out the mathematics, because that brain space is still trying to figure out what the purpose of the duck was in the Games opening ceremony.

A few days on and the riddle of the small boy and his toy duck which metamorphosed into a winged woman and eventually into a real duck is still the subject of much conjecture in Melbourne pubs.

Ping the real pekin duck had a photo call with the press in Melbourne yesterday, but typical of high-falutin' stars, he wasn't talking.

Sean Whitford, 12, said the duck simply represented the realisation of a dream and the start of journey.

Ceremony director Andrew Walsh said the story was inspired by Melbourne cartoonist Michael Leunig's The Duck Poem and it provided an opportunity to showcase Melbourne's vibrant culture, its diversity and Victoria's indigenous heritage.

Britain's Daily Mail echoed the thoughts of many in calling the ceremony "colourful, moving and symbolic to the point of being virtually incomprehensible".

- NZPA