Erika Fairweather at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha. Photo / AP
Erika Fairweather at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha. Photo / AP
Dave Crampton for LockerRoom
Swimming world champion Erika Fairweather is going to have to pull out all her top-dog tricks - or hope at least one of her competitors does not - to win a medal in the 400m freestyle on the opening night of the Paris Olympics.
Fairweather, 20, from Dunedin, is seeded just 0.28 seconds behind third-ranked Canadian teenage phenomenon Summer McIntosh in her favoured event, after winning New Zealand’s first World Aquatics title at Doha in February in a 3:59.44 seconds lifetime best.
On July 6, Fairweather left for Monaco with her coach Lars Humer for a Paris preparation camp to try to close the gap further. They are off to their second Olympics together. Fairweather’s focus is to sufficiently lower her time to be the first Kiwi woman to stand on any level of an Olympic swimming podium since her parents were born.
Should Fairweather drop her time at Paris by a third of a second without McIntosh lowering her season best time, she will likely share the Olympic podium on July 27 with defending Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus from Australia and the defending champion at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, American Katie Ledecky.
It sounds simple, until you realise that Ledecky, McIntosh and Titmus have each held the 400m freestyle world record since 2016 and did not compete at Doha. Furthermore, New Zealand has not had a woman swimmer on an Olympic podium since Dunedin swimmer Jean Stewart won a backstroke bronze at Helsinki in 1952, the year long jumper Yvette Williams, also from Dunedin, became New Zealand’s first female Olympic medalist, winning gold.
Erika Fairweather made her first Olympic appearance in Tokyo. Photo / Getty Images
Fairweather has previously shared a podium with Ledecky and Titmus. At last year’s world championships in Fukuoka, Fairweather surprised herself to get a world championship bronze medal ahead of then world record holder McIntosh, becoming the world’s fifth female to clock under four minutes in the 400m freestyle, making her a top dog.
Only Danyon Loader, who holds half of New Zealand’s individual Olympic swimming medals, has placed higher than Jean Stewart in an Olympic pool. Loader won double gold in the 200m and 400m freestyle 28 years ago, and a silver in the 200m butterfly four years before that. No Kiwi has stood on an Olympic swimming podium since; Fairweather wants to be the next. She trains in the same Moana Pool Loader did and is contesting the same two freestyle events at Paris as well as the 800m freestyle. She is ranked ninth in both the 200m and 800m events.
Should Fairweather grace the Paris podium, she’ll be one of just five Kiwi swimmers to ever do so in an individual event at an Olympics.
Fairweather knows about fives; as well as being the world’s fifth woman to break four minutes in the 400m freestyle - she’s done it twice - she has already competed at five world championships. She also has five world long course championship medals; her first was aged 15 when she won the 200m freestyle as the youngest swimmer at the 2019 World Junior championships.
Should the New Zealand national anthem ring at Paris for Fairweather, she will be New Zealand’s youngest ever swimming Olympic gold medalist, placing ahead of three current and former world record holders. That’s highly unlikely, but not impossible. Fairweather’s time set at the Doha world championships in February when she won New Zealand’s first long course world title in any aquatic sport, is quicker than the winners of every Olympic Games but the most recent two.
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Ledecky smashed the 400m freestyle world record by nearly two seconds and has not gone faster since. Just two other swimmers have. At the 2021 Tokyo Olympics Titmus won in an Oceania record - Fairweather was eighth. McIntosh broke the world record last year and hasn’t swum faster since. Titmus currently holds the world record at 3:55.38 seconds. She nearly broke it earlier this year, swimming just 0.06 seconds short at last month’s Paris trials in a time exactly four seconds faster than Fairweather’s best, indicating that the world record could be under threat at Paris.
Other than Titmus, Ledecky was the only other to clock faster than 3:58.50 seconds at Olympic trials - a second faster than Fairweather’s trials effort. It could be that this is at least the time it could take to win a medal at Paris; it’s a time 0.13 seconds faster than the world record was going into Rio.
A one second drop is certainly achievable for Fairweather; she lowered her lifetime best by a second at Fukuoka, becoming just the second Kiwi female after Lauren Boyle to stand on a long course world championships podium. She then lowered her time again seven months later for gold at Doha and got two further medals, in the 200m and 800m freestyle.
While the top three were not swimming at Doha, they’ll be hoping to be in top form at Paris. So will Fairweather. She is the only top 400m freestyler to have set lifetime bests at each of the last three world championships and at Paris trials. Ledecky and McIntosh, however, have rarely been within two seconds of their best times. Other than Fairweather, only Titmus was anywhere close to her best this year which is why she is seeded nearly three seconds clear of the others.
If each of Fairweather’s top competitors swim lifetime bests at Paris - and on form that’s unlikely -Fairweather would have to swim quicker than what was the world record in 2016 as a minimum to get on the podium; in other words lower her lifetime best by three seconds. However if they don’t, and Fairweather continues to lower her best time again and compete with her competitors’ season best times, she’s definitely in with a medal chance.
Also competing in the 400m freestyle at Paris is 14th ranked Eve Thomas. She placed fourth at Doha and is ranked top 15 into Paris in both the 1500m freestyle and her favoured 800m freestyle. As they did at Tokyo, Fairweather and Thomas are also competing in the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay. With Caitlin Deans and Laticia Transom, it is likely to be the quickest relay New Zealand has fielded at an Olympics. At Doha, the team broke the New Zealand record twice and were placed fifth.
Should they make a final at Paris it will be the second time a New Zealand women’s freestyle relay has done so at an Olympic Games and the first time any relay has done so since 2008.
Hazel Ouwehand has also made an individual Paris qualifying time and will compete in the 100m butterfly at her first Olympics. World champion Lewis Clareburt is ranked second into his favoured 400m individual medley event, which will be held the day after Fairweather’s 400m freestyle.
This story was originally published at Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.
