The NSW championships were a while ago now, but I have to say I was very happy with my form. I haven’t swum times like that for around three years. It was also a great weekend for Eamon Sullivan who not only broke the world record in the 50 metre freestyle but also broke the Australian record in the 100m freestyle with the third fastest time ever. Not a bad weekend for Eamon that one!

I also got to race for the first time in the new Speedo suit and it’s certainly the best one they have produced.

Having said that I really want to say the following: it is not the suit that is causing times to be lowered. It is the person in it improving with training and, while the suit is a technological advancement, it is not the reason for times being lowered. If you threw the suit in the pool I guarantee you it wouldn’t go anywhere!

The current suits are an example of the evolution of sport. And when you look at it there is a not a single sport that hasn’t used technological advancements in the past.

You don’t see Roger Federer using a wooden racket, he has the latest equipment. Lance Armstrong didn’t race on a 40 year old bike and Michael Jordan always had the newest most advanced shoes, not that they really helped me as a kid shooting hoops in the backyard.

The point is swimming should be no different and the suit is the furthest thing from cheating there is. The suits are legal within the sport so I honestly think the focus should be on the athletes.

Lately I have been keeping myself busy with training, albeit a much lighter load now as part of the tapering process, and I certainly have more energy than what I did a few weeks ago.

To give you an idea of the workload, when I am in full training I will swim 70-75 kilometres a week. Last week I did 35-40 kilometres so it is considerably less and it really gives me a lot more energy.

I did have the flu last week, which is always a struggle for me, because it usually leads to my asthma playing up. It’s certainly not something I want to have happen in Beijing with the air pollution there. Already one of the leading marathon contenders Haile Gebrselassie has dropped his event and my doctors are working on strategies to make sure I don’t have problems because of the air quality.

It really is a big help that the pool is indoors.

With the Olympic Trials on next weekend at Homebush I am starting to get excited. Homebush is a great facility and the pool is fast so I think there will be some good times produced.

My schedule is as follows.

Day 1 – 400m freestyle, Days 2/3 - 200m freestyle, Day 4 - 4×200m freestyle relay, Day 7 – 1500m freestyle heats, Day 8 1500m freestyle finals.

It’s a pretty full on schedule and I want to point out I am not going for a single swimmer spot in the 200m freestyle. I only want to finish top four for a spot on the relay team and would be happy for three other swimmers to be faster than me in that event. I expect Kenrick Monk to be the favourite.

I don’t know how many of you read ‘Wealth’ Magazine but I did a story for them which was in last month’s edition and they got all sorts of facts wrong, including my middle name (I don’t have one) but they said it was George. I just thought it was amusing.

Hacky