I hope everyone out there had a great Easter long weekend. I know I did, hanging out with Ken Sutcliffe on the set of Wide World of Sports was a lot of fun. Ken’s knowledge of sport is amazing and I really enjoyed my first appearance on the show.

I also enjoyed being able to get back to Melbourne for Easter lunch with Candice and her family.

Speaking of Candice, she is now 16 weeks pregnant and doing very well carrying the twins. We’ve only bought a few things like rockers as we don’t know what sex the babies are, so we haven’t gone out and bought clothes or anything yet.

Anyway, onto what I intended to blog about this week and seeing as I’m playing a bit of catch up I thought I would talk about the Telstra Australian Swimming Championships and how swimming has been treated in the media of late.

The swimmer who really impressed me was Ryan Napoleon from Queensland as he stamped himself as our newest hope in the 1500m freestyle.

It’s no secret the event is close to my heart and I, like many, thought we may have had a bit of a gap before someone stood up and became noticed, but Ryan jumped up at the trials, swam a good time at one of his first attempts and looks a swimmer of the future.

I’ve had the opportunity to speak with Ryan since (I hadn’t ever met him before the trials) and without putting pressure on him I think he can do very well. He’s not ready to break world records in the race yet, but give him time and I really believe with the level head on his shoulders he could achieve a lot.

I hope he does! Australian swimming has a long and proud history in the 1500. For the last five Olympic Games we have been right in the mix with the surnames Housman, Kowalski, Perkins and my own Hackett playing a part in the history of the event.

In 92, 96 and 2000 we were first and second, won it in ‘04 and were runners up in ‘08. It’s an incredible history to have and being able to quinella the event three Olympics in a row is special, as you have a maximum of two competitors representing.

I hope to see Ryan up there in 2012.

Of the other performances I thought Jessicah Schipper, Libby Trickett, Stephanie Rice and Eamon Sullivan were the standouts.

Jess Schipper was brilliant and I’m very happy for her, as she is one of the nicest people you could ever meet.

Libby Trickett showed her class once again, as did Eamon Sullivan who overcame hip surgery just a few weeks out from the trials to perform very well.

Steph Rice also performed very well. I think Steph shut the critics up to a degree with her performances and showed she will be in the swimming spotlight for a while to come.

The spotlight also shines on our swimmers out of the pool and I can’t help but think that swimmers have been treated a little harshly in the last year.

Of course when you talk about swimmers and the media, the first name which comes to mind is Nick D’Arcy.

Nick has recently been kicked off the squad to represent Australia at the World Champs in Rome and whether it’s right or wrong is not the issue for me. I just hope Swimming Australia can give Nick some clarity on where they are going and allow him to make an informed decision about his future. I think the whole issue has dragged on long enough in the media.

Negative incidents are nearly always blown up by the media and I think swimming in this country has suffered unnecessarily for this one. It may not have been managed well by Swimming Australia, due to them not having had many incidents to deal with in the past and I think they could have done better in this regard.

At the same time it’s the first major incident in swimming in this country in 10 years, when other sports seem to have an ‘incident’ every other week.

As I said I think swimming has suffered for it, despite it’s very clean record and I don’t feel it’s all that fair.

Neither was the reporting of minor incidents which were blown out of the water involving Steph Rice and Eamon Sullivan.

In Steph’s case I know some stories were simply inaccurate and as far as her behaviour went I felt it was all pretty innocent and the inaccurate stories hurt the person involved but that’s the price you can pay for being in the public eye. However, as long as Steph is swimming well I think she will continue to silence the critics.

As for Eamon when I saw him splashed across the front pages of papers for the ‘cab incident’ I couldn’t believe it. Eamon is a mate, but he is also a gentleman, and I don’t say that lightly!

I called Eamon the day after and I remember him saying “I swear I gave him more than enough.” How many people would have police turning up at their place for the alleged short changing of around $3-4?

Regardless of all of that I know Eamon and know he revels in being a role model who kids can look up to and he can encourage to participate in sport.

Hacky