ATHENS, MARCH 21: American and european swimmers have blitzed the record books and gained a huge boost in confidence ahead of the Sydney olympics. The fifth world Short-Course Championships, last global meeting before the games begin in six months' time, produced an incredible 15 world records in four days, each worth 15,000 dollars in prize money and each a valuable psychological lift.Now the Athens champions must translate their expertise in the 25-metre pool to the demands of the 50-metre olympic dimension and the confrontations with the likes of Ian Thorpe, Michael Klim, Grant Hackett and other top Australians, who stayed away to concentrate on the National olympic trials in may.American Neil Walker led the spree with five world records, four individual and one relay - plus 63,750 dollars, five of the 2,000 dollars watches, presented to each record-breaker and the trophy for outstanding men's swimmer.Sweden's Therese Alshammar, with a stroke of perfection, produced the two outstanding swims of the meeting. She took women's freestyle into mind-boggling realms that even the Chinese at their all-conquering peak never reached.Alshammar, who eclipsed the formidable six-year-old world marks of Le Jingyi in the 50 and 100 metres freestyle last December, surpassed that by vast margins to bring the 50 down to 23.59 and the 100 to 52.17.American Jenny Thompson collected the women's overall trophy for her golds in the 50 and 100 butterfly, a world record in the latter event and the silver behind Alshammar in the 100 freestyle, but confessed to feeling ``obliterated'' by the Swede.``First there is Therese Alshammar, then there is nothing, then there is nothing, then there is nothing, then there is Thompson, then there's everyone else right now,'' Swedish head coach Hans Chrunak said.Chrunak had reason to be cheerful, with Alshammar's exploits and the feats of Lars Frolander, who broke Klim's 50 and 100 metres butterfly world marks and came within a tantalising 0.01 of a second of the six-year-old standard of the great Alexander Popov in the 100 freestyle.``We have the same goal we had before athens - one gold, one silver, one bronze at the olympics. I wouldn't cry if we had more. Our chances for gold are Alshammar, Frolander and maybe one of the relay teams,'' he said.Chrunak said that in the past Alshammar, who has made phenomenal strides since she moved to Hamburg to train with German coach Dirk Lange last year, had also performed well in the 50-metre pool and had recently swum a very fast long-course 50 in Magdeburg.Frolander, he noted, had won silver (100 butterfly) and bronze (100 freestyle) at the last Long-Course World Championships in Perth, Australia, in January 1998. ``he will go for gold in the 100 fly in Sydney and one of the medals in the 100 free,'' chrunak said.
