A medal has just eluded Erika Fairweather in the women's 400 metre freestyle final at the Paris Olympics.
The Kiwi swimmer's finished fourth in a star-studded field.
Swimming NZ Olympic Program Lead Gary Francis joined Piney to discuss Erika Fairweather's performance.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from newstalk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
They turned for home. Let's look at the splits. Let's
see where Erica Fairweather is. She's gained a spot, She's
up to fifth. Has she got more to give? Can
she climb on the Decie La Deckie in third looks
to be slowing. It's Tatmas's race. Has Fairweather got a kick?
Can she find enough to get her bronze medal? Tipmos
coming for home? It's her gold medal? Ari On Timos.
(00:36):
When's gold and it's fourth for Erica Fairweather.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah, heartbreak for the Dunedin's swimmer this morning. Fourth ari
On Tipmas of Australia winning gold ahead of Canada's Summer Macintosh.
Cadie Ladecci of the United States was in third, but
Erica Feather fair Weather was closing the gap down the
final fifty meters and just ran out of Paul Unfortunately.
Shortly after the race finish, I spoke with Olympic Lead
(01:01):
for Swimming New Zealand, Gary Francis, and I suggested that
very thing to Gary. If there be another twenty meters,
Erica probably would have won the bronze medal.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Yeah, I think you've You're exactly right, Jason. I think
that she just run out of run out of meters
at the end there. It was a very nervous final,
wasn't it. You know, the four fastest girls pretty much ever,
and none of them really swum anywhere near their best.
You could just see how tense it was. And yeah,
(01:32):
I think that she just she just didn't get close
enough in the in the middle part of the race.
Always knew that get to the last fifty seventy five
meters and regardless of the fact that all the three
other girls actually have a faster two hundred and one
hundred time on paper than Erica, we know, we know
the last the last part of the race. She's very
strong and she came through again. But yeah, just a
(01:55):
little bit too much for her to do this time.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
How did you assist the way she swum in the
heat this morning? She got there ahead of some americantosh.
I know you always hold something back in a heat.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Heat, Well, because the heat was that wasn't the last
heat that it was the second, it was the first
of the two seeded heats. You can't afford to be
too complacent because you know four oh three made the final,
and you know they were four four oh two's. I
think the most important thing is to try to touch
(02:29):
the wall first, and to touch the wall first with
using the least amount of energy, and I think she
did that really well. She's found that beautifully this morning
and she certainly, you know, was she She felt really
good and she had plenty left, so we're really I mean,
she she did a really good job this morning and
(02:49):
she was ready to go tonight, and it just wasn't
quite enough.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
As you say, the star power though in those middle lanes,
four of the fastest women ever over four hundred meters,
four of five who have gone under four minutes for
this distance. But as you say, it's it's funny what
what occasion can do to people. As you pointed out,
it wasn't really the perfect race from any of them,
was it.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
No, No, not at all. I think the race was
predictable in that we always know how Tipmas is going
to swim, she's going to gun it, and she's going
to try and destroy everybody in the first two hundred.
We weren't too sure how Macintosh would swim. She's you know,
she's she's done it in different ways in the past,
(03:31):
and we know that Katie Leadecki will also swim the
middle and the end part of the race strong, and
you know, Erica's job was just to be right in
there and not be in with a chance to swim
people down at the end, and she just wasn't quite
close enough. But it was it was really interesting to
see that the times were actually quite slow and four
(03:55):
minutes we've got got a medal. And you know, it's
just that's sport at this level. It's not really no
one cares if you break the world record. It's about
getting the medal, isn't it. And in the end, tipmas
and and and Macintosh were able to do that, and
and Decky was able to hold off Erica at the end.
(04:15):
So always lessons learned. But yeah, it was, it was.
It was a tough race.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
It must be hard to process for Erica as well.
You know, obviously these pinnacle events are what you know,
our top athletes work their way towards and we've arrived
here and she she hasn't quite been able to achieve
the goal that she set for herself. How do you
assess her ability to to process it. Obviously to be disappointed,
but she's still got other events to swim, hasn't.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
She Well, I'll you know, I watched at the end
of the the end of the race as she walked
back past myself and her coach Lars, and she was
in tears. Obviously she's very, very upset, but at the
same time she she her tears were tears of you know,
a mixture of disapointment. But through frustration. She's gone back
(05:03):
to our team area. She's stripped in to her dogs
to swim down and she's already now starting to process.
She'll think about the swim. She wants to get back
into pool tomorrow and try and do a better job
in the two hundred. So yeah, there'll be time to
reflect on this. But already now it's right, Okay, that
(05:25):
one didn't that one didn't work. I've got to get
on with it. I've got another race tomorrow. And she's
really you know, this is a sign of her maturity.
She's already starting to think about tomorrow. She can't dwell
on this for too long. Just in the same way
that had she got the medal, we couldn't over celebrate it.
Got to get back in and get on with it.
So yeah, I mean it's a tough one to take,
(05:49):
but it's I think the fact that the rest of this,
you know, if they'd all swim around three fifty five,
maybe the world record had gone and Erica had gone
four oh one, I think she would have been like, well,
what's going on? You know, why did I swim so badly?
But I think that in the context of the race,
we can so that it was there must have been
a hell of a lot of tension in the core
(06:09):
room beforehand, and and again she went down to the
core room, she was in you know, she was in
the right frame of mind. But it just shows you
at this level, for all of those swimmers, how it
affected them absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Well, she's back in action tonight, as you say, that's
tonight for us, overnight for you, back in the poll,
as is Lewis clearbirt in one of his in fact,
his favored events. Look, I don't want to jinx anything here, Gary,
but what feeling do you get from from Lewis at
the moment.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Well, I think one of the things that look, Lewis
was in this morning and he's had it. He's been
observing what's been going on. He looked at the heats
this morning. Again, the heats were quite nervous all round
in all of the events this morning. You know, he's
he's kind of a I mean this in the nicest way.
(06:58):
Lewis is kind of a predator. He's a real racer
and he will you know, he's pretty good at detecting
any kind of tension and weakness. So if he can
latch onto that and not get affected himself, I think
he's going to go pretty good tomorrow. You know, he's
he's pretty experienced. He does race well under pressure. But
(07:22):
I guess there's pressure and then there's the Olympics, isn't there.
So we will see tomorrow. You know, I don't want
to jinx him and I don't want to put any
extra kind of expectation on him, but hate his preparation
has gone really well, as has all of the swimmers.
And this I think we may not have seen the
(07:43):
fastest times so far tonight. We saw the men's four
hundred and three promise and still come up short of
a world record. But the overall, the overall feeling of
the standard here and what we're seeing in the warm
up pool and in the training areas. The sport has
moved to an different level, and I think we're starting
(08:05):
to see the Olympics in the pool becoming similar to
the Olympics on the track. You've got to be strategic,
you know. It's about it's about winning the medal. The
time is great if you get it, but it's about
winning the medal. So we shall see how we go tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Indeed, can you tell us a bit about the complex
the aquatic center there, Garrett looks amazing on television. Well,
it's quite new, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Will it's actually this Racing ninety two's Rugby stadium. Yes,
it's an amazing, an amazing stadium. It's forty thousand seats
if it was a rugby stadium. The pool is actually
for the people at home to picture it. The poor
is actually set up across it would be across the
(08:52):
twenty two, so it's in the tri zone and up
to the twenty two across the stadium, so it gives
you an idea of the size of the stadium. And
then the spectators are wrapping around what would be behind
the gold hosts, and then the press and media area
is pretty much from I guess from somewhere between the
(09:15):
twenty two and the ten yard line and the or
the ten meter line and then the halfway line, and
then the other side of that is the warm up
area and the warm up paul stretches at right angles,
so the warm up paul pretty much goes to the
far end of the rugby field and then the rest
of the area is for the team preparations. It's an
(09:37):
unbelievable stadium, it really is. And the noise in here tonight.
I mean I've been in Rio which was pretty bloody
noisy when the you know, the crowd was stamping on
the on the on the on the ground and the
stadium was actually moving, But that tonight was something else. Again.
It was really pretty special, amazing.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Gary. Thank you so much for joining us painting a
picture for us. Much more to come in terms of
events for our New Zealand swimmers to compete in power.
Look forward to staying in touch and again, thank you
for taking the time for a chat.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Always a pleasure. Thanks very much, Jason, No, thank you, no.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Thank you, Gary. Gary Francis there. He is the Olympic
lead for swimming New Zealand twelve twenty. If you watched
that this morning. I just felt gutted for her. I
kind of watched Derek affair Weather over the last three
or four years since she made the Olympic final and
Tokyo as a seventeen year old. Remember she was still
at school at the last Olympics. You get how young
(10:35):
these athletes are. And over the last three years she's
gradually improved and become someone who I guess we started
to pin our hopes on and if not, you know,
if not that, then certainly we thought that she may
be a chance, had to be a chance of a medal.
You look at that stacked four hundred meter freestyle field
(10:57):
and it's you know often, you know, you get a
generational swimmer right to Michael Phelps, and you say, why
how am I going to beat him? But in that
field there are three absolutely generational swimmers that eric A
fair Weather came up against, and it is no disgrace
(11:17):
to be fourth behind those three La Decki, Titmas Macintosh,
three absolutely outstanding swimmers as is eric A Fairweather. Now
she's got to get back in the pool tonight, and
I wonder whether that's you know something that maybe they
often say, you know that you want to get back
on the horse after a bad game. A team wants
(11:37):
to get back out there. I don't know whether that's
true or not for swimmers, whether there'll be this lingering
disappointment for Erica. I mean, you could tell afterwards, and
we'll play some wadeo in a moment, just how guarded
she was and what wouldn't she be?
Speaker 4 (11:51):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I was actually not pleased necessarily, but it was nice
to see some emotion. And she's always just been, as
I say, so laid back, so authentic, so real. Still
only twenty, I mean, she'll be younger than I think,
certainly younger than Ladeci and Titmas at the next Olympic
Games in terms of how old they are now. So
(12:14):
another four years it must seem hard, though, right, must
have to look ahead. It must be like losing a
Rugby World Cup, that old phrase the George Gregan. Four
more years it must seem like an awfully long way
away to get the chance to achieve that dream of
an Olympic medal. Having said that, she's in another couple
of events, Erica Fairweather. She swims in the heats of
(12:36):
the two hundred freestyle tonight She's also in the eight
hundred meter freestyle and in the four x two hundred
meter freestyle relay.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to news Talk zed B weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from newstalk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
They turned for home. Let's look at the splits. Let's
see where Erica Fairweather is. She's gained a spot, She's
up to fifth. Has she got more to give? Can
she climb on the Decie La Deckie in third looks
to be slowing. It's Tatmas's race. Has Fairweather got a kick?
Can she find enough to get her bronze medal? Tipmos
coming for home? It's her gold medal? Ari On Timos.
(00:36):
When's gold and it's fourth for Erica Fairweather.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah, heartbreak for the Dunedin's swimmer this morning. Fourth ari
On Tipmas of Australia winning gold ahead of Canada's Summer Macintosh.
Cadie Ladecci of the United States was in third, but
Erica Feather fair Weather was closing the gap down the
final fifty meters and just ran out of Paul Unfortunately.
Shortly after the race finish, I spoke with Olympic Lead
(01:01):
for Swimming New Zealand, Gary Francis, and I suggested that
very thing to Gary. If there be another twenty meters,
Erica probably would have won the bronze medal.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Yeah, I think you've You're exactly right, Jason. I think
that she just run out of run out of meters
at the end there. It was a very nervous final,
wasn't it. You know, the four fastest girls pretty much ever,
and none of them really swum anywhere near their best.
You could just see how tense it was. And yeah,
(01:32):
I think that she just she just didn't get close
enough in the in the middle part of the race.
Always knew that get to the last fifty seventy five
meters and regardless of the fact that all the three
other girls actually have a faster two hundred and one
hundred time on paper than Erica, we know, we know
the last the last part of the race. She's very
strong and she came through again. But yeah, just a
(01:55):
little bit too much for her to do this time.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
How did you assist the way she swum in the
heat this morning? She got there ahead of some americantosh.
I know you always hold something back in a heat.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Heat, Well, because the heat was that wasn't the last
heat that it was the second, it was the first
of the two seeded heats. You can't afford to be
too complacent because you know four oh three made the final,
and you know they were four four oh two's. I
think the most important thing is to try to touch
(02:29):
the wall first, and to touch the wall first with
using the least amount of energy, and I think she
did that really well. She's found that beautifully this morning
and she certainly, you know, was she She felt really
good and she had plenty left, so we're really I mean,
she she did a really good job this morning and
(02:49):
she was ready to go tonight, and it just wasn't
quite enough.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
As you say, the star power though in those middle lanes,
four of the fastest women ever over four hundred meters,
four of five who have gone under four minutes for
this distance. But as you say, it's it's funny what
what occasion can do to people. As you pointed out,
it wasn't really the perfect race from any of them,
was it.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
No, No, not at all. I think the race was
predictable in that we always know how Tipmas is going
to swim, she's going to gun it, and she's going
to try and destroy everybody in the first two hundred.
We weren't too sure how Macintosh would swim. She's you know,
she's she's done it in different ways in the past,
(03:31):
and we know that Katie Leadecki will also swim the
middle and the end part of the race strong, and
you know, Erica's job was just to be right in
there and not be in with a chance to swim
people down at the end, and she just wasn't quite
close enough. But it was it was really interesting to
see that the times were actually quite slow and four
(03:55):
minutes we've got got a medal. And you know, it's
just that's sport at this level. It's not really no
one cares if you break the world record. It's about
getting the medal, isn't it. And in the end, tipmas
and and and Macintosh were able to do that, and
and Decky was able to hold off Erica at the end.
(04:15):
So always lessons learned. But yeah, it was, it was.
It was a tough race.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
It must be hard to process for Erica as well.
You know, obviously these pinnacle events are what you know,
our top athletes work their way towards and we've arrived
here and she she hasn't quite been able to achieve
the goal that she set for herself. How do you
assess her ability to to process it. Obviously to be disappointed,
but she's still got other events to swim, hasn't.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
She Well, I'll you know, I watched at the end
of the the end of the race as she walked
back past myself and her coach Lars, and she was
in tears. Obviously she's very, very upset, but at the
same time she she her tears were tears of you know,
a mixture of disapointment. But through frustration. She's gone back
(05:03):
to our team area. She's stripped in to her dogs
to swim down and she's already now starting to process.
She'll think about the swim. She wants to get back
into pool tomorrow and try and do a better job
in the two hundred. So yeah, there'll be time to
reflect on this. But already now it's right, Okay, that
(05:25):
one didn't that one didn't work. I've got to get
on with it. I've got another race tomorrow. And she's
really you know, this is a sign of her maturity.
She's already starting to think about tomorrow. She can't dwell
on this for too long. Just in the same way
that had she got the medal, we couldn't over celebrate it.
Got to get back in and get on with it.
So yeah, I mean it's a tough one to take,
(05:49):
but it's I think the fact that the rest of this,
you know, if they'd all swim around three fifty five,
maybe the world record had gone and Erica had gone
four oh one, I think she would have been like, well,
what's going on? You know, why did I swim so badly?
But I think that in the context of the race,
we can so that it was there must have been
a hell of a lot of tension in the core
(06:09):
room beforehand, and and again she went down to the
core room, she was in you know, she was in
the right frame of mind. But it just shows you
at this level, for all of those swimmers, how it
affected them absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Well, she's back in action tonight, as you say, that's
tonight for us, overnight for you, back in the poll,
as is Lewis clearbirt in one of his in fact,
his favored events. Look, I don't want to jinx anything here, Gary,
but what feeling do you get from from Lewis at
the moment.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Well, I think one of the things that look, Lewis
was in this morning and he's had it. He's been
observing what's been going on. He looked at the heats
this morning. Again, the heats were quite nervous all round
in all of the events this morning. You know, he's
he's kind of a I mean this in the nicest way.
(06:58):
Lewis is kind of a predator. He's a real racer
and he will you know, he's pretty good at detecting
any kind of tension and weakness. So if he can
latch onto that and not get affected himself, I think
he's going to go pretty good tomorrow. You know, he's
he's pretty experienced. He does race well under pressure. But
(07:22):
I guess there's pressure and then there's the Olympics, isn't there.
So we will see tomorrow. You know, I don't want
to jinx him and I don't want to put any
extra kind of expectation on him, but hate his preparation
has gone really well, as has all of the swimmers.
And this I think we may not have seen the
(07:43):
fastest times so far tonight. We saw the men's four
hundred and three promise and still come up short of
a world record. But the overall, the overall feeling of
the standard here and what we're seeing in the warm
up pool and in the training areas. The sport has
moved to an different level, and I think we're starting
(08:05):
to see the Olympics in the pool becoming similar to
the Olympics on the track. You've got to be strategic,
you know. It's about it's about winning the medal. The
time is great if you get it, but it's about
winning the medal. So we shall see how we go tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Indeed, can you tell us a bit about the complex
the aquatic center there, Garrett looks amazing on television. Well,
it's quite new, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Will it's actually this Racing ninety two's Rugby stadium. Yes,
it's an amazing, an amazing stadium. It's forty thousand seats
if it was a rugby stadium. The pool is actually
for the people at home to picture it. The poor
is actually set up across it would be across the
(08:52):
twenty two, so it's in the tri zone and up
to the twenty two across the stadium, so it gives
you an idea of the size of the stadium. And
then the spectators are wrapping around what would be behind
the gold hosts, and then the press and media area
is pretty much from I guess from somewhere between the
(09:15):
twenty two and the ten yard line and the or
the ten meter line and then the halfway line, and
then the other side of that is the warm up
area and the warm up paul stretches at right angles,
so the warm up paul pretty much goes to the
far end of the rugby field and then the rest
of the area is for the team preparations. It's an
(09:37):
unbelievable stadium, it really is. And the noise in here tonight.
I mean I've been in Rio which was pretty bloody
noisy when the you know, the crowd was stamping on
the on the on the on the ground and the
stadium was actually moving, But that tonight was something else. Again.
It was really pretty special, amazing.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Gary. Thank you so much for joining us painting a
picture for us. Much more to come in terms of
events for our New Zealand swimmers to compete in power.
Look forward to staying in touch and again, thank you
for taking the time for a chat.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Always a pleasure. Thanks very much, Jason, No, thank you, no.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Thank you, Gary. Gary Francis there. He is the Olympic
lead for swimming New Zealand twelve twenty. If you watched
that this morning. I just felt gutted for her. I
kind of watched Derek affair Weather over the last three
or four years since she made the Olympic final and
Tokyo as a seventeen year old. Remember she was still
at school at the last Olympics. You get how young
(10:35):
these athletes are. And over the last three years she's
gradually improved and become someone who I guess we started
to pin our hopes on and if not, you know,
if not that, then certainly we thought that she may
be a chance, had to be a chance of a medal.
You look at that stacked four hundred meter freestyle field
(10:57):
and it's you know often, you know, you get a
generational swimmer right to Michael Phelps, and you say, why
how am I going to beat him? But in that
field there are three absolutely generational swimmers that eric A
fair Weather came up against, and it is no disgrace
(11:17):
to be fourth behind those three La Decki, Titmas Macintosh,
three absolutely outstanding swimmers as is eric A Fairweather. Now
she's got to get back in the pool tonight, and
I wonder whether that's you know something that maybe they
often say, you know that you want to get back
on the horse after a bad game. A team wants
(11:37):
to get back out there. I don't know whether that's
true or not for swimmers, whether there'll be this lingering
disappointment for Erica. I mean, you could tell afterwards, and
we'll play some wadeo in a moment, just how guarded
she was and what wouldn't she be?
Speaker 4 (11:51):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I was actually not pleased necessarily, but it was nice
to see some emotion. And she's always just been, as
I say, so laid back, so authentic, so real. Still
only twenty, I mean, she'll be younger than I think,
certainly younger than Ladeci and Titmas at the next Olympic
Games in terms of how old they are now. So
(12:14):
another four years it must seem hard, though, right, must
have to look ahead. It must be like losing a
Rugby World Cup, that old phrase the George Gregan. Four
more years it must seem like an awfully long way
away to get the chance to achieve that dream of
an Olympic medal. Having said that, she's in another couple
of events, Erica Fairweather. She swims in the heats of
(12:36):
the two hundred freestyle tonight She's also in the eight
hundred meter freestyle and in the four x two hundred
meter freestyle relay.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to news Talk zed B weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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