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Libby Lenton

March 2007

Hello everyone!

Wow, it's really hard to start this diary entry…. it's hard to find the words to put down after some of the most amazing few weeks of my life!

Guess we'll start in March when we went to staging camp on the 14th. Things went very smoothly there, we stayed in Glen Waverly in Melbourne, and it was a good few days to just chill out and really start to let the effects of taper really take hold. In this phase you start to feel as though you're bouncing off the walls, and I definitely started to get very excited about racing!

One of the great things about this World Championships for me was that the swimming program didn't start on the very first day, and I was able to actually see my very first opening ceremony! I had heaps of fun seeing Rod Laver Arena transformed into the Susie O'Neill Pool, and I sang along with everyone else to Natalie Bassingthwaite, Shannon Noll and Christine Anu. It was a truly memorable night for me! And from then it was only 8 days until we started competing and I couldn't believe how quickly that time went!

In those 8 days, I started to have my ups and downs in terms of confidence and excitement, the normal nerves any athlete starts to feel when coming into a competition, but without a doubt the predominant feeling was that of anticipation!

I just couldn't wait to actually get in there and finally start racing! I'll admit when so close to a competition, and you haven't yet started racing and you don't know how you're going to go, it's the strangest feeling in the world - you're torn between being ridiculously excited but also so nervous and anxious because you've worked so hard to get to this point! All you want is to swim well but you just don't know if you can put it all together!

Anyway, on the 25th of March it all began! The first day of racing for me started with the 100m fly heat and semi-final and the 4 x100m freestyle relay. It was a great day, I made it through comfortably in the 100m fly, and the 4x100m we managed to upset the favourites – Germany and America – to win! It was a great feeling, we successfully defended our World Championship crown as well as maintaining our undefeated record in that event. As well it was pretty amazing because just the previous June, the Germans had smashed our World record and the Americans had also significantly beaten our time, so we went in well and truly as under-dogs and, in good old Aussie fashion, came out on top!

The following day I had the 100m fly final. This is one event that I don't think I've ever really come close to reaching my potential on the day of a race. For one reason or another I have hindered my own performance in a number of major races and that has been bad for my outcomes. Not to say that I did that every time but definitely in a few, so the one thing that I wanted out of that 100m fly at Worlds was for once just not to worry!

Not to worry about the outcome, not to worry about my competition….just plain and simple not to worry. But a little more than that, to be confident in myself and my abilities! It was amazing because in my warm up before that final an incredible air of calm came over me, and I thought....what do I have to lose? There and then I thought I have nothing to lose but everything to gain from this race! And from then on I was just excited about trying to put together the best race plan that I could, and if I did that then I would be happy and proud of myself, no matter what the outcome!

I managed to do a personal best time (equaling fellow Fuji Xerox ambassador, Jessicah Schipper's Commonwealth record) and win the 100m fly, with Jess coming second! We managed to do the quinella, like the World Championships in 2005, just in opposite positions!

What a start to the meet?! I couldn't have hoped for a better start! And then I got two days off! So I got to rest and recover a bit more, catch up with my mum and grandma, I even got to sit in the stands and watch 4 amazing world records be broken! Then in was back to business on day 5 of competition, and this is when my program started to get a bit hectic!

I had my 100m free heat and semi and the 4x200m free relay on day 5 and, after a couple of days off, you start to wonder if you're still fit and fast (I know it's only two days but your mind can start wandering in those two days….and after such an amazing start I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to replicate those performances!).

My 100m free went well on that day but in the 4x200m free I definitely didn't achieve what I had hoped for. I swam a full 2 seconds over my best time, and I definitely didn't feel that I did my job for the team! I felt so disappointed that I didn't get the team into a better position, that it was very hard for me to shake that feeling...plus what did that mean for the rest of the meet?

The following morning I had the heats of the 50m fly, an event that technically I should've made the finals for easily. But due to me still feeling some disappointment from the previous night, as well as not activating myself enough for the heat, I didn't even make the semi-final! Needless to say, for at least a moment or two I cried!

It was such a stupid mistake for me to make, and one that I just saw as a wasted opportunity...as an athlete and to work so hard for so many months beforehand, to see an opportunity like that just pass by, it's a pretty disheartening thing. But I didn't have too much time to pity myself because I had to get ready for that night, and what was pinned to be the race of the meet! There had been so much build up for the 100m free, that I was both very excited and very nervous!

People always ask which is my favourite event and I find that very hard to answer because I do love all of the events that I swim, but if forced… I guess the 100m freestyle has a pretty special place in my heart. I guess just because I've been through so much with that event. I broke my first World Record in it, made my first Olympic team with it, missed the Olympic final in it, missed an individual spot on the team with it, won Commonwealth Games in it…so needless to say we've had some great times and some not so great times!

So that night for me was a very special one indeed. Once again I just wanted to put things together and race better than I had before; I needed to focus all of my energy into doing everything that I could and not worrying about anything else that may have happened or what could happen. And that night, I managed to stay focused and I won my first World Championship crown in the 100m freestyle. To turn around and see my name on the scoreboard with the number 1 beside it was overwhelming! I definitely had a few tears, and what made it even more special was that I got to share it with a number of my family who were able to make it down to Melbourne!

The next day I had the 50m free heat and semi-final and the 4x100m medley relay. The 50m free, I made it through comfortably (thank goodness) and I was extremely excited about the relay! The medley relay for Australia is one of those events that we are lucky enough to have a very strong history in! It's an incredibly tough team to be a part of, and you practically have to win your individual event to be selected into it! We had a great team, and we were very excited to see what we could do!

Unbelievably, we swam a World Record, the first one for Australia at this meet, and win! That was amazing….to win individually is very special and obviously is something that all athletes work towards, but when you're apart of a relay and you get to share the win with 3 other girls, who have all swam their hearts out for each other, I have to say it really is a privilege to be a part of it.

The last day of competition and one more race to swim! The 50m free…another event that I have a very special history with! Going into this race I was the defending World Champion but I absolutely knew that I wouldn't have it easy! A number of girls had swum very fast at the Worlds and in the lead up, so I just wanted to go out and have fun that night! I wanted to celebrate the meet that I had had, because no matter what the result was, I had a very successful competition, better than I had ever achieved before! Once again, the luck would go my way, and I managed to get my hand to the wall first, and in a personal best time!

All I can really say is…wow. If someone had told me before the meet that I would walk away with 5 gold medals, I literally would have laughed at them! I couldn't have dreamed for a better result, not just in medals but in personal best times, and just in the way that I handled the races.

But there is no rest for the wicked, and the Australian team had to get ready for another competition! The following day we headed off to Sydney for the Duel in the Pool competition - a duel meet against the United State of America! It started in 2003 and is a great meet, which only goes for 3hrs and goes off point score!

The past couple of times the Americans have pretty much kicked our butts, but we are definitely making head way, and the last meet we managed to win the girls point score! So obviously we, as a team wanted to replicate the girls' side, and move forward in the boys. And we were lucky enough to achieve that! It was a great meet for me. It was awesome because in the first event I got to compete in the mixed medley event, where for each team there was two boys and two girls. I was the lead off swimmer for the Australians and for the Americans was Michael Phelps…I couldn't help but laugh because Michael Phelps is the best male swimmer in the world at the moment and I knew I didn't have a chance against him!

My whole aim in that race was to hold my own, and to try not to lose by too much, but by doing so getting my team in the best position that I could! I was so relaxed and having so much fun that when I turned to the score board and saw my time, that I was shocked! My time came up as 52.99! I took .41 off my best time, and became the first woman to swim sub 53sec! However, I can't officially say that it's a World Record at this time, because it's still under ratification, because of the unusual circumstances of the race! But I'm hoping for the best! Still it was a lot of fun!

After all this racing, I had almost forgotten about that little event we had been planning for almost a year! After the duel I had 4 days in which to get ready and relaxed for my wedding! In those four days, we had to change venue, because we found out the forecast was for rain (and buckets of it!), get my hair cut, coloured and have the trial, get my nails done, final dress fitting, hens night (very tame I assure you), wedding rehearsal/dinner, time out for Luke and I, and a family BBQ! That all went very quickly as well!

Leading up to the wedding, the piece of advice that I got the most was, a few times throughout the day, just take a moment and soak everything up! Just stop, look around and really enjoy the special day that Luke and I had planned. So that's what I really wanted to do. It was a truly special day, better than I could have dreamed! Luke looked so handsome, all of our family and friends were there, everything went so smoothly and most importantly I got to marry my best friend, and pledge my love to him! We had the best time! What a day!

Then we took off on our honeymoon! We got to stay on the amazing Lizard Island for 5 nights, the longest holiday that we've had as a couple together in 4 years! Before that it was 4 nights in Broome! It was the best way for us to stop and unwind from what was a pretty frantic month for both of us! So I just got back from our honeymoon and we've had a week in Brisbane, preparing ourselves for the inevitable...getting back into training!

Normally at this stage of a break, I'd almost be dreading getting back in the water, but surprisingly I'm really excited! Which is great! So right now it's getting back into routine and order (which will be very nice), and trying to get fit because in June I'll be off to Europe on the Mare Nostrum tour!

I hope I didn't go on for too long! I just want to thank all of you at Fuji Xerox for your support and encouragement, and I want you to know that if I didn't have your support I definitely wouldn't be able to do what I do, and achieve the things that I'm able to achieve! So thank you all very much, it's very much appreciated! You guys are great!

Talk to you soon,

Libby :o)