Another 'ocean' To Go, For Olympic Gold
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday July 8, 1994
What is left now for Shelley Taylor-Smith? After notching up her seventh consecutive world series marathon swimming title last month, it would seem the undisputed queen of the long distance haul has very little left to aspire to.
Victory after victory after victory ... it is now a question of not whether she wins, but by how far.
In the last race of this year's series on the Italian Riviera, Taylor-Smith, 32, was more than a kilometre ahead of her nearest opponent, even though she had wrapped up yet another series well and truly the previous race.
"I wouldn't have wanted to come out and finish second yet win the overall title, it wouldn't have looked good at all," she said.
Taylor-Smith left Australia yesterday to compete in a 42-kilometre marathon swim on Lake Magog in Canada on July 24, then the 35-km international ocean championships in Atlantic City on the US east coast.
While opponents prepare to battle for the minor medals in the World Championship race in Terracina, Italy, in September, which Taylor-Smith will win by the proverbial country mile, the Sydney school teacher has set up other motivational challenges.
They include attempting to smash the 6hr 12.28min record for swimming around Manhattan Island in October, followed immediately by a sub-20-hour attempt to break Des Renford's Sydney to Wollongong record.
And she is gearing up for a double and triple English Channel crossing in 1995.
And she is battling the swimming power-brokers to have marathon swimming included in the Commonwealth and Olympic programs, so that by 1996 in Atlanta there will be the chance for an Olympic gold medal.
Obviously Taylor-Smith's tenaciousness is not limited to struggling with the mind games of swimming in freezing and often murky water and ignoring the often unidentifiable smelly carcasses that float by.
As a delegate to the world swimming body, FINA, Taylor-Smith has experienced first-hand the political squabbles and knows that marathon swimming is not top of the charts - at the moment.
"I've heard that marathon swimming is in line behind women's water polo but I also hear we will never get it and, oh my gosh, it will be a while," she said.
"But I believe nothing is impossible and I'll keep promoting it.
"There are a lot of influential people who have no knowledge or interest in marathon swimming."
Even within Australian swimming circles, the marathon discipline is considered a bit of a Mickey Mouse event, probably because it's fait accompli that Taylor-Smith will win and Australia's leading male, David O'Brien, will also figure highly.
Until recently the medals won by the marathon swimmers were left out, or listed separately to other swimming medals.
But slowly things are turning around. At the world championships in September, the media will huddle in a spectator boat and whinge about the wind or the water chop, while Taylor-Smith will combat a horrendous current.
The course is the same as the Pan Pacific Championship course last September, which Taylor-Smith won after dealing with thunder, lightning, 1 1/2-metre swells and swimming against a particularly strong undertow.
"I just hope they have changed the course to go the other way,"Taylor-Smith said. "It was such bad weather, we couldn't see a thing and it was very cold and there were lots of jellyfish.
"I finished the race 2 1/2 hours slower than my best time (of 5hr 13min for the 25km course) so that gives you some indication of the conditions."
Asked about her main opposition, Taylor-Smith replied: "The only opposition I will have is my mind. There will be a lot of swimmers and I don't underestimate them but all I worry about is myself and whether I am swimming to my race plan."
To swing the advantage scale further into her lap, Taylor-Smith has recently secured a vitamin sponsor to eliminate the financial worries of competition.
This means that the subconscious pressure of performing well in each race in order to get funds for the next has been removed.
It could also curtail her housekeeping and baby-sitting jobs that provided extra cash, although casual stints teaching at Riverside Girls High will continue.
Students there have been well educated in the lesson that being successful doesn't necessarily equate with big dollar sponsorship contracts.
"It is good for them to realise it is not all fairy tales," Taylor-Smith said. "A lot of top athletes don't earn the money of the likes of Shane Warne and the kids don't know that it is just a select few who can live off their athletic profession."
Taylor-Smith's passions also extend to the environment and she has been a leading ambassador for the Clean Up Australia campaign - in no small way influenced by the pollution she sees in the rivers and oceans around the world.
"It can get a bit smelly; every now and again in a race you will whiff something and think 'wow, something is pretty rotten here'."
For the planned record attempt down the South Coast this year, pollution won't be the problem - it will be the sharks. Taylor-Smith said this was one swim where she would be in a shark cage.
She's hoping Renford, one of her main heroes and a key supporter, along with the legendary Dawn Fraser, will accompany her.
Renford has already agreed to be at the helm of her Channel crossing attempts but before that campaign can start, Taylor-Smith has to pile on the weight.
Marathon physique and Channel physiques are completely different. Taylor-Smith said she would sit in Dover for a month downing custard tarts, mashed potatoes and other high carbohydrate foods to increase her weight by at least five kilograms.
"To be lean and mean is not to survive the English Channel," said Taylor-Smith, who successfully completed a single crossing in August 1990.
"It is also a different mentality to racing."
© 1994 Sydney Morning Herald