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Hackett misses world record

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Posted: Saturday March 27, 1999 03:39 PM

Grant Hackett attributes his strong performance to a fast start. Adam Pretty/Allsport

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- Australian Grant Hackett became the second-fastest 1,500-meter freestyle swimmer in history while double Olympian Kieren Perkins was left shattered at the Australian championships Saturday.

Hackett clocked 14 minutes, 48.63 seconds to finish more than a lap ahead of Sydney teenager Craig Stevens (15:21.16) and Perkins (15:27.27).

The 18-year-old's time catapults him above 1991 Perth world champion, German Jorg Hoffmann, as the second-fastest swimmer over 30 laps.

Only Perkins has gone faster -- with his world record swim (14:41.66) at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada; at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics (14:43.48) and at the 1992 Olympic trials in Canberra (14:48.40).

The 25-year-old triple world record holder was at a loss to explain why he swam so badly after Saturday's race at the Chandler Aquatic Center.

His time was more than 45 seconds slower than his world record and he'd been hoping to get close to the 15-minute mark.

"I'm shattered, I guess," Perkins said. "It was terrible. I can't explain it. I've never swum so bad before.

"At no time in the race did I feel comfortable. It was a bad day at the office."

The father of two whose dream is to become the first male swimmer in history to win the same event at three consecutive Olympics said he had a lot of soul-searching to do before the Pan Pacific titles in Sydney in August. "This puts me in a position of reassessing where I am and what I'm doing and what went wrong," he said. With only the top three swimmers in individual events eligible for Pan Pac selection, Perkins was lucky Olympic silver medalist Daniel Kowalski decided against contesting the 1,500-meter freestyle after falling ill. That meant Perkins will have a spot on the Pan-Pacific team for Australia.

Hackett, who broke the world 200-meter freestyle record in a club relay on Tuesday, was almost seven seconds slower than Perkins' world record.

He said he took Saturday's race out too hard, too soon to break Perkins' time.

"I can't believe I went out that fast," said Hackett, who was under Perkins' world record pace for the first 200 meters of the race. "But it's a good feeling to know that I'm the second-fastest 1,500-meter swimmer of all time. It's great to go past Jorg."

 

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