With a flipper in both camps, Australian swim coach Michael Palfrey’s position is untenable. Swimming Australia must move him on.
When Australian swim coach Michael Palfrey called out “go Korea” at the end of an extracurricular poolside interview on Tuesday, he might have thought he was waving.
It’s perverse that Palfrey has not already been moved on, if for no other reason than to smooth the waters inside the Australian camp. It’s unfathomable that he had the effrontery still to be on the pool deck with the Australians on Wednesday. It’s weird that he is sharing a room with Damien Jones, a coach who on Saturday will be a rival in the first gold medal swimming race of the Paris Olympics.
Historically, the Australian swim team has always been a team within a team, with its own traditions and historiography, almost a cult, and mostly it has worked for the good.And Palfrey’s bizarre behaviour twangs. You could hear it in chef de mission Anna Meares’ carefully chosen words on Thursday as she talked about having a mind only for the wellbeing of the athletes and the paramountcy of not disrupting their preparations.
In the grand scheme of things, Palfrey’s double-dealing does not amount to treason. But it is at very least odd. What is it with swimming people, that it throws up such oddballs? As a keen recreational swimmer, this column asks the question advisedly. Is it the long, odd hours, all those dark early mornings? Is it the single-mindedness? Is it the tyranny of the black line? Is it that chlorine?It won’t do to lump all swimmers and ancillaries in the same, well, pool.
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