Heyns settled for three silver medals behind Masami Tanaka in Hong Kong, where the Japanese swimmer set a 200 breaststroke world mark. Heyns was clearly building towards bigger things later in the year, with world record sprees in Los Angeles in July, Sydney in August and South Africa in September. Alshammar pulled off a stunning double at the European short-course meeting last December, breaking the women's 50 and 100 metres freestyle world records set by China's Le Jingyi back in 1993.
She promises more great things in Athens. "If everything goes as planned I'll break a world record in Athens", Alshammar said at the World Cup meeting in Malmo last month. Sweden are further boosted by Kammerling, who lowered the 50 butterfly world mark last December, and Lars Frolander, who will defend the men's 100 freestyle and 100 butterfly titles he won in Hong Kong and threaten Foster's 50 metres butterfly crown.
These championships, however, are not the main goal for most this year and, indeed, many of the world's top swimmers are far away. Greece may be the spiritual home of the Olympics and Athens will host the Games again in 2004 but, for now, all Olympic paths lead to Sydney just six months hence. Australian world record holders Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett, Michael Klim and Susan O'Neill preferred to stay at home to prepare for the National Olympic trials in May and the Olympic hosts have settled for a second-string squad in Athens.
