On blocks for Games

By Ed Merrison
BELGRAVE swimmer Kelly Stubbins looks forward to a long career in the pool but would not mind bagging Commonwealth gold and a world record for starters.
Ms Stubbins, 21, is one of 69 Victorian Institute of Sport (VIS) scholarship holders selected to represent Australia in the 4x200m freestyle at the forthcoming Commonwealth Games.
Ms Stubbins, who has lived in Belgrave since she was 13, was a student at Rowville Secondary College and is now in the third year of a part-time biological science degree at Deakin University.
Though she came to swimming relatively late, taking it up seriously in year 10, she has been compared to double Olympic medallist Brooke Hanson who won gold aged 26 in the 4x100m medley relay at the Athens Olympics.
Picked for the team on the strength of her world ranking, Ms Stubbins said she felt pretty lucky to make her first open Australian team at an event as big as the Melbourne 2006.
“I’m so excited, I can’t wait. And mum and dad are pretty excited too,” she said.
Mother Rhonda Stubbins had to give up full-time work to take her daughter to and from training which often meant getting up at 4am for morning training sessions then delivering Kelly to school and later collecting her for an evening session in the pool.
The hard work paid off for Ms Stubbins, who made her first Australian junior team in the Oceana Championships in Fiji in 2003.
A member of the Haileybury Waterlions club, Ms Stubbins said she now felt part of a new family of swimmers and was best friends with her relay team, which includes Queensland swimmers Linda McKenzie, Libby Lenton and Bronte Barratt.
According to Ms Stubbins, coaches told the Commonwealth team it had bonded better than any Australian swimming side before, which made her extra keen to move into the Games village on Sunday, 12 March.
Saturday, 18 March will be Ms Stubbins’s big day with the heats taking place in the morning and the final fought out in an evening session where eight other gold medals will be decided.
The thought of the big day does not faze Ms Stubbins and the home crowd experience is something for her to relish.
“We’ve got home support and they all know you’re in there to win the gold medal, so that’s pretty exciting,” she said.
Ms Stubbins will also represent the nation at August’s Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Canada where she will compete in the 200m freestyle, 100m freestyle and 100m backstroke.
But for the moment her sights are set firmly upon taking back the gold medal the British team won in Manchester four years ago.
“It’ll be like nothing else I’ve done before, that’s for sure,” she said.