Well the long and nervous wait is finally over... I qualified for my second Olympics! It is something that I felt I would never achieve once in my life, let alone twice.

I am so happy and excited for the year ahead, I feel a lot more deserving this time around as opposed to 2004 where a combination of the right place at the right time and hard work lead me to being the youngest male on the team.

A lot of things have progressed since 2004, I have matured as an athlete and climbed my way up the ranks.

The Australian Olympic Trials was by far my best meet to date, I swam massive PB's in both the 50 and 100 freestyle. Coming into the meet, I was expecting to swim fast but as is the nature of a "taper" I felt very average for weeks leading into it.

I didn't start until day four of the meet and it was hard to sit back and watch everyone swim so well, also the heartbreak of close friends of mine missing out too. I was drained after the first two days because of the roller coaster of emotions and I really had to take myself away from the pool to focus on myself.

As soon as I swam the heats of my 100 Freestyle, I knew I was going to have a good meet. Things just worked from the word go, I was able to execute everything in my races that my coach wanted me to and that lead to some fast times.

I won the 100 freestyle in a new Australian and Commonwealth record of 47.52, missing the World Record by 0.02 of a second!

Half way through the meet a Frenchman Alain Bernard who is a friend of mine broke my 50 freestyle world record (21.56) in a time of 21.50, which obviously I wanted to get back after only having had the record for 6 weeks. I was able to break it in the semi finals in a time of 21.41, and then better it again in the final in 21.28.

Overall I couldn't have asked for a better meet. I was going in there wanting to win both the 50 and 100 to gain selection for the Olympics, but to come out with those times and the records was amazing.

The next 4 months are very busy, starting with a 2 week training camp in Canberra. From there we will be spending a month in Europe training and racing and after that just spending time in Australia doing our final preparations.

I will check in soon with my progress...

Cheers

Eamon

Click here to find out more about Eamon's sponsor Lenovo and their involvement as the sole technology supplier of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.