onwards once more in budapest
The dust has settled, there has been time for reflection and an opportunity to put Britain's performance in Budapest into perspective, particularly after the medal whirlwind that was the final day. Bearing that in mind, and with the benefit of hindsight, how did that British performance measure up?
There's little doubting that this was overall a high quality European Championships and not one in the seemingly meaningless vein of those which take pace in Olympic years. The racing was on the whole fast and furious, with the best of Europe represented in almost every event, with only a couple of high profile absentees from the meet. Against such a background the fact that the team was able to be crowned European Champions is a significant achievement and one that should be celebrated, along with the individual medal successes that saw the home team gain 13 podium places.
But while Britain's racing was of a very high quality, critics will no doubt be concerned by the small number of British records, with only three new relay marks to boast from the competition and no individual standards set, or the fact that many of Britain's medal winners from Melbourne swam slower here than they did in the Commonwealth Games.
There are two ways of looking at this; the cautiously optimistic approach is to say that, despite some of the squad's more likely medal winners being unable to produce on this occasion, the strength in depth that the squad possessed still allowed a fine overall performance. The opposing viewpoint holds that the team was capable of more and should have won a greater total of medals, with pre-meet predictions being unnecessarily cautious.
While both opinions are valid, it would be churlish to criticise the team in the wake of a compelling set of performances. While in a perfect world, the team would have been able to convert 24 top three rankings leading into the meet into 24 medals, sport is not so forgiving and no team can ever expect everything to go smoothly - witness the Australian men's team in Melbourne. What's most important is that those who didn't swim well in Budapest learn again from the experience; unlike Athens or Montreal there can be no criticism of Bill Sweetenham, who had no direct input to the squad's final preparations, and it will fall upon the individual coaches to get the best from their charges at future competitions.
There is also the Melbourne factor; we have seen before the difficulty that our swimmers face in having to race at such a high standard twice in one year - the drop off between the 2004 trials and the Olympic Games as a case in point - and the performance of the Australian Team at this weeks Pan Pacific Championships will provide an interesting comparison. Drawing a positive in future terms though, it seems unlikely that this scenario will occur again until the next Commonwealth year if, as pullbuoy understands they will, British Swimming reverts to FINA A and B times for qualification to Beijing.
But returning to the present, the results from Budapest should be rightly praised and congratulations extended to all concerned. Given that 11 of the 13 medals were won in Olympic events, there's no doubt that they were a success and provide an ideal springboard to neat year's world championships in Melbourne and beyond.