EXCLUSIVE: Swimming Australia's 'LA immersion', breakaway from tradition in plot to slay USA on American soil
Swimming Australia has sourced accommodation external to the athletes' village for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics in a breakaway from tradition that's part of a plot to dethrone the USA as champions of the pool on American soil.
Wide World of Sports can also reveal Swimming Australia will head to the host city of the 2028 Olympics for two days in August after the Pan Pacific Championships for an exercise it's dubbed an "LA immersion".
Behind the national federation's move to utilise a hotel separate to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) — the venue for the athletes' village — is lingering disappointment about village life at Paris 2024, where complaints were rife about transport, food and the beds.
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The star-studded Dolphins team will be housed at the village but athletes will have the option of relocating to a hotel that's more conducive to high performance at key times in their racing schedules.
Swimming Australia hopes the use of the hotel, which Wide World of Sports has chosen not to name for security reasons, will cut down on travel time to SoFi Stadium. How travel time appears online at this point may not necessarily reflect what it's like during the Games, where some roads will be blocked and others potentially dedicated to streamlining travel for athletes and their support teams.
The hotel will have a high-performance area designated to the Dolphins.
Kaylee McKeown after winning gold in the 100m backstroke at Paris 2024. Getty
The two-day trip to LA following the Pan Pacific Championships, taking place in Irvine, California from August 12-15, will feature a one-night stay at the hotel as well as visits to the athletes' village and SoFi Stadium — the AUD$7.8 billion NFL venue set to transform into a pool and create the most electric atmosphere in Olympic swimming history.
Wide World of Sports understands Australian Olympic Committee president Ian Chesterman and chef de mission Anna Meares will join Swimming Australia in LA for the two-day trip.
The Pan Pacs, which feature Australia, the USA, Canada and Japan, will begin 10 days after the completion of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
Swimming Australia's staging camp for the Pan Pacs will be held at the University of California, San Diego, which will double as its location for the LA Olympics.
"So effectively we're going to be celebrating the Pan Pacs and the Comm Games but we're going to get that immersion experience [in LA]," Dolphins head coach Rohan Taylor told Wide World of Sports.
"So when we come home from that trip in August, everybody will be two years out and we know where we're going, we know where we're staging, we stayed there, trained in the pool we're going to train in, we've gone and stayed in our accommodation, we've seen where the village is going to be and we've been in SoFi Stadium, to really get everybody to understand and have a good feeling about that.
"They can see how far it is to the pool at SoFi Stadium and just get that experience of being in that area and what the hotel is like."
SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, pictured prior to an NFL game, will transform into a pool for the swimming competition at the 2028 Olympics. Getty
The Dolphins selected to compete at the Pan Pacs will head to LA for the two-day trip, which Taylor estimates will include about 80 per cent of the team for the 2028 Olympics.
Those athletes will then be able to spend two years "visualising" how their time during the Games will more or less look, Taylor said.
Australia's swimmers often spoke of their concerns with village life in Paris when passing through the media zone at the La Défense Arena.
Shayna Jack posted a photo on Instagram of athletes sitting on the floor of a bus on their way to the pool.
"Bus rides to the pool are jam packed … 45 mins to comp pool," Jack wrote.
"No air-con or windows down. Bus has also gotten lost. Crazy start to the chaos."
In an interview with 10's The Project after the Games, Ariarne Titmus went as far as saying the athletes were "living in filth".
"The thing is that the Olympic village environment is an experience, and they'll all have that Olympic village experience," Taylor said.
"But when they're competing, they'll have the option of coming out and staying in a more purpose-built environment."
Dolphins head coach Rohan Taylor speaking to media at the Paris Olympics. Getty
Australia has not beaten the USA in an Olympic swimming medal tally since 1956, when the likes of Murray Rose and Dawn Fraser hauled in gold on home soil.
Since Melbourne 1956, the USA has topped the swimming medal tally at every Olympics bar Moscow 1980, which it boycotted, and Seoul 1988, when an East German contingent powered by a state-sponsored doping program dominated the count.
Australia fell agonisingly short of toppling the US in the pool in Paris, with the Americans winning gold in the final event to pick up their eighth gold of the Games and push one clear of the Dolphins.
"What we talk about is how can we be our best and measuring up against them, as they're the standard bearers," Taylor said.
"So for us it's about: how can we better what we've done previously and what are the things we can do? Those are the kind of processes we look to.
"What can we control? What we can control is our preparation and how we go about it."