Sick Seebohm focuses on backstroke

Emily Seebohm reacts after the her 100m backstroke heat at the FINA World Championships in Barcelona. Picture: Adam Pretty Source: Adam Pretty / Getty Images

EMILY Seebohm has revealed she has been struggling with illness and asthma as she confirmed she had withdrawn from the 200m medley final to focus on her preferred 100m backstroke event.

Seebohm eased her way through her 100m backstroke heats in 1:00.02, securing fifth place for the semi-final (early Tuesday morning AEST) as teammate Belinda Hocking placed ninth in 1:00.39.

For Seebohm though it was almost two seconds slower than her Olympic heat time of 58.23s, and she couldn't be happier.

She got slower throughout her event in London last year, but is determined to peak for the final this time around and build her races.

But with recent minor illness issues Seebohm decided to withdraw from the medley final, for which she was sixth fastest qualifier, to avoid risking excess fatigue the night before a backstroke final.

"I'm not really at my 100 per cent at the moment. I'm struggling a little bit with sickness which isn't unusual for me but when I've got two pretty tough races back to back it's hard to make that call when you want to do it but you know if you do it it could affect you in the one you really want to do well in," Seebohm said.

"It's just something that's more annoying than anything but I don't know how it will affect you the following day.

"I'm a little bit disappointed that I can't swim the IM but you know I've got to do what I can to get to where I need to be in the 100 back."

Sacrificing a spot in the final for the pursuit of gold is a smart play by Seebohm as she looks to make amends for last year's Olympic disappointment when she was narrowly beaten to gold by US star Missy Franklin.

Franklin was fastest qualifier on Monday in 59.13s, but then waited on pool deck to watch Seebohm as if expecting another round of heat fireworks.

But Seebohm has learned her lesson from 2012 and is prepared to keep her cards close to her chest until the final.

"My goal is to go faster each swim so that's a slowish start for me so hopefully that works out a bit better," she said.

"It probably didn't feel as easy as it looked but you know it was nice to just focus on the race and not have to worry about killing myself to make it through.

"It's all about just making it through. I don't need to be in lane four, that's not where I need to be, I just need to be in the field and get through and go faster.

"It wasn't as easy as that 58 I did in the heat of the Olympics, nothing felt that good. But you know it was on the way there and I've just got to clean up my skills a bit, my skills were a bit average.

"But otherwise I've got to keep going through and keep getting faster."

In the men's event Ashley Delaney enjoyed his first swim in Australian team colours since the 2011 world titles with a 53.60s heat time to qualify fastest for the men's 100m backstroke semi-finals.

Delaney's time was faster than what he produced at the selection trials in May to qualify for the team.

Rising star Cameron McEvoy set himself up for a crack in the 200m freestyle, posting the fifth fastest time of the heats in 1:47.34 as teammate Thomas Fraser-Holmes survived an anxious wait to qualify 12th in 1:48.05.

"It's always hard backing up, I felt a little cold, a little stiff but that was as expected," McEvoy said after a strong individual swim in last night's 4x100m freestyle relay final.

"I tried to do the best race I could and get through the next round."

Fraser-Holmes, an Olympic finalist last year, was fifth in his heat and then had to watch two more heats of 10 swimmers before securing a spot in the top 16.

"Yeah that wasn't very good was it," Fraser-Holmes said.

"It's a lane and tonight I just have to fire up. I'm not hurting or anything, it was all over in a second and I was like `What was that?' It was not very good."

Breaststrokers Sally Foster (1:07.59) and Samantha Marshall (1:08.33) qualified in ninth and 15th position for the 100m semi-finals (early Tuesday morning AEST) as Olympic champion Ruta Meilutyte stamped herself the one to watch with a 1:04.52 heat swim, just 0.07s off a world record set in the supersuit era.

The final event of the morning saw 14-year-old Chelsea Gubecka, who swam the 10km open water last week, swim the women's 1500m freestyle and finish 13th in a new personal best time of 16:21.82.

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