By Tania Phillips
Stanthorpe’s Ben Armbruster has shown he won’t be leaving anything in the tank as he chases his Olympic dreams after a gutsy performance at the Australian Open Swimming Championships on the Gold Coast late last week.
Armbruster’s performance, which saw him pick up a slew of placings, included swimming the finals of the 50 free and then backing up for 100 fly just a short time later.
Armbruster’s mother Shannon said the Gold-Coast-based swimmer, who turns 22 in the next few weeks, went into the titles un-tapered (unrested and still training heavily) and still managed three personal bests across the meet.
“I think overall, he was pleased with how he went,” his mother said.
“He was second in the 50 fly, second in the 50 back, third in the 100 fly, fourth in the 50 free and 12th in the 100 free.”
It was a steady performance for a young man with a lot of swimming ahead of him during the next few weeks, culminating in the Olympic trials in June and possibly the Paris Olympics at the end of July-August.
Shannon Armbruster said the event was the start of the final run into the Olympics and the busy program which could see the Bond University student further his international career even if he missed the Olympic team this time around, with several overseas trips on offer.
“He’s on a training camp next week and then he flies down to the uni games in Sydney,” she said.
“He’s very busy in the next few weeks. He finished Saturday night at opens and went straight into a swimming Australia camp the next morning.”
After the University Games, where the Bond team are the defending champions, the swimmers will taper down for trials.
“They weren’t rested for the Australian Championships, the double that he did on Friday night, swimming the final of the 50 free and then the 100 fly, he was the only one to do it in the field,” Shannon said.
“He had solid heat swims and he did three PBs which is unusual for him because they are in such a heavy work load at the moment.”
The training camp the next day was the next step in the Olympic journey, a chance to get all the swimmers together and give them information leading up to the trials and what will happen post trials.
“They all need to know that whether they make the team or they don’t,” Shannon said.
“There are other international teams that are up for grabs if you don’t make the Olympic cut.
“They normally take another team away to the USA or somewhere and send them to a major meet as International experience.”
With the Olympic dream tantalizingly within reach Armbruster is a focussed man, working towards what very well could be the young swimmers Olympic debut.
“It’s the focus,” his mother said.
“The Opens were a good chance to go and have a race hit-out because they don’t race very often at the moment. They are doing a lot of training and they’re building up to an Olympic year. He doesn’t get a lot of time off between the workload with Uni and the training and then he has physio and psych appointments, team meetings. His schedule is pretty tight. I just text him and he rings me when he’s free. We don’t get to see him very often. We went down and watched him (at the Australian titles) which was nice but we got to spend a little bit of time.
Shannon said the family would love to go to Paris but obviously aren’t making any plans yet, or putting any pressure on the young swimmer.
“Like his coach says, if you’ve got a lane you’ve got a chance – that’s his motto,” she said.
“We aren’t holding any expectations at all, there is no pressure on Ben (from the family), I think Ben puts pressure on himself sometimes, he’s got to deal with that pressure because mentally that’s got to make him stronger. But it will be what will be.
“We’re proud of him either way, even making finals and doing what he did on the weekend. He was so close to breaking 21 for his 50 free and he’s been chasing that for a while. He just missed it, 0.09 I think he missed it by. I think the plan was for him to race fatigued last week and to do the 50 free before the hundred fly final. I looked at him when he got out of the water and he was quite pale and I thought you’ve given that everything and he did the same heat time which was just off the best time that he’s done. To do that, under that stress, we were really happy with him and he only went .02 over his 50 free time from the heat. It was really consistent swimming.”
She said swims like that were good practice for the Olympics where there would be quick turn-arounds between, heats, semis and finals.
“They are all in the same boat, who does what to make an Olympic team, every body does and they all putting in a lot of work, it’s been building,” Shannon said.
The past 18 months have been hard work for the young swimmer but was going to lead to rewards according to his mother.
“He’s still only young, he’s only 21,” she said.
“He’ll 22 while he is away in Sydney for the University games, he’s just hoping to go down to those, and I know this sounds really odd, but he’s hoping to go down and have a relaxing meet with his teammates. It’s all based around the team ethos. Bond took the title out last year and they are hoping to do that again.
“There are quite a few of the young up and coming swimmers going down and they have a great time while they are away at that.
“They get to race but they relax a little bit because there is no pressure on them.”
