Sullivan In Cotton Wool But Ready To Rock
2008-07-25
Craig Lord
Coach Grant Stoelwinder: 'We have a team physiotherapist and massage specialist in Kuala Lumpur and they will work on Eamon to loosen up the back. It will be intense treatment. He won't be doing too much training up there ... he is in pretty good shape'

Eamon Sullivan (AUS), the fastest swimmer the world has ever seen in a bodysuit, gets down to some hevy pampering at the Dolphins' pre-Olympic training camp today in Kuala Lumpur, his coach, Grant Stoelwinder, tells the Western Australian.

Sullivan, 22, suffered a muscle spasm in his back last month, raising fears that he would not be in top form at the Games in Beijing. Stoelwinder, however, confirmed that all was well in the same week as the problem unfolded before the eyes of spectators at one of the sprinter's warm-up meets Down Under.

He tells the Western Australian today: 'We have a team physiotherapist and massage specialist in Kuala Lumpur and they will work on Eamon to loosen up the back. It will be intense treatment. He won't be doing too much training up there. What we will do is break up the 100m into blocks. We might work on dive sprints, turns or other sections of the race. We have been doing mini-blocks of high-altitude work just to make him work a bit harder but he is now ready to taper. But in terms of preparation, he is in pretty good shape.'