Off the te US

Well it's finally time to fly out to the US for the Pac Pacific
championships in Irvine.
It's always a mad rush running around the day you leave, and today is
no different!
Looking forward to getting out of this cold weather and into the
sunshie!
Will keep you updated throughout the meet, hopefully with good news!

Until then

Eamon

Uncle Toby's Cooking Tips

Hi All,

Check out some video's of myself showing you how to use some Uncle Toby's products to make healthy school lunches for your kids.
But also some tastey treats for anyone whos hungry!

Http://www.youtube.com/uncletobys

Excitement Builds Towards Commonwealth Games

A lot has happened over the last few months.
I have been overseas for 6 weeks in Europe racing and training, we
have had a few meets in Australia and the whole year has been pretty
much spent training...

When I meet people they usually ask me:

(A) Why do I swim?
(B) Why do swimmers spend so much time staring at the black line
when most of our races only last from 20 seconds to 2 minutes?!
(C) What keeps you going when you have so many set backs with
injury's?

All of those answers can be easily answered by two words.....
"Commonwealth Games!!!" But let me go into a bit more detail...

Firstly why swimmers spend so much time training... What a lot of
people don't understand is how technical and scientific swimming has
actually become over the years.
Although I don't swim an many kilometres a week as I used to when I
was younger, I actually spend more time training than I ever have...
Just a lot smarter.
Years ago training used to be a "toughest survive" scenario, people
who couldn't handle to training sets simply didn't make it.
Swimmers, no matter what speciality (sprint/distance) would all do
the same training. Sometimes getting up to 100km a week in hard
training, which is insane! And the core reason that swimmers used to
train that much is to get what we call "Feel" for the water. Having
"feel" for the water is the most important part of swimming I
believe, a lot of people think we simply just in the the water and
thrash are arms as we have been trained to do. But there is a lot
more to it than that, just like a cricketer practices his strokes in
between delivery's; swimmers practice technique day in and day out.
The more time swimmers spend in the water, the better we can "feel"
the pressure we are putting on the water, the angle at which we are
entering/exiting the water and also where we are creating/reducing
resistance on the water. That and the old motto "practice makes
perfect" is basically why we train so much, to practice perfect
technique so that when we get in that water and race, we are not
just moving our arms really fast.... We are swimming at high speeds
with hydrodynamic technique more efficiently that anyone else.
Thanks to science and increasing technology, we can no watch above
and underwater footage of our swimming, get very accurate bio
mechanics to tell us our speeds and velocity for starts turns and
free swimming too.

Secondly and more importantly why do I swim, and what keeps me going
when the going gets tough? Simple, major meets when I get to
represent my country doing what i love.
Meets like the Commonwealth Games and the Olympic Games are
experiences unlike any other for sports people. Even having been to
2 Olympic Games and 1 Commonwealth Games already, I still find it
hard to explain what it is that makes the experience so great. I
also haven't been able to find anything else that can replicate the
feeling.

There is nothing like standing in there, wearing the green and gold
tracksuit in front of thousands of screaming people, knowing that
you only have 48 seconds to achieve your dreams after years of
training. There is also nothing like seeing your name on the
brightly coloured scoreboard with the simple (AUS) next to your
name. But probably most importantly, and what feels the best. is
when you touch that wall, when all those years of training, all that
hard work pays off. Whether it is Gold, Silver, Bronze or even just
a Personal Best. It is the moment that you touch the wall that it
makes everything seem worth while. Looking up and seeing your
parents in the crowd, the screaming fans decorated in green and
gold, the whole Australian team with eyes on you. That pressure,
that excitement, the glory is what we live for.

No matter how tough training can be, no matter how many injury's I
get.. All I have to do it think about those moments and it is easy
to stay motivated

HOPE YOU ALL WILL WATCH THE AUSTRALIAN SWIM TEAM AT THE UPCOMING PAN
PACIFIC CHAMPIONSHIPS IN USA IN AUSGUST AND THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES
IN DEHLI IN OCTOBER!

Monaco - Mare Nostrum

The "Mare Nostrum" is a series that takes place every year in Europe.


Over 2 weeks we take part in 3 meets - Monaco, Barcelona and Canet... All on the south coast of Europe, can't complain!

The first pic is of me racing the 50 freestyle "Monaco" 50.
This is the only meet which does elimination 50's which makes it very hard to win. It has 5 heats, halving the competitors every round until there are only 2 swimmers facing off in the final round! I made it to the final 4. The last few weeks of hard training had taken its toll and I was and still am feeling quite fatigued! But it will be good for the long run!
I didnt race too well in the 100 Freetyle either... With 4 more meets to go it seems like I have a long way to go! But I am hoping ot improve with each meet!



This is a photo of the famous Casino in James Bond movie Casino Royal!
You should see the amount of money floating around this place. Ferarri's, Porches and Rolls Royces everywhere!
You arent' allowed in the Casino unless you are very dressed up, black shoes, collared shirt the works!




Finally the view from my balcony at the hotel. The whole of Monaco is basically built on the ocean and is full of Marina's.
To say that the boats in the Marinas are big is an understatement, these things are huge!!!
There is so much money floating around out there it is rediculous.
So jealous!

Next meet Barcelona!

http://www.rednosedayfundraising.com.au/eamon_sullivan

Hi all,

This is a picture of me and my dad! I have recently signed on as an Ambassador for SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).

Every family has to face the possibility of SIDS in the early years of childhood, yet SIDS and Kids receives less than 5% in funding from the Government.

Currently, SIDS and Kids receives NO federal government funding for bereavement counseling and rely on the goodwill of the community, through fundraising exercises such as Red Nose Day to fund grief support service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I have had a close friend lose their 22 month old son, and it is an experience that no family should have to go through.

To do your part please visit http://www.rednosedayfundraising.com.au/eamon_sullivan and donate as little or as much as you like.

If you could share or forward this to some of your friends/colleagues or even start your own donation page that would be amazing.

It's such a great cause and you will be helping to find some answers for families affected by SIDS.

Cheers
Eamon

Visit to Switzerland

So I am still training overseas in Europe, it feels like a month has passed but actually only a week!

In the past week we have travelled to Singapore and taken a swimming workshop for the Australian School there, travelled to Milan and set up our base camp for a few days and recently just travelled to Lugano in Switzerland to spend a few days with a coaching legend of swimming.

Genardi Touretski is the god father of sprint swimming, his philosophies are still used to this day. He coached the Russian machine Alexander Popov and Australian hero Michael Klim for many years leading up to the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

Alex and Klimmy broke numerous world records with times that are still in the top 5 in the world.

We trained 4 times in the pool over 2 days and spent a few brain storming sessions with Genardi at his pool in Lugano. We watched some videos from almost 15 years ago of his training techniques and machines that he build to help train the sprinter and I must say they are absolutely amazing.

It was definitely the highlight of my trip so far spending time with Genardi and his squad, it was great to get some ideas outside the box and to listen to his stories (he has about 1000 and is not afraid to tell one!).

Whilst we were there we also got to go and see the Dam with 007 Golden Eye where he jumps off the edge! Photos below

The photos below are: (Top Left) My training group with Genardi Touretski who is the one standing in the middle with navy top and white pants, (Top Middle) The view of the pool with me swimming towards the camera, (Top Right) The Dam made famous is James Bond 007 Golden Eye where he jumps off the edge, (Bottom Left) Brain storming session with Genardi and my coach with some underwater videos and (Bottom Right) our humble sleeping arrangements...some people think we travel in style! But its quite the opposite!

RESTAURANT NEWS, article is from the June 2010 issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller.

Cooking gold: Celebrity MasterChef winner Eamon Sullivan

Out of the pool, food is my love, writes Olympic champ and Celebrity MasterChef winner Eamon Sullivan.

I’ve never sweated so much in my life as I did in the Celebrity MasterChef kitchen. When I signed up, I was just hoping to get through the first round, but then when I actually made it, I wanted to go all the way and win. There were times when I was close to throwing in the towel, but if there’s one thing I know as a sportsman, it’s that it’s never over until the very end. It’s stressful cooking under pressure like that, but if people respond well to your food, it makes you feel good. That’s the sort of thing you get addicted to: pleasing people through food.

It’s funny because I was quite a fussy eater growing up. If my mum cooked something new, I’d chew on it really slowly and then if I didn’t like it, I’d spit it out into my napkin. I remember one night we had red cabbage sauerkraut for dinner. I thought it was the worst thing I’d ever put in my mouth, but my parents refused to let me leave the table until I’d finished everything on my plate. I think I ended up sitting there for over an hour. Sometimes I’d even pretend I’d finished eating and then leave the table with my mouth full of food. All these years, I thought I’d gotten away with it, but it turns out my mum knew all along what I was up to.

My mum was the foodie in my family and was the biggest influence on me. Dad always hates it when I say this, but he was pretty much limited to charcoal sausages on the barbecue. Actually, that’s not fair. He does a mean Moroccan fish curry and the best eggs Benedict. He used to make them for us using leftover ham on the bone from Christmas lunch. They always tasted amazing. At Christmas time, our house was always filled with the smell of baking. Mum would make her shortbread, pavlova, the Christmas pudding, everything. I remember stirring the Christmas pudding mixture for good luck. I always used to help her in the kitchen and I think that’s when I first started to fall in love with cooking.

Cooking has always been therapeutic for me. I’ve had five hip operations in my swimming career, so there’ve been times when I’ve been forced to take time out from training to recuperate. Whenever I’ve been injured and I’m feeling down in the dumps, I’ll start making comfort food – my favourite is spinach pie, which was the first recipe my mum ever taught me. Before I moved to Sydney, I used to live with three other guys; we all trained together, and they used to joke that it was great whenever I got injured because they knew as soon as I got out of the pool, there’d be an awesome meal waiting for them at home.

Now that I’m busy preparing for the Commonwealth Games, my diet is pretty boring. It’s all about low-GI carbohydrates – no bread, rice, potato. Generally I eat a lot of lean meats and vegies, either steamed or baked. I allow myself one breakfast, lunch and dinner a week when I can eat whatever I want. It’s usually on Friday or Saturday afternoons, when I have a break from training, that I can indulge myself. I go grocery shopping and spend the rest of the day cooking in the kitchen. I don’t really like takeaway food. I’d rather cook something to get what I want than settle for something I don’t.

I’ve started doing cooking classes for the NSW Institute of Sport, helping young kids living out of home for the first time and showing them how to cook healthy and tasty food, but my ultimate dream is to open my own café, probably back home in Perth. I’d want it to be the kind of place where people know each other by name and stay to have a chat: a place where you can get good, clean, simple, healthy food. And I know just what to put on the breakfast menu. My dad’s eggs Benedict. You can’t get much better than that.

INTERVIEW TRACEY LAITY PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF NETWORK TEN

Singapore Food!

Here are a few pics of the food and places we ate in Singapore. I love hawker food. Every stall has its on speciality and it doesn;t try to do 100 dishes. Simple delicous and all something I hadnt tried before!

At the Raffles hotel. This is where the Singapore Sling was created in around 1940 I think... Still a fmous hotel and serve the same recipe! Singapore icon. Cool place, they have bowls of penuts you eat and throw the shells on the floor!

Glutinous Rice ball filled with sesame seeds and in a walnut cream... This was from the revolving restaurant that did a 360 degree view of singapore. A famous restaurant. I found it quite boring.. But was fun that I had never tried it before!

Strawberry Ice dessert... Like a hawaiin ice that you get at the beach, but covered in strawberry sauce and fresh strawberries with strawberry ice cream. Delicious on a hot night, the only bad thing was the corn and soursop that they put down the bottom! Its in most desserts but for me corn in a dessert is strange!

This was the street market near our hotel. They close down the street at night time and all the satay stalls open up, you get to sit at a table and thy bring cheap satay sticks to your table. Awesome experience

Enough said....!

At another hawker centre for lunch. Had this amazing chilli beef dish. Such a tiny place but they turn out awesome food. The beef was boiled until it fell apart and was comined with carrot, cucumber and hot chilli sauce like a stir-fry!

Cooking Class With NSWIS

This happened a few weeks back, but because I did not get photos until recently and have been busy I have not been able to blog about this!

These are a few pics from my day at the NSWIS (NSW Institute of Sport) Cooking day I did.

I put together a few simple recipes for a group of up and coming athletes from various sports including water polo and swimming.
It was aimed at those who have recently moved out of home or had no idea about who to cook healthy dishes that tasted good!

The day went well, I didnt burn anything and Davenport was kind enough to supply some undies for the day as gifts!

I am trying to get a recipe section up on my website so I can share some recipes with you!

Overseas Training Camp Begins

Sorry its been a while since I have written. Have had a crazy few weeks getting things ready for my overseas camp and blogging has slipped my mind!

So I have been overseas for a few days already. We spent 2 days in Singapore on the way through to split the travel up a little bit. While we were there we took a swimming camp for the local Australian School which was a bit of fun.

Now we have just arrived in Italy for a weeks training before we head to Monaco, Barcelona and Canet for some racing.

This is a photo of the view from the balcony at the Hotel we are staying at! Beautilful.

Im going to catch up my blogs over the next few days so you all can see what I have been up to!

Telstra Grand Prix Friday/Saturday

I have just spent a great 4 days with the entire Autralian Swimming Team in Canberra.
The team got together to meet all the new faces on the team and spend some time using the great facilities at the AIS ahead of a big year at the Pan Pacific Championships and the Commonwealth Games.

We are all racing this Friday and Saturday at Sydney Olympic Park

Friday: Heats - 10am Finals - 5pm
Saturday: Heats - 9am Finals 3pm

Come down and support the team!

Old Yarrenlea School Visit

Last week I visitied the students of Old Yarranlea State School in Brisbane, the lucky winners of the nation wide Uncle Tobys Schools Promotion.

They were named the winners as they purchased three Uncle Tobys products and sent in the bar codes. This is an amazing effort considering that their school only has 18 students!

Their prizes included a cheque for $5,000, a bag full of swim safety gear and a swim clinic held by the Royal Life Saving Society and myself.

Here is a photo of the kids and myself when I handed over the cheque. As you can see, it was smiles all round!

I had a great day. The kids were so switched on and willing to participate which was really great to see!

A Big Year Ahead

It is always a big relief after the Australian swimming trials are finished. Personally I still find it the most stressful event in the Calendar, as so much depends on performing well.

Swimmers only get once chance every year to be selected on the National team, and to do that we have to place 1st or 2nd in our main events. Past performaces, recent form, sickness, injury plays no part in the selection comittees decision on the team. You have to be at your peak fitness and health on the day of your event to make the team, which is always worrying for me not knowing when my next injury is going to come!

But now I am selected and the stressfull meet is over, the rest of the year is full of travelling and more of the exciting and fun meets.

Coming up I will be travelling to Europe for the "Mare Nostrum" series, which will see me compete in Monaco, Barcelona and Canet. After that my squad and myself will be basing ourselves in Northern Italy for training and also competing in Rome and Milan.

On top of that there is still the Pan Pacific and Commonwealth Games to go aswell, so a busy year of travelling ahead which I'm looking forward to!

I look forward to updating you all along the way!

Eamon

Australian National Championships

What a roller coaster of emotion I have gone through over the past year... Finally I feel like I'm on the way up again after some solid performances at the Australian swimming trials despite a tough run, and am finally back on the national team.

It all started in January 2009, when I had my fourth hip operation, which came on the back of a 3 month holiday after the Beijing Olympics, hardly a way to start a preparation!
From there I battled to get fit and make the world championship team; the trials were just 6 weeks away, a very quick turn around!

Pushing myself that hard to be fit so quickly led to me getting run down to almost a chronic fatigue like state which saw me eventually pull out if the world championship team a week before the meet started.

I came back to Australia and spent some time recovering and also managed to win Celebrity Master Chef for a bit if fun!

Just when I thought I was about to finally get some hard training done at a high altitude training camp in Arizona, I was struck down again.
Just 4 days into the camp I got appendicitis! I was in the hospital and being operated on within the hour!

Once again I pushed myself too hard and was back in the water training after 4 days. I finished off the training camp in pain and spent 2 weeks racing in Europe which saw the pain get worse and almost unbearable.

Upon returning home to Sydney I went to get a second opinion on my appendix wound...
Wouldn't you believe it?! It turns out I tore my transverse abdominal muscle, which is a very deep muscle in the stomach, quite hard to hurt apparently!

So once again I was "treading water" so to speak, and had an injection in my stomach and ordered to take it easy until Christmas.

After spending a relaxing time in Perth with my family for Christmas I was ready to forget the horrible year I'd had and I finally was ready to get back into hard training..... Or so I thought.

The very first session back in Sydney I tore a ligament in my hip and also managed to tear some cartilage again. So for the fifth time I was going under the knife to fix problems in my hip, and just 2 months out from Commonwealth Games trials..

To be honest it was the hardest time in my swimming career. I mean, how much bad luck can I get?! I have got used to always being injured over the years but this was just ridiculous!

I am very lucky to have the support of my family, my coach (Grant Stoelwinder), my sponsors and my friends who always believed in me.

I spent 4 weeks with my legs strapped together doing one lap at a time in the swimming pool. A very frustrating way to do things, and often ended up shivering from being cold after 2 hours in the water.

It was now a month out from the Commonwealth Games trials and I was ready to start kicking again. After spending so much time only using my arms, when I started kicking again it felt like I was learning to swim again!

But that didn't last for long, after 2 weeks I ruptured the capsule in my hip and once again had my legs strapped together doing a lap at a time. With only 2 weeks until trials, I really though I was out for the count. In a last ditch effort I had a cortisone in my hip to try and settle down the inflammation and had a weekend off to give it every chance of recovering.

It turns out that the injection didn't really help. With only a few days left I decided to try and push through the pain. I kicked and trained normally, and it was great to be swimming properly for a change despite the pain. I decided that I would give myself until the day of the meet to make a decision on whether I would swim or not... I had a hard decision on my hands; do I risk making my hip worse and maybe go down the track of the previous year? Or do I miss the trials and end up spending 2 years without a major competition?

After weighing up my options my coach and I decide to push through the pain. It's what I’ve always done and I wanted to show I wasn't afraid of going into a meet under prepared.

It turns out it was a great decision! I won the 100 freestyle in 48.52 seconds, the fastest time in the world post the "super suits" by .60 of a second; Earning my spot on the Pan Pacific championship team and also the Commonwealth Games team.
It was my fourth consecutive title.

Sitting here writing this and reliving the amount of disappointment I have had over the past year, I can honestly say that this is one of the proudest moments in my swimming career.

I have proven to myself that I am strong mentally, nothing can break my spirits. Despite all the injuries and bad times that I have been through, I have come out the other side as motivated and passionate about swimming as I have ever been.

Watch this space; I am determined to get back to the top. And it isn't a matter of "if" it will happen.... It's only a matter of "when"

But for now, 4 days off! And I’m taking my dad fishing!

Sorry for the long blog but I thought that would set the scene for my future blogs!

Until then!

Eamon

Visit to Aschem Private Girls School

Here is a pic from a trip I did to Aschem girls private school.

Was a short visit during their lunch break just to give them a bit of insight into how I approach a swim meet. Also to try and give them a bit of a rev up for the meet they are racing on Friday night!

They were a great group of girls, with some great questions too. Some of the questions included - "Did you make a concious desicion to be a swimmer?" "How do you motivate yourself every day to give it your all?"

Its great to meet up and coming young swimmers with the passion and the right questions about what it takes to get to the elite level.

I hope the girls swim well Friday night! Good Luck!!

Welcome!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to my site. Here you’ll be able to keep track of all the latest news both in and out of the pool.

Where do I start?! I’ve just returned from a couple of weeks altitude training at Thredbo up in the Snowy Mountains. It’s beautiful up there and thankfully in summer is not too cold. At the top it’s around 2km above sea-level so it’s a great view!

Things are progressing well after the setback with my hip operation, I can say that the hip is healing really well and I’ll be back kicking in the pool hopefully very soon!

In other news, I had a great time in Wagga Wagga for Davenport’s Wagga Wedgie Tug Of War. It was a great turnout on Australia Day and a really enjoyable event, although I was a bit disappointed to get beaten by Steph’s team!



You can check out more photos from the facebook page.

Or add Davenport Underwear’s facebook page.

Stay tuned as I will be doing regular blogs and be sure to check out the other little features around the site that will keep you updated on where I am and what I’m up to.

Thanks for your support