A little bit of both. During practice I focus on myself and don't think at all about rivals. But I compare my times with them all the time. I saw Alain Bernard's times at French nationals - 48.83 and a 1:48 in the 200m. I'm always aware of what times they're doing throughout the year. I really pay attention to know how they are going, what they're training and how they're performing. I measure myself against them through out the season. Yes, I compare performances a lot. It's good to see where you are in relation to others but at the same time not to [read too much into it] - when I taper I usually drop a lot in time but not everyone does that in terms of dropping a lot after taper. Its not the same for everyone. But It motivates me to have comparison ... I can't swim by myself. I need something pushing me hard. Seeing those guys (Bernard, Sullivan, Leveaux, Bousquet, Targett and others) racing fast through the season reminds me of what I have to do. It reminds me how fast I have to swim.

Often - but not as often as I think of myself !

First, myself: its sometimes hard just to hold your mind. You have to stay on top of it. Its not that I have an unstable mind but I'm still learning a lot and I'm not as experienced as some of the guys, like Bernard and Sullivan.

Me, myself and I . !

Before the Olympics, it was different. I was motivated to prove to myself that I could be the best at what I did. I had that vision in my head. Now, I'm on a different page: my motivation is to keep being the best in sprint freestyle. I'm not going to lie: my motivation was not as strong as it had been before the Olympics. It was harder. Motivation became different: I was motivated a lot after the Olympics by Brazilian people coming up to me in the streets at home ... they just wanted to say 'well done' and get an autograph. That felt really good and told me that there is motivation in being number one and staying there. I don't tell my goals to anyone but my coaches and parents. But I have written down some sentences and put them in my wallet, some motivational sayings, some motivation phrases from famous people. I needed to do that because I'm away from friends and family [while at Auburn in the US] so I think I need that extra motivation. I like to be around family and friends, but they're not here and so those motivation phrases help keep my head in the right place and remind me that I'm here [Auburn] for a reason.

To go beyond my limits. I like the support if the group, those times when everyone encourages each other.

Here at Auburn we have tough sets all the time. I have Freddy [Bousquet] and Geoge Bovell as teammates ... so it doesn't have to be a hard set to be hard. As long as we are racing against each other, that's hard enough. I don't want to ever lose to those guys. Sprinting is very tough. Its very tough here ... we have four of the 16 best guys in the world. Yes, its the daily challenge of the guys around me that's tough. We love to race - and I hate to lose, so badly.

There have been enough (hard sets) for me not to be able to single out one session. Generally training is really physically demanding and that is why it affect my spirits (moral).

Every hard set. I have recovery days when I'm not thinking about racing and thinking about nothing except recovering. Its really relaxed. But there are days when we sprint and do threshold sets, work on back-end speed, work on response to opponents' speed. And every set hurts and helps you get better.

Ten sessions a week in water plus three strength-training sessions. I don't do any psychological preparation.

For the first three weeks the year we covered 40km [average] a week of general work and then when we move to specific work, I go 30 to 35k. In general phase, I do doubles [twice a day training] four to five times a week and three to four doubles in specific phase. In taper, its really light. It will depend on how I'm feeling. It can be around 15k in taper phase. Then we do weights and biometric stuff, for one and a half hours three times a week for the whole season. Sometimes at the beginning of season we get on bicycles but that's rare. I do weights a lot of the time. I really like weights and workouts in the weight room. That's one of the fun parts of the whole week. I love sprints and weights. I really have to train a lot. I'm not like Gary Hall [Jr] or like Matt Targett (Auburn teammate and Australian international]. I'm an old-school sprinter doing lots of kilometres. A lot of them [rivals] are doing just one practice a day when I'm doing two. Like today, I did 4km this morning and I'll do another ... 4km again this evening. I just have to swim a lot, even if its slow. I have to be in the water. That helps me to recover well and to get better. Some of them swim just three times a week and swim really fast. I wish I was like that [through laughter]. I don't know how they do it.

At the heaviest training times of the year, i can swim up to 80km a week, but dry-land training is pretty consistent throughout the year.

The problem I have is that I set a standard for myself every time I race. In Austin (US Grand Prix, March 2009) I wanted a 48sec [100m free]. I went 48.9. If it had been 49.1, I would have been mad and disappointed. So I don't want to compete too often. I set a standard for each meet and I want to meet that. I take a while to recover ... and there's no time to recover between flights and travelling. That's why I'm racing once a month before Rome. I'll race twice only once in a month: I'll be doing Mare Nostrums Barcelona and Canet, otherwise, just once a month. I don't want to carry bad thoughts with me, I want to achieve my goals and I can do that with one championship a month.

The main competitions in between big championships serve for nothing other than to monitor technical aspects ..they (those smaller outings) don't amount to more than 3 competitions.

I'm with Brett Hawke [still third-fastest 50m man ever in Australia, without the benefit of a fast suit, and a sub-50sec sprinter over 100m] at Auburn. He's really young and that helps cos he swam sub-50 as well, so he knows what we're feeling behind the blocks and that helps a lot. Bryan Karkoska [Strength and Conditioning Coach at Auburn] is my weights coach. I also like to talk to him about the doubts I have. I put some really stupid questions to him and he gives me advice and has some great stories to tell. Those stories really motivate me. And then in Brazil, Alberto [Pinto], well, he's the guy that actually made me. With him in Brazil I swam a 53sec 100m and four years later was swimming 48. He's the one that really knows me ... sometimes in season he just watches me and says 'we should do more sprints or less sprints or something different'. He really knows me well. I'm surrounded by three great coaches and I trust my coach back home and would have no problem going back to him if I has to leave Auburn. To get results, you've got to trust people who are working with you.. In water, you've got to improve every day and know what you're doing will help. At Auburn and in Brazil - they know me.

It's a relationship of trust built through time - and the advice of my coach Denis Auguin is always pertinent.

Good question. I'm really getting ready for my race at that point. I really don't care what others are doing. But at same time I am there in body but not in mind...if someone asks me a question I might answer something completely different. I'm out of my mind at that point! It's not a place I get nervous in. I'm thinking about my race. I'm thinking 'this is it, there's nothing to do now, just what you got ready for'. If you've worked hard, good for you, if you haven't, well, maybe you can still win. It doesn't matter what happened before, its the same for everyone at that point. So, I just focus on my race."

An obligatory journey that is often too lengthy !

O yes, they are. I have rituals. An hour before the race, I pray, then I slap myself really hard, punch my arms, my legs ... its just like I want to tell my body 'we're here'. My mind is going to be ready at any stage but hitting myself really hard on my arms and legs, it gets me in a really hard place ... it tells my body to get ready for the fight, it says 'something big is coming'. People watch me and say 'hey, what are you doing'. But it works for me.

No

If I had a perfect race, i would quit swimming 'cos that would be the greatest time ever. I've never reached a perfect swim in my career. I've had some really good races - but not perfect. I think that sprint freestylers will never reach the perfect race because there's always something, some improvement to search for, to reach for.

One in which I did very little wrong or in which I touched first.

The first time I heard of him was at the Mare Nostrum tour after the World Championships in 2007. He did 48.5 on the Mare Nostrum and a 48.12 at French nationals. I didn't know him before because he didn't make the final in Melbourne. I was like 'where did that come from?!' He dropped almost a full second and since then he just kept improving and, of course, won the Olympics ... in the 100m.

During a camp at Auburn in February 2006

You know, with the French guys, I have a really good relationship with them. I swim with Freddy (Bousquet) every day. After the 100 and then after the 50m in Beijing I had Leveaux and Bernard either side of me and I realised then that they were good competitors. They did not take what we had in the water out of it. I was really grateful for that. We sprinters have some tough emotions sometimes but they came up to talk to me and I felt great to be with them and around them. I took the experience as a lesson: what happens in the water stays in the water and outside everyone should treat people the way they should be treated, they way they deserve. That's a lesson I learned from Bernard.

Cesar is a tough guy and his thirst for victory is something that is important to me.

He's a big guy - he's a really big man. I also like his position in freestyle, the body set on top of the water. He swims a little bit old school, with high elbow, a little like Popov. Sullivan has a straighter arm.

Starts

There ... I really don't know. I would say, er ... I don't know. He has mostly strengths. He even swims 200 - and I can't do that. Maybe, er...no, I don't know. I don't focus on my rivals' weaknesses - just their strengths.

I don't know.

I grew up watching Popov winning his races every time so I have Popov as my idol. I always tried to swim like him. He used to swim with Gustavo Borges, he was one of his rivals, and I watched all their rivals as a boy. Both Popos and Gustavo are my idols. I was lucky 'cos I got to swim with Gustavo for almost two years before he stopped swimming and I tried to get as much experience from him as I could. He told me a lot of stuff about Popov. They are people I looked up when was young and I learned a lot from watching them.

Everyone would reply to that question «the Tsar Alex Popov » - and so would I: he transcended time by striving and having to keep ahead as the best because he spent 10 years staying ahead of his rivals.

Before London [2012], I think we'll see a 20-point 50 and a 46-point 100. And 10 years from now ... that's a hard one. Ten years before, 21.6 was Popov's world record in the 50 and no-one could beat that 'til last year, so maybe 20-point is the max. It will be hard to achieve with the suits thing. Suits made a big difference for sprinters last year and if something comes up like that again and gets through, well, we never know. After putting limits on suits, the next point is to master people's minds: right now you just feel like you're somewhere behind someone if you don't have 'that' suit, so the thing is to believe you're good in any suit, and really believe it. With a paper suit, maybe Popov could have gone 21.4. We may be able to do that without a paper suit but we have to believe it.

No idea ! Perhaps exactly where they are today !

Sleeping; internet - I love working on computers; and hanging around with friends. I love to have friends around. I have a few here at Auburn but I miss my friends at home. I hate to be lonely.

Music, TV shows and plenty of other things .

Matt Targett, and I'd serve him kangaroo steak; Alain Bernard, he'd have to be from a menu in a restaurant because I guess he eats a lot; Freddy [Bousquet], and I'd serve him some Dolphin steak [we'd have to get it removed from the banned list first, and we wouldn't want that - ED]; Alexei Puninski, he's a Croatian teammate here at Auburn, and he'd get just water 'cos he needs to lose some weight; and maybe [Eamon] Sullivan and some crocodile stew.

I would invite my relay teammates to talk through in serious fashion what we are now capable of

That's easy. I don't get in the pool during holidays. I just go sunbathing. I wouldn't swim a practice or even paddle. I would just maybe cool down in the water. Would it be the same if Alain was there? Absolutely, yes ... I think he would join me on the deck - sunbathing.

The answer would be the same regardless if Cesar would be next door to me or not. Because I would only take the plunge to relax. Never train during holidays. That's why they are called holidays, aren't they ?

My goal, generally at whatever meet I'm going to, is always to keep improving. So, for Rome it'll be to achieve better than my 21.30 and 47.67 best times - to get past them. After the Austin, Texas meet [early March], I feel like I'm in a good spot. I did 48.9 in the 100 and I'd never done a sub-49 at this point in the season before. I feel like I'm on a good track.

My ambitions remain what they have been for the past few years : to enjoy swimming while staying focused.