Rolph hopes to lift spirits

British swimmer Sue Rolph tells BBC Sport Online how she hopes to overcome the disappointments she has endured in the pool in the forthcoming 50m freestyle.

So far, Sue Rolph's Olympics have not been what she expected.

She arrived with true hopes of a medal but failed as part of a strong team to get a medal in the 4x100m freestyle relay or reach the final of the 200m individual medley.

But what distressed her most was failing to qualify for the final of the 100m freestyle.

She finished in ninth place and missed out on a final berth by just 0.07 seconds but hopes to compensate in the 50m freestyle and the 4x100m individual medley.

"I was very disappointed to finish ninth in the 100m free. With eight qualifying for the final, it's the worst possible place to finish apart from fourth.

"I feel very down and disheartened and just want to go and hide in a corner until my next swim.

"Now I want to finish off the meet and look forward to the next one.

"The 50m free gives me the chance to make up for not getting to the final of the 100m.

"Inge de Bruijn will be strong favourite to win it. She'll be very strong but it's a one length race and anything can happen, it doesn't matter which lane you're in.

"Hopefully we can put in a solid performance in the medley relay as well. It's not our strongest relay but I think we can reach the final.

"The whole team are disappointed with how we've done so far. As a squad we have struggled and not performed as well as we thought we would do.

"It's not because we haven't put in any effort. We've worked as hard as ever but it seems the rest of the world has got better and we haven't.

"I don't know what we should do for the future. Perhaps it's something to do with our facilities not being as good or it could be society and how swimmers are viewed as athletes compared to, say, footballers.

"Australians worship their swimmers and you just have to look at how well they have done in these games to see the benefit of that."