FORMER Australian coach Don Talbot was never one to mince words. He once labelled Ian Thorpe as "possibly the greatest swimmer of all time". He also had an opinion of Tarnee White and told her she was "the worst swimmer to ever represent Australia".

It was while White was on her first senior team, a European World Cup tour in 1998, and having swum a super-slow 200 metres breaststroke, Talbot didn't miss. Two years later when she made the Australian Olympic team, Talbot told her it was a motivational ploy. She accepted it, but even today still has her reservations.

Along with training partner Leisel Jones, she made the 100m breaststroke final in Sydney, and also won a silver medal as a medley relay swimmer. While Jones moved ahead, White slid and missed the Athens Olympics. But four years on she is back on the team, back at the Olympics, but as her coach Shannon Rollason says, hasn't quite forgotten Talbot's moniker.

"I reminded her of it a few weeks' back. I got a second [faster time] out of her. I thought if she had a knife, I'd be in trouble," he said. "Don rang me yesterday and said you have got to be happy with that. He said good job, she's doing a good job.

"There are so many times she could have retired. A couple of times I thought I am going to have to give her the retirement talk. I actually thought when I moved to Canberra [from Brisbane in 2005] that was her way out. I thought, 'Oh, well she can retire now,' and she said, 'I want to come'. It's a really good story."

White says there is an advantage not being expected to win gold, there is less pressure, and she intends going in to "have a crack and see what I can do".

"I think that's the thing about Olympics, it's the people that can get up and race and hold it together under the pressure that come away with the medals, it's not always the fastest swimmer," she said. "There is no more pressure than there is at the Olympics. I'm sure Leisel has got to deal with that and with her experiences from the past Olympics as well, there is probably more pressure."