KEY POINTS:
Australian sprinter Eamon Sullivan's tough talking could come back to bite him, with superstar Michael Phelps saying such comments had fired up the Americans before the world swimming championships starting today.
Sullivan joined the South Africans this week in declaring he'd love to spank the powerful American men's
4x100m relay on the opening night of action at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena.
The United States have a proud tradition in relays and reclaimed the 4x100m world record at last year's Pan Pacific championships by chopping nearly three-quarters of a second off the old mark.
The star-studded brigade enjoyed a relaxed training session in Geelong yesterday and Phelps initially said he just wanted to let his swimming do the talking.
When pressed about the comments from the Australian and South African men, he said: "When someone does say something, it motivates us.
"It is the same thing leading into the 2003 Barcelona world championships, when a lot of people said I was unproven on international soil. It just fuels the fire.
"It is something that is going to help us swim even faster. We have four guys who we are going to put together and we are going to swim as fast as we can."
Phelps broke five world records in Barcelona and if the American men respond the same way to any perceived gamesmanship, they could blow their opposition out of the water in Melbourne.
The baiting of the Americans has revived memories of Gary Hall jnr's infamous "we'll smash them like guitars" line before the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Ian Thorpe powered over the top of Hall in the memorable 4x100m final at the 2000 Olympics and the Australian team then mocked the silver-medal winning US team by playing air guitars on the pool deck.
Backstroke supremo Aaron Peirsol, a regular on the US team since the 2000 Olympics, said it was the best national team he had been on.
"There's never been a better American swim team," he said.
"I think we definitely have a very good, strong, deep team and what is so neat is that the team that is here is not really all of it.
"We have guys back home who very well could be here."
He said that on paper, the men looked capable of winning an individual medal in every Olympic event.
The American men have four individual world record holders in Australia and hold every men's world mark in Olympic races outside of the freestyle events.
* Rotorua teenager Kane Radford gets New Zealand's campaign under way today.
The 16-year-old will contest the first event of the championships, the 5km open water swim, before his main event, the 10km race on Wednesday. Both will be held off St Kilda beach.
Radford is the current Oceania open water champion and has some knowledge of the St Kilda course, having finished sixth in the Australian championship last year.
He has had a stellar age-group career, holding national records for 12, 13 and 14 years over 800m and 1500m freestyle and he also went under Danyon Loader's 1500m 16 years' mark last year.
He was 26th in the world championships over 10km last year.
"The 5km is not his main event but will give him a chance to get the feel of the water and get a good swim under his belt," national open water coach Carl Gordon said.
"Kane is young and an excellent prospect if he can stay in the sport. The aim here will be to improve his world ranking this year."
Radford wants to be in the New Zealand team when the open water championship is added to the Olympic programme in Beijing next year.
To achieve this, his main aim is next year's world championships in Spain, in which a top-10 finish will guarantee him a spot at the Olympics, and a top-16 finish could earn a start subject to other criteria.
