The USA swim trials have produced some stunning performances over the past few days.

The strongest swim nation in the world is setting the standard for the Olympics and, as the world records tumble (8 of them over six days), so the interest in one of the most popular Olympic events increases.

I have been the TVNZ swimming commentator at the Olympic Games since 1996 in Atlanta.

That still rates as one of the highlights of my broadcasting career, because it was then that Danyon Loader overwhelmed the best from every other country in the world to win his two gold medals in the pool.

Anthony Mosse was my co-commentator then and has been ever since. The 1988 Olympic bronze medallist will be with me again in Beijing. He is a superb analyst and never ceases to amaze me with the accuracy of his predictions.

The New Zealand swimming contingent is in Australia competing very encouragingly against the best Aussies. Moss Burmester is continuing to outgun the top Australian 200 metres butterfly swimmers and is our best hope for the fabulous Olympic Pool.

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Currently, Burmester sits sixth fastest in the world in his specialist event. Helping him in his quest for a finals berth have been the European champion Ioannis Drymonakos of Greece who has tested positive for a banned substance, and Nick D'Arcy of Australia who ruined his chance of competing by an out of water incident.

The talking points at the pool will include the lifetime ban on Ouyang Kunpeng of China and his coach. Drugs have proved costly for this pair. Gary Hall Jr. of the USA has recently spoken out with his highly inflammatory opinion that drugs are rife in swimming, and he does not exclude his own country as being at fault.

This topic will get plenty of news space between now and the first race.

What else? The Speedo LZR swimsuits which have been worn by swimmers who have broken nearly twenty world records this year and which have seen dramatic decisions made by countries such as Japan who were contracted to opposition swim suit manufacturers, but have found ways around this problem.

There will be immense interest in whether Michael Phelps can win 8 gold medals, thereby eclipsing Mark Spitz from that record. He won six in Athens.

Everyone will be watching the amazing Dara Torres who, at age 41, has successfully made her second comeback and will be at her fifth Olympics- her first was in 1984. She has won 9 Olympic gold medals.

And, as usual, everybody will wonder if the women's 800 metres world record will be broken. It is now 19 years since Janet Evans swam the fastest time in the world.

Beijing might just provide the venue for that mark to go at last.