New coach Jacco Verhaeren sets sights high for Australian swim team Aiming for the top: New head swimming coach Jacco Verhaeren. Australia's new head coach Jacco Verhaeren arrived in the country with a wealth of experience, not to mention success, having guided the careers of Pieter van den Hoogenband, Inge de Bruijn and most recently that of London Olympic gold medallist Ranomi Kromowidjojo. But Verhaeren, who says he is embarking on an "adventure," has also brought ambitious goals for the team that no longer holds a place among the very top echelon of swimming nations. Swimming Australia wants the national team to be the world's best by 2020 - a significant task given it would mean usurping the likes of the US, China and Russia - but it is one that Verhaeren insists he does not shy away from. It is not impossible. It's been done in the past," Verhaeren said. It's a big challenge, there are some gaps to fill, but it's the only ambition Australia can have. Parallels: James Magnussen (left) and Michael Johnson. Verhaeren, who arrived in Australia this month, said he believed the team had moved on from its tumultuous Olympic campaign in 2012, which caused a massive shake-up in the country's swimming program following two independent reviews that criticised team culture and management style. "I've seen big changes especially in the last year in Australian swimming," he said. I don't think it is good to deny what has happened. We have to make sure that it does not happen again and what I will do in the next week is really talk about it with the coaches, swimmers and staff involved. My job is to look forward and make sure that everyone in the team is respectful and that there is good communication because preventing these things happening will be mutual respect and good communication. I don't think it will happen. Brant Best, the coach of dual 100-metres freestyle world champion James Magnussen, has spent many years studying the silky styles of swimming greats van den Hoogenband, who won three gold medals under Verhaeren, and Russian champion Alex Popov, who twice won the Olympic freestyle sprint double. Best said he was excited by how Verhaeren would concentrate on liaising with the coaches, which could help Magnussen to a higher level. "To be able to talk one-on-one with Jacco about what he [did] with Pieter and how he got him to swim that way is very exciting ... just being able to have ideas and throw them at someone like that and getting his opinion and maybe some of the experience he has," Best said. Obviously we live in Australia where we're a little bit cocooned from the rest of the world, so we don't get to see everything that everyone else does ... [so] it gets [us] to open our eyes about what they've done over there, which is obviously going to be different. Interestingly, Best said he had looked - in his pursuit of better ways of doing things - towards the performances of former 200 and 400 Olympic track champion Michael Johnson. Best said there were strong parallels between the way Johnson ran his races, which he dominated in the 1990s, and how Magnussen could swim the 100 freestyle. You've just got to have a look at [Johnson's] 400. We watched the 400 from 1999 and the level of relaxation effort that he's got in the first half of his race and how he's just using easy speed and being very relaxed enabled him to put on the speed through the back of the race," Best said. Once the guys are up from their dives [in the 100 freestyle], Maggie swims for about 43 seconds. Johnson raced for about 43 seconds so the parallels are very specific as far as ... the requirements of the race as far as when you've got to go quicker and when you've got to be more relaxed. Magnussen, who is competing at the Victorian titles that started in Melbourne on Friday, is among the vanguard that Australia will be relying on to take it back to the top of world swimming. Best said the 22-year-old was now in a better frame of mind following the improved performances by both Magnussen and the team at last year's world championships in Barcelona. "He was in a state following the Olympics where he was being attacked fairly regularly from a lot of sources and that took a lot away from him," Best said. We had to just keep him going and keep him moving. But coming back from worlds he came to me and said he just wanted to lift his work and go into another zone of training and racing and find another level ... he really took his level of toughness and execution to another level.