the national titles in Hobart. This her progress to the open Australian Championships, which were the selection trials for the Olympics team. At the age of 14, she narrowly missed selection for the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, after finishing sixth and fourth in the 100-metre and 200-metre breaststroke respectively in the trials. In 1969, Gathercole was appointed as a swimming coach in Midland, Texas, forcing Whitfield's father to raise funds for her to travel to Texas and board with his family to continue her training for six months, where she sharpened her racing skills with more frequent racing in the more competitive American scene. Her improvement saw her place sixth and third in the 100-metre and 200-metrebreaststroke respectively at the US Championships in Louisville, Kentucky. On her return to Australia in November 1969, Gathercole arranged for her to train under Don Talbot. Whitfield found Talbot to be a hard-pushing coach: "I both hated and loved him. Terry Gathercole and Don Talbot had two different approaches. With Don I had to do all the strokes, the same number of repetitions and the same as everyone else was doing. I was exhausted." Whitfield proceeded to win both breaststroke titles at the 1970 Australian Championships in times of 1 m 18.5 s and 2 m 48 s respectively. She then toured South Africa with the national team before repeating the victories at the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in times of 1 m 17.4 s and 2 m 44.2 s respectively. She relegated England's Dorothy Harrison to silver in setting new Commonwealth records in both races. She added a third gold medal in the 4×100-metre medley relay, combining with Lynne Watson, Alyson Mabb and Denise Langford in 4 m 30.66 s. Whitfield continued her winning run in 1971, taking out the Australian Championships in both breaststroke events, although her times were slower than in Edinburgh. A third victory came with the New South Wales team in the medley relay. She competed at the International Coca-Cola Meet at Crystal Palace in London, taking the bronze medal in the 200-metre breaststroke behind the Soviet Galina Prozumenshchikova, the world record holder. Late in 1971, Whitfields' rival Harrison came to Australia on a Churchill Fellowship and trained alongside her with Talbot. At the 1972 Australian Championships, Harrison took both the 100-metre and 200-metre breaststroke titles from Whitfield. Whitfield gradually improved her times in the lead