Video: Moment Cody Simpson’s Commonwealth Games dream became a reality

Cody Simpson broke down after making the Comm Games team. He opens up on the moment — and his reaction with girlfriend Emma McKeon. Watch the full video here.

Pop star Cody Simpson has revealed that he broke down in tears the moment he found out he had made the Australian swimming team for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Unsure if he would make the team after a week of high drama at the Australian trials, Simpson was unable to contain his emotions the moment he got the good news, on a text message from the Australian coaching staff.

WATCH THE VIDEO IN THE PLAYER ABOVE

He has shared a video recording of the exact moment on his Instagram page which shows him being first congratulated by his girlfriend Emma McKeon then getting a loving bear hug from his father Brad.

The moving footage went viral and received hundreds of likes and comments from fans and swimmers all over the world, including Shayna Jack who posted a cute picture of her and Simpson together when they were kids.

“I was sitting up in my chair when I got that message and I started crying,” Simpson said.

“I just sunk down in my chair. I just gave them both a big hug.”

Simpson missed out on selection for the Australian team for next month’s world championships after Kyle Chalmers elected to swim 100m butterfly after finishing second to Matt Temple.

Simpson placed third to make the Commonwealth Games team but only two competitors from each country can go to the world titles.

Although it meant he faced an anxious wait before knowing if he was on the team, Simpson said he had no issue whatsoever with Chalmers changing his mind and taking the spot after initially saying he wasn’t going.

“I’ve got nothing but respect for him and he‘s well within his right to decide to swim even when he didn’t want to before,” Simpson said.

“If the tables were turned and I was in that position and I decided I wanted to swim I‘d hope people would understand and respect that I’d earned that place so I’m happy for him and I’m stoked for myself to get on this team.”

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Cody Simpson text message for Comm Games.

Cody Simpsons and Emma McKeon.

A talented junior swimmer who quit the sport for a career in music, few people genuinely believed the now 25-year-old Simpson could get selected for one of the best swimming teams in the world.

No matter which way you look at it, it’s an incredible achievement that has put the sport back in the spotlight but he’s far from finished yet.

Just two years into his comeback, Simpson never expected to make the team so quickly so is resetting his goals toward making the team for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

And although he’s spent the past decade singing in front of audiences ranging from screaming teenagers to the Queen, his background as a performer helps him cope with his nerves when’s on the block ready to dive in.

“It‘s all similar in a sense. Like it’s all just having eyes on you and having expectations on you and certain pressures to deliver a certain result or not,” he said.

“It‘s all like a similar kind of stimulus, if your brain just kind of gets used to being able to get up and do it and being able to remain sort of calm and steadfast under certain conditions.

“That‘s what I had learnt to do through my whole childhood, like growing up performing in front of people and you know, like seeing in front of Queen and doing all these things that.

“It‘s funny, literally for the last Commonwealth Games, I was in London singing for the Queen. Because I’m from the Gold Coast, they had me go over and sing ’I still call Australia home’ at Buckingham Palace’ now four years later I’ll be swimming at the next one.”

CODY SIMPSON: SHOW BUSINESS TO SWIMMING’S FAST LANE

Julian Linden

Regardless of whether the Australian selectors pick him for his first national team on Sunday or not, Cody Simpson has already done enough to prove he’s no circus act.

Kyle Chalmers may be hating all the extra media attention the former pop star has been getting since returning to the sport, but Australian swimming insiders are singing a different tune.

For a sport that desperately needs to attract more eyeballs and retain more talent, the notion of having Miley Cyrus’ former lover wearing Australia’s green and gold trunks is a marketing dream.

Cody Simpson has done the near impossible as he pushes to make Australia’s team for the upcoming Commonwealth Games. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

But to the brains trust involved in the daily running of Australia’s high-performance swim programs, they have spotted something far more important that could turn out to be Simpson’s greatest legacy.

Where detractors see a publicity-hungry star, Simpson’s growing number of supporters see a dedicated athlete who has the potential to revolutionise the way Australian kids think about swimming because he’s doing something that everyone else thought was impossible.

“What he‘s done has just blown me away,” Aussie Olympic swimming legend Grant Hackett told News Corp.

“It‘s not an easy sport but he’s making it look much easier than what it is.

“Every now and then, you get a freak show. You get a Leisel Jones who makes an Olympics at 15, you get an Ian Thorpe who goes a 3:49 for 400m freestyle at 14 years of age.

“And then you Cody Simpson, who is just another freak because he’s done something that only 0.00001 per cent of people can do.”

Make no mistake about it: for anyone to be selected on the Australian swim team aged in their mid 20s, after a decade away from the sport in show business, is an unfathomable achievement that really should be shouted from the rafters.

Simpson during his time with American singer Miley Cyrus. Picture: Instagram

Every year, thousands of Australian teenagers quit competitive swimming because they’re convinced they’ve reached the end of the road and there’s no future for them.

Now, all of a sudden, Simpson is changing that premise by making swimming cool again with a fresh approach and fresh perspective that even the experts are raving about.

Jess Corones is a swimming technical guru who has been working closely with Simpson since he came back from the United States and moved to the Gold Coast to pursue his sporting career.

She has a fancy title as Australia’s Swimming Insight and Olympic Campaign Lead but her real job is figuring out ways to get the very best out of high-performance athletes.

Simpson was talented swimmer in his younger years.

Simpson has released four solo studio albums.

She already knew that Simpson had been a promising junior swimmer and had kept himself in good, physical shape but what’s impressed Corones most is Simpson’s tough mental approach and willingness to do the work.

She’s convinced his unique life experiences are contributing to his success and could unlock the key for other, older athletes potentially thinking about making it in swimming.

“With the music career, he had to grow up pretty quickly, and he had to learn how to craft things, so he‘s applying that in swimming,” she said.

“Sometimes when we‘re doing technical work, I’ll ask him about ‘how would you build a song or how would you do this?’ because he’s building his own storyboard of swimming and adding new chinks to his armour.

Simpson dated US star Miley Cyrus. Picture: Instagram

Cyrus gives Simpson a racy haircut. Picture: Instagram

“100%, I think his career and his life experiences that he’s had away from the pool have definitely helped him be able to handle what he‘s going through now.

“Even getting on the blocks and being able to handle that pressure, it‘s definitely a different pressure. But I’m sure there’s some similarities for him in it, even if it’s not 100,000 screaming teenage girls.”

Corones noticed very quickly that when Simpson is training, he leaves his show business life behind.

When he comes to the pool to practice, there are no teenage girls screaming his name from outside the pool gates. In fact, the only female who regularly comes along to watch him train is his grandmother.

“Cody gets treated no differently to any other athlete in the program and I think he really likes that there‘s no special treatment,” Corones said.

“He‘s talented, no doubt. But it’s his attitude that’s the most important thing and he’s showing everything that there’s no reason that even if life leads you down a different path, you can’t come back to swimming at any age.”

Simpson has also made a believer of Michael Bohl, one of Australian swimming’s greatest coaches.

Simpson was a global singing sensation before venturing back into the pool. Picture: Supplied

A hard taskmaster, Bohl has trained a stack of Olympic champions, including Stephanie Rice and Emma McKeon, and never doubted Simpson could succeed, even when others didn’t.

Part of that was because Bohl has made it happen before, decades ago.

He represented Australia as a medley swimmer at the 1982 Commonwealth Games, where one of his teammates was Angus Waddell, a talented high jumper.

Years later, when injury cut short his athletic career, Waddell was persuaded to take up swimming and ended up training under Bohl.

Like Simpson, he was in his mid 20s, but defied the odds to make the Australian team at Commonwealth Games and Olympics. Three decades later, Bohl can see history repeating itself.

Cody Simpson competes in the men’s 100m butterfly final in Adelaide. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

“There‘s a great saying that I always talk to kids about is the difference between the possible and the impossible is a measure of someone’s will,” Bohl said.

“If you‘ve got the determination, if you’ve got the focus, the resolve, the commitment to front up and put yourself in harm’s way every day in the training pool and in the gym, I think you can do anything.

“People like Cody are on the front foot when it comes to being successful in whatever they chase because they set their mind to it.

“He‘s not just doing it for the sake of doing it. He wants to be intentional and purposeful in what’s he doing. There’s no guarantees he’s going to makes Paris (2024 Olympics). but that’s what he’s driven to want to do. We get so we’ll have to wait and see, but I think this is a good step.”

Originally published as Video: Moment Cody Simpson’s Commonwealth Games dream became a reality