Cate Campbell has had a wildly successful career in swimming, from gold medals to world records. But for the Aussie sprint star, those successes have often been overshadowed by an urge to focus on the negatives – until now, writes Julian Linden
IF THE HISTORY BOOKS are anything to go by, the 12-month postponement of the Tokyo Olympics has made Cate Campbell’s goal of winning an elusive individual Olympic gold medal just that little bit harder.
Swimming is a sport traditionally dominated by youth and while she’s still only 29, Australia’s sprint queen is now at an age where only a handful of swimmers have made it to the top step of the Olympic podium.
So while it’s not impossible, winning gold is going to be hard. But here’s the twist.
A self-confessed control freak, there was a time when Campbell would have cursed her misfortune because she wants to make amends for not winning an individual gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
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But if the pandemic has taught her anything, it’s that no matter how well you prepare, things don’t always go to plan, and sometimes you need to stop and appreciate what you have done instead of what you want to do.
“I’m not going to Tokyo to atone for 2016,” she says.
“I am going to Tokyo because I still feel like I have some room to move in the sport and I still enjoy it.
I have had time to sit back and look at my career and reflect on it and it’s been a long career and it has been a very successful career.
“There may not ever be an individual Olympic gold medal, but that doesn‘t necessarily determine whether I’ve succeeded or failed in my career as a whole.”
She may be one of the last to recognise it, but Campbell’s list of achievements is already staggering.
She has been to three Olympic Games and been on the podium each time. Her tally is five medals, including two golds, and she’s not finished yet.
She also has 12 world championship medals (including four gold), eight Commonwealth Games medals (six golds) and nine Pan Pacific championship medals (all gold).
She’s won the individual 100m freestyle world title, held the world record for the same coveted event, and is regarded as one of the greatest relay swimmers the world has ever seen.
If she makes the Dolphins’ team for Tokyo – and all the indications are she will – Campbell will join Leisel Jones as only the second Australian swimmer to compete at four Olympics, an astonishing feat she is only just beginning to fathom.
“When you consider the relentlessness of swimming and the relentless standards that we have to adhere to, that itself is an achievement which I would be really proud of,” Campbell says.
Just making one Olympics is a monumental achievement because it’s something that only 0.2 per cent of Australians realise and that doesn’t even take Covid into account.
“Covid isn’t the hardest thing I’ve had to get over and I guarantee you it’s not the hardest thing that lots of other athletes have had to get over it.
“But because it’s something that’s so visible and something that everyone can identify with, I think people will give a bit of grace to people who don‘t necessarily bring home a gold medal, which for us is the standard of success.”
CHANGING LANES
WHILE THE CHANGE IN CAMPBELL’S mindset was reinforced during the coronavirus lockdown, in reality, it was years in the making.
She took a break from the sport after Rio – when she missed out on an individual medal after going into the 100m final as the raging favourite – to work out whether she wanted to keep going.
As much as she tried to ignore the abuse from social media trolls, the criticism still hurt so it wasn’t a done deal that she would commit to another full Olympic cycle when there were no guarantees things would be any different.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m my toughest critic and I am the first person to let one bad swim derail a very good competition,” she says.
I’ll have three excellent swims and three excellent outcomes, but I have one bad result then suddenly the whole meet is terrible and I’ve performed badly.
“That’s the thing about people in high performance sport, you’re always looking at the next thing but if I was going into Tokyo with that mindset, it would suck the joy out of the sport for me.
“So I’ve picked many different reasons to still be involved in the sport outside of an individual Olympic gold medal.”
GOING FOR GOLD
NONE OF THAT MEANS CAMPBELL has given up on winning individual gold in Tokyo, even if she has had to wait an extra year that will likely benefit her younger rivals more than her.
Quite the opposite – she’s as determined as ever to win and has been busting her gut and posting times that are among the fastest in the world this year in both the 50m and 100m freestyle.
She needs to finish in the top two at the Olympic trials in Adelaide to secure her place in the individual events and by doing so, she will almost certainly be selected for three relays – including the first-ever mixed medley. All have a shot at winning gold – if they can just get an ounce of good fortune.
“As much as I am a control freak and I would love to control everything, there’s an element of luck in winning and losing,” she says.
When you compete in races where the margins between winning and losing are hundredths of a second, there’s luck involved and perhaps luck hasn’t always been on my side.
“Some of it’s been a fault of my own, but some of it has just been circumstances and just bad luck, which I’ve had no control over.
“But I can’t beat myself up or go into Tokyo with the mindset that if I don’t come away with an Olympic individual gold medal, then my whole career has been a failure because it’s been a long and very successful career and it’s still going.
“Even if I’m closer to the end than the beginning.”
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