One of Australia’s brightest hopes in swimming for this year’s Paris Olympics, eyeing medals in the 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle, Short, 20, who lives at home with his family on Brisbane’s northside, is the classic “overnight success” who has been years in the making.

His seemingly meteoric rise has been anything but smooth sailing because he’s endured a wild dumping that tested his resolve and perseverance as much as his talent.

When you watch him swim, Short looks like a natural, but it’s a labour of love because swimming wasn’t his first true passion. He only took it up because it was the gateway to his other precious desire.

Like the rest of his family, Short’s heart is in lifesaving – Short was hoping to follow in the footsteps of his father Danny and uncle Stephen Short, both champions at the Maroochydore club on the Sunshine Coast – but before he could join the rest of his clan on the high seas, he first had to prove he was ready.

“The rule in my family was if you want to be able to swim the surf, you’ve got to do swim lessons,” he says.

“That’s pretty much how I started. I used to swim just to be allowed to go out and bodysurf the waves and it turned out that I was pretty good at it and it kind of went from there.”

There’s nothing unusual about that. Plenty of champion Australian swimmers started off as nippers in the surf, transferring the brutal lessons they learnt in salt water to the pool.

Short’s big takeaway was learning how to bide his time and wait for the perfect moment to strike. The training required to excel in distance swimming is notoriously hard, with even the best often waiting years to see the results of their labour. So knowing when and how to catch the right wave is half the battle.

Through no fault of his own, Short hasn’t always been able to nail that timing, experiencing a series of major setbacks that almost turned him away from the sport.

Covid came at the worst time for him. He missed out on selection for the Australian junior team when the world titles were cancelled, then was robbed of his chance to compete at the Tokyo Olympics because of Swimming Australia’s cruel and unpopular selection policy.

Still a teenager at the time, Short should have gone to his first Olympics in 2021 after finishing second in the 1500m at the national trials with a time that was well under the official qualifying standard.

But he was denied his spot in the team because of a cold-blooded clause that Swimming Australia’s coaches had added to the selection policy. Privately despised by the swimmers, the cutthroat rule requires Australia’s competitors to meet a much higher standard than their overseas competitors – the equivalent of being at least top eight in the world.

It is a deeply flawed concept because it doesn’t take into account how swimmers can lift when they get to the Olympics, just as Jon Sieben and Duncan Armstrong did in the 1980s.

But what’s worse is that the ludicrous policy includes loopholes allowing swimmers with slower times, who had already qualified in other events, to fill any vacancies.

In Short’s case, while he was left off the team for Tokyo, his spot in the 1500m went to a teammate who had finished 11 seconds behind him at the trials.

But the biggest concern about the heartless policy is the psychological damage it keeps having on young swimmers, including Short, who was so devastated by his senseless omission that he almost quit swimming altogether.

“It was a very tough time. As well as trying to complete year 12 (Short was captain of Prince of Peace Lutheran College in Everton Hills, graduating in 2021) we had lockdowns. I had nothing else to do but watch the Olympic Games and the swimming that was on,” he says.

“I was just like, ‘oh, man, I could be there’.

“I actually saw a sports psych during that time because it was very hard mentally. I didn’t know if I wanted to keep swimming. It was really, really difficult to really do anything.”

Swimming Australia can thank its lucky stars that Short decided to stick with the sport, even if part of his motivation was to show the selectors why they were wrong to exclude him.

“In the next couple of years, 2022 and 2023, I was trying to prove to everyone that they wish they could have taken me,” Short says.

“I wanted to swim in a way where the way I swam, I would have gotten results if I got taken on that team and it would have been good for my experience as well.

“And I think I’ve shown that with my progression from the last two years.”

A year later than he should have been, Short was finally picked for his first Australian team – in 2022 – ironically helped by the same loony rules that left him high and dry during Tokyo.

At the trials for the Commonwealth Games and World Championships, Short secured his spot in the team by finishing second in the 800m. He also won the 1500m but missed the qualifying time after miscounting his laps and stopping after 1400m, only to be told he had two more laps to go.

“I’ll never lose count ever again. It was crazy. I just felt so stupid,” he says.

“I just felt so dumb, and I was really frustrated because I ended up just missing the qualifier, but luckily enough I was taken because of my 800m to World Championships and I already made the 400m for the Commies, so I got to go to both teams, but it was horrible.

“I laugh about it these days looking back, but I just felt so silly. I will definitely never miscount again.”

So Short got to swim the 1500m race at the world titles in Budapest because he had already qualified in those other events, but winning was the furthest thing from his mind after he got told he had skin cancer.

“I found out I had stage two, going on three, melanoma on my back,” he says.

“I was given the advice from the team doctor and my doctor at home that it’s best to get that out ASAP because it can obviously progress through its stages very quickly.

“I ended up getting it removed in a Hungarian university hospital (just after
the World Championships), which was an experience.

“I’ve got a pretty gnarly scar on my back to show for it. It was a very stressful time in my life.”

The diagnosis was an awakening for Short in many ways. While he made a full recovery, he’s on constant alert and is now playing an active role in helping other people. A Parramatta Eels fan, he joined ex-player and Eels legend Ray Price, in working with the Melanoma Institute as an ambassador to raise awareness.

With his mind elsewhere, Short finished ninth in the 800m and 14th in the 1500m at his first World Championships, but he was back to his best just five weeks later, winning gold in the 1500m at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. It boosted his confidence when he needed a lift.

“It was huge,” he said.

“It kind of solidified that I am pretty good at what I’ve chosen to do.”

Trained in Brisbane by Damien Jones, Short went to a whole new level in 2023, riding the crest of a wave he hopes will carry him through to the Paris Olympics. He won the 400m gold at the world titles in Fukuoka, with a sensational time that only Paul Biedermann, Ian Thorpe and Sun Yang have ever bettered.

Then Short won silver in the 800m and bronze in the 1500m, becoming the fastest ever Australian over 800m (breaking Grant Hackett’s record) and again reaching fourth fastest of all time in the world.

“It all comes down to the mastermind, Damien Jones, who’s a very smart man. He had everything mapped out. He believed that I could do it,” Short says.

“It gave me tons of confidence, I know I can improve on every single one of my swims. I’m a racer and I know the other boys are as well, and I think we’ll push each other to get some pretty incredible times.

“I’ve got age on my side and that’s always very confidence boosting. I’m only 20 years old, probably the youngest of the leading pack in the distance world and that just makes you very excited. I love hard work and I’m ready to rip into training for Paris.”

Short never set out to be a distance swimmer but has become a true believer.

He had tried sprints in his younger days but kept getting beaten by taller competitors. He found that the longer the races went, the better he went.

And the faster he went, the more appreciative he became of the greats who had come before – planting the seed for him to join them in the pantheon.

“You can go down the rabbit hole of Australian sport and all our best athletes pretty much are swimmers and I kind of wanted to be a part of that,” Short says.

“I went to distance swimming before I started learning all about the greats.

“I was always setting targets, every age group just chasing, chasing. And when you look at those you see a couple of names that are just consistently at the top, the Thorpes, the Hacketts and the (Kieren) Perkins. Glen Housman is up there as well a lot. Stephen Holland is still up there for those younger age groups.”

With the Paris Olympics now less than six months away, Short is training harder than ever, believing he will have to break world records to win gold in any of the three distance events.

His main rival appears likely to be Tunisia’s Ahmed Hafnaoui, who has the huge advantage of having already been to the Olympics.

Hafnaoui was a surprise winner of the 400m freestyle gold in Tokyo, going into the games ranked 26th in the world.

Had he been an Australian, the selectors would have left him at home, but he went, won and is even better now, looming as Short’s danger man after winning the 800m-1500m double in Fukuoka.

“I think I’m definitely ready for it. I think I’m an athlete that handles pressure fairly well,” Short says.

“I kind of turn it into motivation and excitement. I love having competition, it is when I’m at my best.”

The 2024 Australian Trials, the sole selection meet for the Dolphins Swimming Team to compete at the Paris Olympics, will be held in Brisbane from June 10-15