Mitch Larkin reveals his side of story on Emily Seebohm split
HIS former partner Emily Seebohm has had her say in interviews and on social media. Now Mitch Larkin breaks his silence on their high-profile split — including those claims of infidelity.
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HIS arms are weak, his legs have lost all power and Mitch Larkin can barely reach the end of the pool.
It’s late July and he’s in a training camp in Cairns. His body is numb and he can barely stay afloat. A few days later, the Brisbane-based swimmer, 25, will compete in one of the year’s biggest and toughest swimming competitions, the Pan Pacific Championships in Tokyo.
But for the first time, Larkin’s usually unwavering focus has been shattered.
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Expectations to perform are high after months earlier being named Australia’s most successful swimmer at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, taking home five gold medals.
He’s not crumbling under the pressure or reeling from a shock defeat but, instead, suffering the emotional toll of explosive accusations he cheated on the girl he once loved and adored.
Talking exclusively to U on Sunday, Larkin breaks his lengthy, and considered, silence on his messy public split with fellow athlete Emily Seebohm.
As he arrives at the photo shoot, the former Brisbane Grammar School and John Paul College student is polite, laid-back and charming.
He’s every bit the golden boy of swimming, the athlete Australia fell in love with after he picked up a gold, silver and bronze at the 2010 Junior Pan Pacific Championships in Hawaii at 17, and two years later, made it to the London Olympics as the second-youngest athlete on the Australian Olympic team.
Standing in front of the camera is an athlete who just wants to swim and who in Year 2, at Wishart State School, was already showing promise in the water.
With each click of the camera, his smile widens and his eyes brighten, revealing Mitch, the man who wants to be remembered as a respectful athlete and devoted family member — his dad Peter, is a financial planner, mum Judy, a former bank teller, and he has a sister, Ashleigh, 27.
He’s articulate, considered and down-to-earth, and an athlete, who says he’d rather be known to the next generation for his integrity and respect than his achievements in the pool. So when he found himself embroiled in the personal scandal that rocked Australian swimming, he says he was hurt, shocked and blindsided.
In his first interview since his very public breakup with Seebohm, Larkin reveals he ended their almost three-year relationship in June.
“I did not cheat,” he says. “I absolutely did not cheat (on her).”
“Breaking up with her was one of the hardest things I could do, because I adored her,” he says.
“That was really tough, ending it, and then to be accused of everything else was a whole other kettle of fish.”
He defiantly slams allegations that he ever cheated on Seebohm with a girl from his swimming squad. Instead, he says they grew apart, and were no longer headed on the same path.
“I just questioned, ‘are we seeing eye-to-eye?’” He says there were a few hiccups along the way and he started to question the relationship.
“Things weren’t good … and I said this isn’t good, this isn’t what a relationship should be, it’s quite draining. I came back from a training camp in Thailand and ended it. It was on June 9.”
He’s cautious of rehashing old wounds that are slowly starting to heal but says it’s time his voice is heard after his reputation has been smeared.
“People were asking me if I was going to tell my story and I didn’t want to because I don’t swim for public acceptance or to be famous; the idea of inspiring kids to live their dream is exciting, and what I swim for,” he explains. “But there were certainly days I questioned if I was a good person … I thought why the hell is this happening … I knew I hadn’t done anything.
“I want to build back up my reputation, and I think that will slowly come.”
Larkin says Seebohm requested they keep their split quiet until their last appearance together which was a few weeks later and suggested that together, they work out a way to tell the public.
But then damning cheating accusations surfaced, fuelled by media reports Seebohm discovered messages from another girl on Larkin’s phone, just before taking part in the Treasury Brisbane’s ICON fashion show on July 12.
The next day, Seebohm announced the couple’s split on Instagram without telling him, which Larkin says “hurt me the most”.
“Emotionally it took me to a whole other level,” Larkin says, visibly deflated. “That hurt me the most because she was the one who asked for respect in keeping it quiet and it was really hard.”
Then came the rumours of an affair.
“I can’t even comprehend that,” Larkin says. “I’d go to bed positive, thinking I’d got through that day and then something else would come at me, another story saying the same thing … it was an emotional rollercoaster.”
Larkin says the text messages were from long-term friend and training partner Abbey Harkin, who had got in touch to see how he was coping after the breakup.
“She knew me quite well and could see this whole situation was tearing me apart and it was nice to see that she cared enough to check in,” he says.
Larkin believes Seebohm may have seen the messages from Harkin and misunderstood them.
He admits he met socially with Harkin twice as friends but says it was after he and Seebohm had broken up.
“There was certainly no physical relationship at all, which has been reported many times,” he says.
“My coach is very adamant that there’s no relationships within the squad for a number of reasons, because it just makes things difficult, and the punishment is both people get kicked out,” he says of coach Dean Boxall, a close comrade and the man who led him to five golds at April’s Commonwealth Games.
“I said to Mum and Dad that I wasn’t that stupid to do that because I’ve just stumbled across the best coach of my career and we’re perfect together, there’s no way I’d sacrifice that.”
It has been, by anyone’s standards, a heady time for Larkin who has copped criticism from the public, fellow athletes and the media. At his lowest point, Larkin barely left the house for a week; was contemplating pulling out of the Pan Pacific Championships; and his swimming was suffering.
“I would tear myself apart inside … there were times I was followed by paparazzi … I was hesitant to go outside and, if I did, I went to places there weren’t any people,” he recalls.
“I was training super numb and not even present in my days, I was going through the routines of sessions … I had nothing left.
“I was on the phone to Mum most of the time and I had a really supportive roommate who I’m super close with and thankful for that.
“I’d be reading all these stories and hear quotes from Em but at the same time she was texting me the opposite and wanting to be friends and making sure things were OK, and wanting to draw a line in the sand … that really messed with my head.”
So how did it all go so wrong?
“I don’t know … to this day I would love to talk with her (Seebohm),” Larkin says, shaking his head. “She was really emotional at the time and whether she had seen the conversation (on the phone) and jumped to conclusions …
“I said to her I’ve never cheated on you … how do you think it’s physically possible for me to do it, we live together, you see me all the time. I don’t know where this was coming from.”
Ever since they got together, in September 2015 when Larkin was 22 and Seebohm a year older, they were seen as Australian swimming’s golden couple. A month earlier they had pulled off the incredible, the pair had dual wins in their respective men’s and women’s 100m and 200m backstroke events at the FINA World Championships in Kazan, Russia.
Seebohm was the girl he grew up with, had known for most of his life and the competitor he raced against in the early days at Chandler, Brisbane’s Aquatic Centre.
The pair told U on Sunday in February, in a cover story they did together, that “everything clicked”.
Just as the relationship was going well, so was Larkin’s swimming with 2015 his “best year to date”, after he also broke a world record in the 200m backstroke at the Australian Short Course Championships in November that year. It was an indescribable feeling for Larkin, who headed into the Rio Olympics in 2016 as a double world champion.
In his relationship with Seebohm, Larkin was all in. He committed to buying a million-dollar Hendra home with her last year — the home she still lives in. He stood lovingly beside her as she grappled with an endometriosis diagnosis in 2016.
But as much as he loved her, he says their relationship was quietly breaking down and cracks started to appear. At the end of 2016, a year into their relationship, during a holiday to New York, Larkin says Seebohm started to talk about marriage.
It was something Larkin says was in his future plans for the couple, but while they were young and in the prime of their swimming careers, it wasn’t the right time.
“I said to Em the one thing I haven’t achieved in my sport is an Olympic gold and before I finish my career, that is the one thing I really want and it’s the one thing everyone dreams of. I told her I need to be a bit selfish, not in terms of spending less time with her or drawing back but there’s certainly things like marriage that I didn’t want to schedule in over the next two years of an already very busy time.” Larkin says things came to a head while he was away at a training camp in Thailand in June.
“Dean was training us hard in Thailand, we were doing 6-7 hour sessions twice a day, it was massive,” he says. “I didn’t have time to reply to messages … I was tired from training and focusing on swimming.”
When Larkin returned, the pair saw a sports psychologist together to try and salvage their strained relationship but it was too late for Larkin.
“I got home and told her things weren’t good and we saw a sports psychologist together … to figure out what a relationship should be like and how much you should lean on one another.
“Commonwealth Games was a stress for her not performing as well (as she wanted) and then there was marriage pressure and I had a few other reservations and concerns that I had brewing in the background,” he says. “It ended like a normal breakup.”
Now, living back at home with his parents in their townhouse in Kenmore, Larkin is taking stock by finding comfort in being surrounded by the people who helped get him to where he is.
“My parents have always been super supportive,” he says. “My Mum gave up a lot to help me and did a lot of driving for early morning training sessions and pick-ups. I couldn’t do it without her and the same goes for my Dad.”
With his coach’s voice in his head telling him, “if you get through this, you can get through anything”, Larkin says he’s stopped worrying what the world thinks.
Now Larkin — a two-time Olympian, world champion, former world record holder and one of the top swimmers in the world — has shifted his focus to the Australian Short Course in Melbourne this week; the World Cups in Asia later in the year; and, his main goal, the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
Larkin, who studies property economics part-time at Queensland University of Technology, is excited to see what he’s capable of and chase the one thing he hasn’t yet achieved in his career, an Olympic gold.
“Swimming-wise I’m not finished and I know I’m respected in the sport for working hard, being disciplined and consistent and they are the things I’m most proud of. I need to put me first and focus on that, I don’t want any regrets knowing I could’ve done more leading up to 2020.”
Despite having no plans to retire until after the Paris Olympics in 2024, Larkin is already considering how he wants to be remembered long after he’s swum his last lap, and beyond the drama of a lost young love.
“When swimming is all finished I think that’s an important legacy to leave in the sport, more important than results or medals,” he adds, “to be respected by fellow athletes and the next generation. I think that comes from my upbringing and passed on from my parents’ values.
“But even if I don’t leave that legacy, I think they’re important values to live by.”
Originally published as Mitch Larkin reveals his side of story on Emily Seebohm split