The text message that destroyed an Olympic dream

THE women’s 100m freestyle final at the Rio Olympics stopped the nation for all the wrong reasons. Now Cate and Bronte Campbell finally reveal exactly what happened.

Cate Campbell tells Stellar she has come to terms with her Olympic meltdown. Picture: Jamie Hanson

ELEVEN seconds. If Cate Campbell had a time machine, that’s all she would ask for; eleven seconds to re-do the first 25 metres of her 100m freestyle in Rio, and then the past six months might have been very different.

Campbell has broken her silence on the meltdown that derailed her Olympic campaign last year, telling today’s Stellar magazine that a well-wishing text message before the race flooded her with anxiety about fulfilling the nation’s expectations.

“I’m so excited to watch you race,” wrote a well-meaning friend. “I’ve booked out a boardroom in the office so we can all watch you.”

She spent the night before the 100m final — for which she held the world record and was the gold medal favourite — in mental turmoil, and when she stepped onto the blocks, the irrational thoughts won.

“I went into that fight or flight mode,” she said. “I look back; if I could have had … the first 25 metres of the race again, I would be fine,” Campbell said.

Cate and Bronte Campbell as photographed for Stellar magazine. Picture: Peter Wallis

“As I hit the wall at 50 metres, I could feel the amount of lactic I had produced in overreacting in the first 25.

“It was probably my clearest memory. I thought; ‘It’s a long way back, I am not going to make it’. It’s not that I gave up, I gave it 100 per cent. I thought, ‘it’s going to take a miracle for me to finish this 50 metres’.

“Unfortunately, it wasn’t the day for miracles.”

The six months since have been tough for Campbell. But she has faced her demons with remarkable insight and maturity, and she has also done a few things for herself.

Although she is still training, she won’t compete at this year’s World Championships, but will instead focus on the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and will race in some World Cup events this year throughout Europe and Asia.

Read the full interview in today’s Stellar magazine.

Originally published as The text message that destroyed an Olympic dream