Cate and Bronte Campbell to swim into Olympic history in Rio

IN a little over 100-days the Campbell sisters hope to create a piece of family history no one of the planet is likely to better.

Australian swimming stars Cate and Bronte Campbell are set to make a history-making splash at the Rio Olympics. Picture: Gregg Porteous

IN a little over 100-days the Campbell sisters hope to create a piece of family history no one of the planet is likely to better.

Ranked No.1 and No.2 in the world for what is arguably the most prized of swimming events – the 100m freestyle – Cate and Bronte Campbell hope to etch their names into Olympic folklore by becoming the first siblings to win gold and silver in the individual event, and then combining to win gold in the 4x100m relay.

Today marks 100 days out from the opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro, and for the nation’s more than 400 athletes who hope to qualify, the countdown to glory begins in earnest.

For the Campbell sisters, Cate and Bronte, the stakes are high. Cate yesterday revealing that the Rio Games will be her last Olympic campaign with retirement set to follow the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

Younger sister Bronte plans to continue on to what will be her third Games in Tokyo in 2020.

It leaves this year’s Games as their final chance to do what has never been done in the history of the sport.

It’s the sort of family domination that is rarely seen in any sport.

In tennis there are the Williams sisters Venus and Serena. In American football, the Manning brothers, Eli and Peyton, and maybe, at a push, dual world heavyweight champions and brothers, Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko. But in swimming Cate and Bronte, two university students from Brisbane, are truly in a league of their own.

“But we don’t really think of it like that,” says Bronte, who, at 21, is two years younger and seven centimetres shorter than her sister.

“With other sports you have this head-to-head situation, where it’s one-on-one. But in swimming you have all these other things to take into account.

“There’s the other six competitors in the pool as well. And then you have the objective measure of time so it’s not like it’s just me and my sister.

“In that way, we don’t get upset with losing to the other person. We don’t see it as just the two of us fighting it out.”

But compete they do. Never more so than at last year’s world championships in Kazan, Russia when Bronte, after years of playing bridesmaid, finally usurped her sister to win gold.

Then, at this year’s Olympic trials, the pendulum swung back in Cate’s favour with the elder sister clocking the fastest time in the world this year – 52.38 secs – to take back her crown.

They’re adamant, though, that they don’t secretly harbour resentment.

“Though sometimes I think I would prefer if we swam a different stroke,” laughs Cate.

“But it is really weird that we have been able to, in all honesty, put our sisterly relationship and our swimming relationship in two different baskets.”

But there is one area where both worlds combine. They call it ‘nirvana’. The perfect race.

“Which we have both done no more than five times in our lives,” says Cate, who describes it as ‘swimming in slow motion but lighting fast’.

“You know it as soon as you hit the water. You are at one with everything. Everything works. Everything is connected and it’s as close to perfect as you can imagine. It’s hard to explain but it’s probably the only reason I keep swimming at all.”

Reaching nirvana and creating history – at Rio, the Campbell sisters might do both.