Bronte Campbell doesn’t want to turn into an American clone

IT KEEPS getting easier to get behind our swimmers. Bronte Campbell has delivered the perfect sledge to Donald Trump.

The Campbell sisters will come back from Rio more admired than ever.

OUR swimmers just get more and more likeable, don’t they?

It’s fair to say they’ve fallen short of expectations in the pool, but exceeded them out of it.

From Mack Horton proudly proclaiming his gold medal swim in the 400m final over Chinese rival Sun Yang was “a win for the good guys”, to Cameron McEvoy refusing to find excuses for his 100m and 50m freestyles nightmares to instead heap praise on his sprint teammate Kyle Chalmers, there have been plenty of good news stories to come out of the Rio Aquatic Centre not involving results.

The Campbell sisters have been no different. Their meet hasn’t exactly gone to plan since they carried Australia home in the 4x100m freestyle relay final on Sunday (AEST).

Cate called her sixth placed finish in the 100m individual event “the worst choke in Olympic history” after going in as the raging favourite. Bronte finished fourth in the same race.

The disappointment continued in the 50 free, with both failing to medal.

But the way they’ve conducted themselves in the face of such disappointment has been a big tick — especially considering the pasting our swim team copped for its attitude and behaviour in London four years earlier.

Their outstanding form out of the water has continued, with Bronte securing another “win for the good guys”, even if it did only come in front of an eager media pack. Speaking about the contrasting fortunes between America’s swim team compared to Australia’s, she laughed in the face of suggestions we should mimic how the US does things.

You may have pipped me for gold, but good luck trying no to break it jumping over that wall back home.

“I think if we ended up copying America we’d end up with someone like Donald Trump as our president,” Campbell said. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Stuff the medal count, that’s Australia 1, USA 0.

The US has picked up 33 medals in the pool — 16 gold, eight silver and nine bronze. Australia on the other hand has only claimed 10 — three gold, four silver and three bronze.

Despite that vast discrepancy, Campbell thinks its foolish to assume a one-size fits all approach would be the answer to the Dolphins’ woes.

“We’ve had trials copying the American system, it has happened before — 10 year ago now I think. It didn’t work, it doesn’t work for us,” she said.

“It wasn’t because our trials were earlier that America performed so much better this time around. They performed so much better this time around because they peaked in a four year cycle.

“They had a shocking year last year — we peaked last year, they peaked this year, it happens.”

At last year’s FINA World Championships, the Dolphins had six swimmers win their events. However, backstroker Mitch Larkin was the only one of those to make it to the podium individually in Rio, grabbing silver in the 200m.

The Americans had only eight world champions at the same meet in 2015 but now boast 16 gold medals, so it’s not completely far-fetched to question our preparation compared to theirs. Our Olympics trials concluded in mid April, while the Yanks didn’t finalise their squad until early July.

Not as successful in the water, but ever so classy out of it.

Australia’s head swim coach Jacco Verhaeren has since admitted the entire team needs to re-evaluate its approach to ensure everyone is peaking come Olympics time.

But just as in any sport, you can often trip yourself up analysing reasons for defeat until the cows come home. Bronte Campbell thought it was simply a case of Team USA getting on a roll and being too hard to stop.

“When a team’s on a roll it’s really hard to stop them. It’s an intangible momentum that’s really hard to place and really, really hard to stop — and hard to gain when you don’t have it,” she said.

“Having said that, I’m very proud of how the Australian team actually swam. There were very many good swims, some people stepping up completely out of the blue and completely blowing us away.”

That last part is especially true.

Kyle Chalmers went into these Games a relatively unknown teenager, but will emerge a national hero who won gold in the 100m freestyle and pulled out a miracle anchor leg to salvage bronze in the men’s 4x100 medley relay.

That — and the class and grace our swimmers have handled themselves with — is what Aussie fans will remember from Rio 2016.

Originally published as Bronte Campbell doesn’t want to turn into an American clone