In the end, our Aussie swimmers showed us all what the Olympic Games are about

THE Rio Olympics have been a difficult time for Australia’s swimmers, with many performing well below their best.

Cate Campbell’s meet didn’t go to plan.

OPINION

THOSE of you who saw Andrew Bogut’s interview with Channel 7 straight after the Boomers’ narrow loss to Team USA will know he wasn’t a happy man.

While the rest of Australia gushed over the performance of Bogut and Co to push basketball’s biggest superstars all the way before succumbing to a 98-88 defeat, the former Golden State big man was filthy.

“We still lost, it doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “There’s no small victories, you either win or you lose. Tonight we lost.

“Let’s not sugar coat it — we lost the game.”

Looking at Australia’s early performances in the pool, I wanted to see more of that.

Our swimmers underperformed — that’s the truth. We had six world champions based on the results of the FINA World Championships last year, but only one — Mitch Larkin with silver in the 200m backstroke — managed to turn that reputation into an individual medal.

As someone who watched every final an Aussie swum in, I was blowing up I wasn’t seeing more of Andrew Bogut in our swimmers.

After every failed attempt to crack a podium we were expected to make, the thing that struck me most in post-race interviews on the pool deck was the repetition of “I’m just happy to be here” and “Sure it’s not a great result, but it’s an Olympic final, I’m just really proud of myself for getting to this point”.

No, no, no.

Larkin struggled in the 100, but came back in the 200.

I wanted fire. I wanted anger. I wanted, “I’ve spent the last four years of my life working towards this one race and then completely butchered it. I’m p****d off.”

I didn’t want them to be happy with just making an Olympic final. I wanted them to be furious they hadn’t done better. Little athletics on a Saturday morning is about having a go and doing your best — the Olympics are not. They’re about winning.

There were examples of the Dolphins being harsh on themselves, sure. Emily Seebohm was more frank than most in her self-assessment after an awful meet and Emma McKeon could barely speak as she held back tears following the 100m butterfly final.

But I wanted more. I didn’t want Cam McEvoy telling me he had nothing to complain about after coming seventh in a race he was expected to medal in (100m freestyle final). I didn’t want Bronte Campbell telling me she’d already won before the 100m freestyle final because she was going to swim with her sister.

I wanted to see a ruthless competitive streak, not a la-di-da approach to losing.

Sure, I’ve never even been close to having a crack at making the Olympics (I inquired, though the Under-11 high jump record I set at St Pat’s in 2003 didn’t quite cut it apparently), but I felt as an Australian fan I had a right to expect those I was cheering for would be devastatingly cutting in their self-appraisals for not reaching the heights they — and we — expected.

By the end of week one when the swimming had wrapped up, I realised something. I was wrong. I was an Olympic-sized jerk.

The more I watched Australians fall short of medal positions then front up and speak so eloquently with a microphone and camera in their face, the more I realised just how wrong I was.

Bronte Campbell didn’t seem angry in the slightest.

Why couldn’t we see McEvoy fume?

As the week wore on, I found myself remarking more often to colleagues at work or housemates on the couch at home how impressive it was that our athletes — the ones that didn’t win — could conduct themselves the way they did after such enormous disappointment.

When I shank my three-wood on the opening hole (as has happened far too often in my life over the years), I get to take another shot. I get to play another hole. Hell, I get to come back next weekend and hack away all over again.

These guys don’t.

I can hear you all now — “No s***, Sherlock, it’s the Olympics.”

Yeah, I know. But the more I watched, the more I realised the very reason I was getting upset at our swimmers — the fact they should be furious because they wouldn’t be able to have another crack at success for four more years — was actually the same reason their race post-mortems were so damn impressive to watch.

Cate Campbell’s comments after her shock sixth-placed finish in the 100m freestyle final were heartbreaking, asking people to “please love me back”. She said it with a laugh at the end, but the fact she kept bringing it up (like after the 100m medley relay where she called it the “worst choke in Olympic history”) showed it was no joke. It was gnawing away at her, and will probably continue to do so for years to come.

So how she managed to keep something resembling a smile on her face — however much it may have been purely for show — is beyond me. And doing that was just as impressive as any gold medal swim she could have pulled off (and did pull off in the final leg of the women’s 100m freestyle relay and 100m medley relay).

At least Horton already had one gold medal to smile about.

Cate Campbell somehow kept it all together.

How Mack Horton — who was 12 seconds off his personal best in the 1500m freestyle final to finish fifth — could be so OK with his swim despite knowing he’d blown a great shot at a medal after defending world champion Sun Yang failed to make the final was another one that struck me.

Listening to Belinda Hocking speak about how proud she was after coming fifth in the 200m backstroke final was a reminder that, surprise surprise, there’s actually a lot of bloody good swimmers in the world and to even get to a final is a damn good achievement that our swimmers have every right to be proud of.

I — and everyone else who’s never swum at the Olympics — has no idea what the pressure must be like standing on the blocks waiting for the starting beep to sound. Whatever I felt at the start of the week whenever someone didn’t perform as expected, they would obviously feel a thousand times worse.

The fact they didn’t always show it is a definite tick — not a cross — against their name. I know that now.

At a time where we have to put up with the antics of Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic — something that almost drains the soul and crushes your will to live — not to mention Robert Allenby’s most recent descent into debauchery, our swimmers’ response in the face of adversity is something to admire and cherish, not lambaste.

Again, I get that now.

So yeah, I was an Olympic-sized jerk throughout Rio, but I can guarantee I won’t be one come Tokyo 2020.

Originally published as In the end, our Aussie swimmers showed us all what the Olympic Games are about