The story behind signature on Cameron McEvoy’s swimming cap

STRANGE markings on Cameron McEvoy's swimming cap have revealed an intriguing element of the amazing young athlete’s persona.

SWIMMING - Hancock Prospecting 2016 Australian Swimming Championships at SA Aquatic Centre. Men 50 LC Metre Freestyle - Winner Cameron McEvoy. Picture Sarah Reed

IN THE pool, Cameron McEvoy is the cream of the crop right now.

On Monday, the 21-year-old set a new Australian 100m record of 47.04 seconds in the Olympic qualifying final.

The swim was the third fastest in history, beaten only by two swimmers in “supersuits” during the 2008-09 era.

And with a silver medal in the 100m sprint at the World Championships last year, the youngster is a strong medal shout heading into the Rio Games.

For most people, the life of a top-level Olympic athlete would be more than enough to manage. Not McEvoy.

The young Queenslander is currently studying a Bachelor of Science honours degree with a major in physics and mathematics at Griffith University, and has such a passion for science that he wants to be an astronaut once he retires from swimming.

The passion is so strong that it is brought into the pool with him.

You’d never guess it.

McEvoy has raised eyebrows at the Australian Championships in Adelaide by taking to the water sporting a bizarre signature on his black swimming cap.

Following his record-breaking race, the youngster was queried on the origins of the marking. His answer left reporters searching the cosmos for a response.

“It’s the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which is his theory of gravity and coincidentally, physicists at Advanced LIGO (observatory) discovered gravitational waves, which is the stretching and contraction of space-time itself — everything we move in and pretty much what the universe is,’’ McEvoy told The Australian.

“That signature, that pulse on my cap is the signal they detected when two super-massive black holes collided and made space-time ripple and that’s the actual pulse they detected, the noise of two black holes colliding somewhere a billion light years away.’’

The swimmer’s passion caught the attention of comedian Adam Spencer on Fox Sports’ The Back Page, labelling him an “uber nerd,” and making reference to yet another genius top level athlete.

John Urschel and Cameron McEvoy are in a league of their own.

“That cap he was wearing, this zig-zaggy line. That is the imprint of the gravitational waves that they discovered at the LIGO observatory last year,” Spencer said.
“So that’s a salute to this phenomenal scientific discovery that rocked the world of physics last year.

“He’s not the only uber nerd going round at the forefront of world sport.

“In the NFL, there is a guy called John Urschel, who is a lineman for the Baltimore Ravens. 305 pounds, that is 140kg of brutal man meat, who is doing a PhD of pure math at MIT. When he gets away from the training track and the game, he just likes reading books on algebraic topology.

“It is the century of the nerd, bring it on.”

It may be slightly early on in the period to claim the century for all nerds, but McEvoy certainly looks set for big things himself.

Starting with a gold medal, hopefully, in a few months’ time.

Originally published as The story behind signature on Cameron McEvoy’s swimming cap