‘I may not qualify for that Olympic team’: Cate Campbell facing massive challenge to make 5th Games team

They say nothing great is easy – but that’s the way Cate Campbell wants it if she’s to become the first Aussie swimmer to make a fifth Olympic team.

Cate Campbell is on the verge of swimming history.

But she’s also at peace with the very real possibility that her bid to become the first Australian swimmer to compete at a fifth Olympics could end in disappointment come the Olympic trials.

Campbell kickstarted her Games bid with a respectable 53.23sec effort in the 100m freestyle at what will be her final Queensland state titles on Monday.

Cate Campbell (left) and winner Shayna Jack after the final of the 100m freestyle at the Queensland state championships. Photo: Wade Brennan (Qld Swimming)

For Campbell, an effort like that is now a walk in the park.

It shows just how far the event has come since her arrival on the international scene though given it’s a time that would have won a medal in the individual event at her first two Olympic Games – in 2008 and 2012.

And it’s a time she is likely to have to eclipse by about a full second – a lifetime in sprinting terms – if she’s to head to Paris for an Olympic swansong.

“I’ve had to have a look at this and realise that I may not qualify for that Olympic team,” Campbell said.

“It is a tough event to make and for the women’s 100 metre freestyle, to qualify for our national final will probably be harder than to qualify for an Olympic final.”

So the question really is why?

Bronze medallist Cate Campbell of Team Australia reacts on the podium during the medal ceremony for the women's 100m Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Photo: Getty Images

Why come back after a redemptive Olympics in Tokyo, in which Campbell was able to banish the demons of Rio and come back from a battle with depression to win a cherished individual medal in the blue riband 100m as well as claim another gold and world record with the all-conquering relay team?

“I decided to come back knowing that there was every possibility that I wouldn’t make it but I felt like it was one last challenge,” she said.

“I could have exited stage left after the end of my six months (holiday) in Europe. I could have gone and got myself a job – and that probably would have been the easier option.

“The harder thing for me to do was to come back, put my mind and body back into the grind, put myself in the spotlight and under the scrutiny again.”

It’s exactly because it is hard that Campbell is facing it head on.

“It’s a challenge that I feel like I want to rise to,” she said.

Cate Campbell in action in the 100m freestyle at the Queensland state championships. Photo: Wade Brennan (Qld Swimming)

“I always want to be someone who looks at a challenge and says: ‘yes, I’ll step up and I’ll take that on’, not, ‘no, that looks too big and I’m going to shy away from it’.”

There’s a very real possibility that Campbell will have to dip under her lifetime best of 52.03 to make the team for Paris such is the depth and quality of Australia’s women’s sprinting stocks.

Among Australians, only Emma McKeon has been faster, hitting the wall at 51.96 on her way to gold in Tokyo.

But with two-time world champion Mollie O’Callaghan, the surging Shayna Jack and relay ace Meg Harris on the up, Campbell knows she’s in for a fight.

And she’s not only relishing the challenge, she’s proud of the part she’s played in helping set the bar for a new generation.

“I am fully aware that it may take a personal best for me to qualify for this team,” Campbell said.

Cate Campbell prepares for the 100m freestyle at the Queensland state championships. Photo: Wade Brennan (Qld Swimming)

“We have so many young, fast, strong women. And I remember coming through and being that young, fast, strong girl and keeping the older the older swimmers accountable – and now they’re doing it to me.

“And it’s great because it’s what has propelled our sport forward.

“It’s why Australia are unbeatable in that women’s 4x100 freestyle relay team. So I am really, really proud to have been part of that legacy and I hope that I can continue it just for a little bit longer.”

Unlike the recharged Cameron McEvoy though, who is now talking about swimming into his late 30s, Campbell knows that she is preparing for her last campaign.

“It does feel very surreal that I won’t be competing at Queensland state titles again, it has been a staple in my life since I was about 10 years old,” she said.

“I think I won my first ever state championship medal in this pool for 50 breaststroke, and I was so proud of that medal I got it engraved – and then as I walked in last night, the same guy who engraved that medal for me all those years ago was still up there engraving medals.

“So it goes to show that while a lot may change, some things ever do.”

But she knows it’s time and it’s not just the four cortisone injections she’s had this year – “WD40 for my rusty old joints” – that are telling her so.

“I think that when I finished Tokyo, and I wasn’t sure of what my future held, I reached out to a lot of retired athletes … and every single one of them said: ‘Cate, when you know, you know’.

Cate Campbell, pictured here after winning the 50m freestyle final during the Queensland Championships in 2007, has been competing at the state championships for more than half her life. Photo: Courier Mail

“I now have this deep sense of knowing that this will be my last time, which is really special.

“You often remember the first time that you do something … but we’re not often given the opportunities to be aware of the last time we do something.

“And so I know that this is it. And so I’m able to approach it with the same level of enthusiasm and have that extra added bit of nostalgia to all of these experiences.”