The radical reality boot camp to revive swimming after COVID-19 lockdown ends
Australia is set to host a groundbreaking reality TV camp featuring the cream of world swimming including international superstars Caeleb Dressel, Katie Ledecky and Adam Peaty.
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The rebel billionaire who took on swimming’s tight-fisted establishment and won is planning to run a groundbreaking bootcamp in Australia this year to revive the Olympic dreams of financially struggling athletes when the coronavirus lockdown finally ends.
The radical proposal is similar to the NRL’s idea of shipping players off to a remote island to play games in isolation – but with a couple of commercial spin-offs that could provide a blueprint for other Olympic sports to follow.
The basic details were announced in Europe overnight but The Saturday Telegraph can reveal swimming’s survivor island could be mainland Australia and the five-week camp will be open to the best 320 swimmers from all around the world, including Caeleb Dressel, Katie Ledecky and Adam Peaty.
The fiercest of rivals when they’re in the pool, the swimmers will all live, train and eat together with everything being filmed for a global reality documentary series, similar to cricket’s acclaimed fly-on-the-wall series The Test and Formula One’s Drive To Survive.
High-stakes races will be held throughout the camp – which will be held from October 14-November 17, on the proviso that the current border restrictions are lifted by then – with swimmers competing against each other for $8 million in prizemoney.
All their travel and expenses will be covered, both for the swimmers and their personal coaches, and everyone who agrees to take part in the camp will receive monthly minimum payments of $2,500 for the next year under a solidarity program to help them prepare for the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics in July 2021.
“This is going to be a lifeline for swimmers, not just in Australia but all around the world,” Cate Campbell told The Saturday Telegraph.
“No-one has said it yet, but let’s be honest, the writing’s on the wall that funding cuts are going to happen and for a lot of swimmers on the cusp of representing their countries, that might mean they have to give up their dreams.
“This will also give everyone a little bit of insight into what it’s like to be a swimmer and their personalities and what an average training day looks like, because we kind of exist a little bit in the dark.
“That’s going to be so important for the sport moving forward because corporate dollars and sponsorship dollars are going to be so scarce in the years to come.”
The innovative proposal is the brainchild of Konstantin Grigorshin, the Ukrainian energy tycoon who founded the breakaway International Swimming League after taking swimming’s governing body FINA to court to challenge their monopoly on the sport.
Grigorshin had been planning to run a six-month, 10-team global series starting at the end of this year but changed tack after the Tokyo Olympics were pushed back for 12 months so asked swimmers what they wanted to do.
“Our approach is we consider athletes as our partners so before we made this decision we asked them what they wanted this is what they told us, so it’s a swimming camp, it’s a competition and it’s a reality show all rolled into one,” he told The Saturday Telegraph.
“One of the things we want to do is show people who the swimmers really are. They are not just robots standing on the blocks and swimming for their country so we want to show their personalities.”
Grigorshin said all the international swimmers he had spoken to agreed that southeast Queensland was the perfect destination to host the camp so talks were already underway about securing pools and accommodation for later this year.
“We also have interest from Japan and from Europe and from Florida so we have options but Australia is the best one,” he said.
“We already have strong interest from business partners in Australia and all the swimmers like Australia so it’s great for us.”
Originally published as The radical reality boot camp to revive swimming after COVID-19 lockdown ends
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