Commonwealth Games 2022: Kyle Chalmers storms out of media conference, doubles down on Instagram
Kyle Chalmers has refused to be silenced after being rushed out of a media conference after he was asked about the rift in the Australian team.
Kyle Chalmers led Australia to a record-breaking relay victory before being rushed out of a media conference after he was asked about the reported rift in the Australian team.
The multiple Birmingham Commonwealth Games gold medal winner refused to be silenced though, later taking to Instagram to hit out at reports of friction for the second time within a few hours.
Following Australia’s convincing win in the 4x100m relay, Chalmers was asked if there was a rift between himself and Cody Simpson, who is now dating Chalmers’ ex-partner and fellow swimmer Emma McKeon.
The question followed reports Chalmers had snubbed McKeon after they combined to win gold in the 4x100m mixed relay.
“It’s all just false news,” he said.
“That’s actually just crap. Like it’s honestly a load of sh** that’s not true. Just words getting put out and you wanting to make a story of nothing.
“I said congratulations and we (McKeon) stood here right alongside you guys and spoke last night. I find that really hard to believe that I didn’t say congratulations after the race.
“I actually walked up and said ‘good job’ across the pool. We all said congratulations, we all did what we had to do and it’s an honour to be part of that team last night and win the first gold medal in the race at the Commonwealth Games and to do it with Australia’s most successful Olympian and now Australia’s most successful Commonwealth Games athlete is special.”
Chalmers said the drama was adding to his mental stress and threatened to give up swimming.
“The media really need to start to grow up and focus on the good things. I think every other country managed to do it,” he said.
“No matter what I do these days, the media wants to jump on when I have done nothing but give all to this country. I stand and talk to you guys after every race. Bad, good, I’ve always stopped to give you guys the time of day.
“There’s going to be a time when I definitely stop doing that if that’s going to be the case. I said exactly what I needed to do last night. I did the race, we won gold, everyone won gold and focused on the positives.
“The truth is I won’t be around forever and you enjoy it while you can. You can try and bring me down all you want but it’s only going to last so long and I will stop talking to the media.”
Chalmers was also quizzed about his relationship with Simpson, who is part of his first Australian team.
He said: “I say ‘good luck’ to Cody. I say ‘good job’ to Cody. I send him a message after the race. I do nothing but be positive. I try and support him on the team but again, people just want clickbait.”
But when Chalmers was asked to further clarify the situation with McKeon, Swimming Australia media manager Kieran Marsh interrupted and refused to allow him to answer the question.
Hours later he took to his personal Instagram account, saying he was at “breaking point.”
“Up until this point I’ve tried to just keep on moving forward but tonight I ask that you please stop writing these false headlines otherwise my time in the sport will be finished,” he wrote.
“I don’t swim for this, I didn’t get into the sport to have to deal with this. I swim to inspire and I swim because I love my sport and it gives me purpose.
“This could end my time in swimming, I hope you are all aware. My mental health right now from all of this over the months is at rock bottom, I really hope that pleases the keyboard warriors that continue to write false news.
“Thank you again for the people who love, care and support me.
“You’ve been there for me every day through this journey.. and without you I would not have been standing here racing.
“I would have been retired, but you motivated me, inspired me and helped me get through this battle. For that I am forever grateful.”
FIRST WORLD RECORD FALLS TO AUSSIE
Katja Dedekind flew off the block and didn’t stop until she touched the wall - claiming gold and the first world record at the aquatics centre these Games - only she didn’t even know she had done it until after she got out the pool.
Dedekind, who is blind in her right eye and has limited vision in her left, couldn’t see the results board after the S13 50m freestyle - only learning of her impressive time when talking to media.
She touched in at 26.56 seconds
“I’m pretty happy with that, it’s better than my times at Worlds, better than I’ve been doing at training,” Dedekind said.
“I couldn’t be more stoked. I feel like I’m only just acquiring all the knowledge I can get.”
After adding two bronze medals to her growing collection in Tokyo Dedekind changed coaches and moved to the Sunshine Coast to train with USC Spartans.
“This is just the beginning,” she said. “I thought Worlds was my best time I could do, if it was I would have been happy, so to be a Commonwealth Games champion, get a world record - stoked.
“We have worlds next year, Paris in two years - I just want to make sure I get to Paris.”
The decorated swimmer made her Paralympic debut in Rio where she won bronze in the S13 100m backstroke and reached the final of the S13 400m freestyle finishing seventh.
Fellow Aussie Kirralee Hayes finished third and Jenna Jones wasn’t far behind her in fourth.
In the men’s S13 50m freestyle final a bronze medal at his first Commonwealth Games has Jacob Templeton hungry to keep his swimming career alive.
Templeton put up a tough fight in the field of five in the men’s S13 50m freestyle race to earn his place on the podium.
The 27-year-old Tasmanian hasn’t taken to the pool in an international event for almost four years.
“It’s hard to know how to react when you’re in the pool and you don’t know how you wound up,” Templeton said.
“The lead-up has been really hard, in 2019 I missed out on the championships and I qualified for the Games but I wasn’t chosen so it’s been four years since my last international event.”
Templeton said he was taking his career one year at a time but felt he still had more to give.
“I’m taking it one year at a time,” he said.
“Having that sort of result definitely makes me want to come back.
“To motivate myself I do like to look back at the things that cause the heartbreak or the disappointment, moments like tonight - I wanted to win the gold, I’m really happy with the bronze, but I like to use that to keep me humble.”
While sticking close to the village and the aquatics centre Templeton said he was loving his first Commonwealth Games experience - the only multi-sport event where para-athletes compete alongside able-bodied athletes.
“They call these the friendly games and it really is,” he said.
“I haven’t been able to get out and about but I’m a big fan of the coffee machine in the village and the flapjacks, we don’t have flapjacks in Australia.
Fellow Aussies Braeden Jason and Oscar Stubbs touched in fourth and fifth.
- Erin Smith, Eliza Barr
HODGES REIGNITES CAREER AFTER DEPRESSION BATTLE
AUSTRALIA’S unsung Olympic hero Chelsea Hodges fought back tears as she finally got her own individual reward when she won a bronze medal in the women’s 50 metres breaststroke at the Commonwealth Games on Sunday morning.
Hodges swam the race of her life to help Australia win a record ninth gold medal in Tokyo last year but has fallen on tough times since - missing out in the team for last month’s world championships in Budapest.
Battling depression, she almost quit the sport but battled on and made the team for Birmingham where she unleashed a devastating final burst to get her hands on the wall in the nick of time and win the bronze medal in a time of 30.05 seconds.
“It’s very exciting. The past 12 months have been really hard, I struggled getting back in the pool,” she said.
“I almost retired from swimming and it took a lot to come back.”
The gold medal went to South Africa’s South Africa’s Lara van Niekerk and the silver to England’s Imogen Clark in a blanket finish where all eight finalists were separated by just 1.66 seconds.
Australia’s Jenna Strauch (fifth) and Abbey Harkin (seventh) also made the final but finished out of the medals.
Hodges swam the breaststroke leg for the Australian team that won the gold in Tokyo by a fingernail from the United States, teaming up with Kaylee McKeown, Emma McKeon and Cate Campbell.
Hodges swam the breaststroke leg for the Australian team that won the gold in Tokyo by a fingernail from the United States, teaming up with Kaylee McKeown, Emma McKeon and Cate Campbell.
Still just 21, Hodges suffered a confidence-rattling setback this year when Strauch and Harkin beat her for the two places on the Aussie team for the world titles but said it was a blessing in disguise.
“Not making the worlds was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she said.
“I fell in love with the sport again. My family have been my rock and to have their support has been so amazing.”
- Eliza Barr, Julian Linden
SMITH JUSTIFIES COACH SWAP
Unheralded Aussie Brendon Smith can look back at his silver medal winning swim in one of the toughest events on the Commonwealth Games program, the 400m individual medley, knowing he made the right decision to swap coaches and states after the Tokyo Olympics.
Smith tailed the New Zealander Lewis Clareburt for the entire Games final, and despite a powerful 16 beat kick in the freestyle leg was unable to make much headway.
However, on the other side of the pool in lane one, the Scottish swimmer Duncan Scott was edging closer. Scott had, just an hour before, won the 200m freestyle final, and buoyed by that victory was steaming home. But his packed program may have helped Smith’s cause.
At the touch Clareburt won in 4min08.70, a Commonwealth and championship record, with Smith just behind in 4min10.25, a full second ahead of Scott. Australian Se-Bom Lee, who had maintained fourth place for much of the race, tailed at the end to finish fifth. Another Australian Kieren Pollard was sixth.
Soon after hitting the headlines at the Tokyo Olympics, Smith, 22, was forced to leave his Nunawading base where he had flirted with open water swimming and surf lifesaving.
His long time coach Scott Talbot had agreed to a British contract after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and was already on the other side of the world.
When the Games were postponed Nunawading deputy Wayne Lawes stepped in for 12 months to oversee the Olympic training during the covid restrictions.
After Smith hit the headlines for his superb bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics, the first medal in that event at an Olympics since Rob Woodhouse, Smith moved to Queensland. But the biggest impact of the move was meeting his partner, Kaylee McKeown.
- Jacquelin Magnay
WINNINGTON FINDS REDEMPTION WITH MEDAL DOUBLE
Elijah Winnington has erased all of the horror of the Tokyo Olympics with superb back-to-back freestyle races at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
Winnington, 22, won bronze in the 200m freestyle, finishing behind the Tokyo Olympic gold and silver medallists Duncan Scott of Scotland and Tom Dean of England on Sunday morning. Winnington’s bronze medal adds to his gold medal triumph in the 400m on the opening night of competition and importantly he has shown he can back up after collecting a world title at Budapest in June.
“After the 400m I was extremely tired, I didn’t think it would be that slow to make the final and that’s what’s hard about being in the first seeded heat, you have no idea how fast you have to go.” He said he knew he could come home hard “because that’s the way I train”.
The Queenslander has rediscovered the strong form that he had shown in early 2021.
But in the Covid-restricted environs of the delayed Olympics, Winnington struggled with his taper and the pressure of the big time and he finished seventh in the 400m final and 22nd in the 200m.
Yet here in Birmingham, an older and wiser and far more confident Winnington has managed to double up from the 400m, getting home close to midnight and then backing up for the 200m heats and the final, all within 24 hours.
Winnington bristled at claims some of the Australians were a little sluggish with their times because of the hectic programming.
“I don’t know that sluggish is the right word. I mean Mollie O’Callaghan beat what time she did at the worlds, I wouldn’t call that sluggish and you know Emma (McKeon) swum unbelievably in her first meet back so I don’t really know what you’re talking about,” he said.
- Jacquelin Magnay
BACKSTROKER’S BONUS BRONZE
Central Coast swimmer Bradley Woodward has snared a bronze medal in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 100m backstroke, an event he was added to at the last minute when the Australian champion Isaac Cooper was sent home from the pre-Games training camp in France.
Woodward, 24, took the most of his unexpected opportunity and steamed home in the last 20m to touch in third place behind South African teenager Pieter Coetze and England’s Brodie Williams.
The near blanket finish meant the field all touched within less than a second.
Woodward had won the silver medal in the same event at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, but for these Games he had been targeting the longer 200m backstroke distance.
His endurance showed at the tail end of the race when he overhauled three spots to grab third place.
Meanwhile Cooper, who said his wellbeing and mental health resulted in him being sent home, would have learned of the results with some dismay.
Cooper had been one of the favourites for the gold medal, having a time that ranked him number one in the Commonwealth in both the 50m and 100m backstroke races.
The 18 year old posted on social media: “I’ve had to undergo a lot of self-reflection and examination. The decision made to send me home was based on my behaviour and mental health and was made in my best interest and that of the team competing at the Commonwealth Games.”
The backstroke veteran Mitch Larkin was 7th and youngster Joshua Edwards-Smith was eighth.
- Jacquelin Magnay
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