Chalmers looks to scale new heights

Olympic champ shares passion

SWIMMING: Olympic champion. AFL tragic. Lizard king?

Champion swimmer Kyle Chalmers is a closet reptile fan who keeps native lizards in his garage and has a cult Instagram following through his Blue Tongues of Adelaide page.

Lizards, Chalmers says, are his mindset.

It’s one of the more bizarre statements you’ll ever hear from an elite sportsman.

But it’s one that could help Chalmers become one of the stars of next month’s Commonwealth Games.

The Adelaide teen admits he struggled to deal with the spotlight on him after his 100m freestyle win at the Rio Games in 2016.

“I probably pushed everything aside and thought swimming was me after the Olympics,” Chalmers said.

“And now I’m trying to refind all those loves that I had that helped me perform.”

It turns out reptiles is among the biggest of those loves.

“I’m obsessed with reptiles. Blue-tongued skinks are my (thing),” he said. “I’ve got about 16 of them. I’ve got all the superrare ones like albinos.

“I’m right into it. (I keep them in tanks) in my garage. I’ve got a licence and everything.”

Chalmers is a big deal in Australia’s lizard community, although it’s unclear whether followers of the Instagram handle adl_bluetongues know they’re connecting with an Olympic champion when they view his posts.

“I’ve formed a lot of friends in the lizard community,” he said. “It’s a weird thing to say. It’s a great community. I’ve got friends all around Australia that I’ll catch up with now and they know me as Adelaide Bluetongues (adl_bluetongues), that’s my Instagram page. “I’m obsessed.”

The obsession is proving healthy for Chalmers’ swimming too.

The 19-year-old won the 100m and 200m freestyle at the national selection trials at the Gold Coast Aquatic Centre last week and ahead of the Commonwealth Games is returning to the form that led him to gold in Rio.

It’s partly because he has balance back in his life. “(Keeping lizards again) is probably the thing that’s made me that normal because I’m able to be Adelaide Bluetongues on Instagram and go to the pool and be the swimmer and then go home and it’s back to lizards,” he said.

“That’s really helped me. I got pretty caught up in it thinking that swimming was going to be the rest of my life.

“But I’ve tried to take it back to reality and it’s something that I’m really enjoying doing.”