Looking back on fame and chilly starts
YEARS before Aussie sprint stars Kyle Chalmers and Cameron McEvoy, there was Andrew Baildon – a freestyle sensation whose explosive starts were legendary.
They stood the Miami star in good stead.
The Gold Coast-born swimmer was a dual Olympian and dual Commonwealth Games representative with an outstanding record, including an astounding four gold medals in Auckland in 1990, and captain of the Australian team that produced one of the country’s best pool performances at a Commonwealth Games when the swimmers lined up in 1994 at Victoria, Canada.
Under Miami and Olympic coach Denis Cotterell, Baildon became the first swimmer in the Commonwealth to break 50 sec for the 100m freestyle, recording 49:80 as he smashed his own record to win gold in Auckland. His other wins at those Games were the 50m freestyle and 100m butterfly, and he was in the winning 4x100m freestyle relay team.
But Baildon was not always Andrew the Superfish, as the press loved to portray him.
As a young teen he hated the cold water of unheated pools in winter.
And before then he nearly drowned as a small boy. Indeed it has often been speculated that his success was driven by a fight-orflight reaction to nightmare recollections of that incident, when big sister Kate rescued him after he fell in the family pool when they lived at Budds Beach.
“I was three,’’ he told the Bulletin. “I’d been pushing my sister Kate, she would have been 10 or 11, in the pool and she’d swum to the other end.
“When I went in there was absolutely no sound. Luckily she saw me and raced down to get me. It wasn’t a very pleasant experience. I hadn’t blacked out or anything, but I was pretty vocal when I got out.’’
His shocked parents – former mayor Gary Baildon and wife Kathy – decided there and then he would go to swimming lessons every day until he could swim.
By the time he was 10 Baildon wasn’t just watersafe. He had broken his first Australian schoolboys record and then, at age 14 and with an Australian age group record to his name, he was on his way to the Junior Olympics in Japan where a medal haul of five gold confirmed he was swimming to the top.
In 1988 he was 16 and in the team for the Seoul Olympics – the youngest male competitor selected for Australia since dual gold medallist Michael Wenden who also won four gold at a Commonwealth Games.
Baildon eventually married Wenden’s daughter Karen, a former Miss Universe Australia. Their son Flynn now trains in the Miami squad and was a gold medallist at the recent Australian Schools titles.
One of Andrew Baildon’s most vivid memories is of freezing pools and winter training, back in the days before pools were heated or when the heaters broke down.
“Denis Cotterell had to be very inventive,’’ he said.
When Baildon was about 15 and had been training in water temperatures of around 15C, he revolted one day.
“I’d locked myself in the locker room and refused to come out. Denis was outside and we were having a screaming match through the door.
“They were tough times but I look back fondly. Sport makes you appreciate no success comes without sacrifice and hard work.
“I’ve taken that into my working life.’’