FROM FAILURE TO FLYING
ELIJAH Winnington says he left the Tokyo Olympics feeling like a failure as he chases redemption at the World Championships in Budapest.
Winnington was one of Australia’s big hopes going into the Games.
The former Bond University swimmer won a bronze medal in the relay but finished seventh in the 400m freestyle final after going into the Olympics ranked number one in the world.
The time he swam at the Australian trials, held a month before the Olympics, would have won him the gold medal in Tokyo, but he couldn’t replicate it when it mattered.
A prodigious talent who has been likened to Ian Thorpe, he took his performances so badly that he almost quit the sport forever, spiralling into near-depression.
“I thought I was a failure,” he said. “I thought that I not only let myself down, but also my family and everyone in the country.”
He hadn’t, but his mind was playing tricks on him, and taking him to dark places.
That’s often the case with elite athletes. Like Formula One cars, they go a lot faster than everyone else when everything’s humming, but when the wheels fall off, there’s an awful mess left to clean up.
By his own admission, Winnington was a total wreck after Tokyo. A natural optimist and devout Christian, he wears his heart on his sleeve, but his heart was no longer in swimming though that was the least of his worries. He needed help, and found it . His coach Dean Boxall knew something was wrong.
Renowned as a hard taskmaster, Boxall became a cult figure during the Tokyo Olympics because of his spontaneous celebrations when Ariarne Titmus won the women’s 400m gold.
But those who know Boxall best, say he’s a big softie, who treats his swimmers like his own kids so when Winnington was in pain, he was too.
“Dean is very passionate, but what people don‘t say is that he’s not really our coach, he’s like a father to us,” Winnington said.
“When I got back into training, I was really struggling, I just wasn’t enjoying it, but he just called me up one night - I was literally in my pyjamas - and said ‘ come on over, let’s just have
I thought I was a failure”
Elijah Winnington
a chat.
“But it wasn’t a conversation about swimming. He really wanted to check on how I was, and whether I was happy and how my life was going.
“People don’t know that about Dean. Obviously they know he coaches Ariarne (Titmus) and she swam unbelievably in Tokyo (winning two gold medals) and he‘s coached her since she was a little girl so he celebrated her success.
“But he loves all his swimmers the same and not everyone had that experience but he shares all those emotions too.”
Winnington also sought professional help, hiring a mental coach to help him get his head right.
“My mental coach has a saying that fun is fast so if I’m not having fun, I can’t swim fast so that’s how I’m approaching it and it’s working.”