Meddling in medals
The shock of a world championships medal in South Korea has New Zealand swimmer Lewis Clareburt believing anything is possible. Mark Geenty reports.
Barely three days after the swim of his life in South Korea, Lewis Clareburt plunged back into the water on a freezing Wellington winter’s day.
A few easy lengths of Freyberg Pool was a world away from the madness of Gwangju last Sunday night, and Clareburt, 20, still hadn’t come to terms with what he had achieved. ‘‘It’s been pretty nuts, eh,’’ he said.
A world championships medal – he is just the fifth New Zealand swimmer to collect one – and a bombardment of congratulations on social media helped snap him awake from a dream-like state.
‘‘I’m not sure I ever will [believe it], to be honest. I never imagined myself getting a bronze medal,’’ Clareburt said of his 400m individual medley final swim which lopped two seconds off his personal best.
‘‘The goal was to make the final and do the qualification for the Olympics. I wasn’t in the running to get a medal at any stage of the competition.
‘‘Even after my race I didn’t think I had a chance. Then to see on the board a No 3 next to your name . . .
When Stuff profiled Clareburt in August, 2017, he’d just equalled the great Danyon Loader’s national age-group 200m freestyle record and his 400m medley PB was 4min 18.78sec. Eight months later on the Gold Coast he slashed it to 4:14.42 when winning Commonwealth Games bronze.
Then, in the biggest race of his career on the final night of competition in Gwangju, Clareburt went out harder than ever in the backstroke leg and held on to stop the clock in 4:12.07, smashing his own PB and national record.
Even then he thought fifth or sixth was his lot, before he gazed up to the board. Japan’s Daiya Seto (4:08.95) first, Jay Litherland, of the US (4:09.22) second, and, who’s that third?
Clareburt was more than a second clear of Spain’s Joanllu Pons, and the post-race photo with the Kiwi’s look of disbelief said it all.
‘‘I couldn’t see anyone else in the race
because the dude next to me blocked my view. I was swimming as if I didn’t know where I was,’’ Clareburt said.
‘‘I’d assumed there would be at least two or three guys on the other side of him that would be up there as well. But obviously it was all happening over my side of the pool because no-one else was there.’’
Now it gets really serious, as Clareburt sits down with his coach of three years, Irishman Gary Hollywood, to map out the year-long road to Tokyo. It leads to Saturday, July 25, the opening night of Olympic competition and the men’s 400m medley heats with the final the next morning.
Tokyo was the main goal when Hollywood and Clareburt first teamed up, even if the coach maintains his charge – who hasn’t yet stopped growing – won’t be at the peak of his powers until 2024.
Hollywood said Clareburt’s 6sec reduction of his PB in two years was about what he had forecast, but even he was surprised they returned from Gwangju with a medal. They thought a PB would be enough to scrape into the final; Clareburt went close in the heats and qualified fifth fastest.
Said Hollywood: ‘‘I tried to instil belief. I said to Lewis: ‘Till you believe it you can’t achieve it’. I said to him after he warmed up: ‘The way you’ve been going, mate, it’s
within your destiny to medal at the worlds. Everything seems to go in your favour. You always get the roll of the dice’.
‘‘I said: ‘Don’t leave anything in the tank and give it your all and you could medal in this’. And he looked at me kinda surprised but he nodded and said ‘OK, let’s give it a crack’.
‘‘He’s a piece of gold, a rare find, and I feel a real responsibility to absolutely do my best for him.’’
So far those impressive gains have all been achieved in Wellington, alongside Hollywood’s other charges in a crowded lane at Freyberg.
Pre-Commonwealth Games, Clareburt declined a shift to Auckland to the Swimming NZ high performance programme to become a ‘carded’ athlete, insisting he had all the support and guidance he needed in his home city.
Victoria University offered him a scholarship and he’s studying for a commerce degree when swimming commitments allow.
Clareburt still lives with his parents and gets by on minimal high performance funding and help from some generous benefactors and sponsors.
Hollywood says of Clareburt: ‘‘The bigger the stage, the better he swims’’ – but both coach and swimmer know he has to go through the roof again to medal in Tokyo.
It will be 24 years since Loader’s double gold in Atlanta, the last time a New Zealand swimmer climbed the Olympic dais.
‘‘At the moment 4.10 will be realistic and a medal is probably going to be 4.08. We’re going to have to do something really exceptional to get a bronze I imagine,’’ Hollywood said.
‘‘It’s a bit of a pressure cooker the Olympics, a lot different to the worlds, and it’ll depend on how all the athletes handle the stress on the day and that’s maybe to our advantage.
‘‘I’ve got every confidence that Lewis can rise to the occasion.’’
After a 10-day break to mentally refresh, Clareburt will embark on his biggest training year yet to peak for Tokyo. The Queensland state championships in December and New South Wales equivalent in February are the main goals, before the New Zealand Olympic trials in April.
Fortified by the self-belief of a podium finish, Clareburt will go all out. He’s realistic enough to know some rivals may have tired on the final night of competition in Gwangju, and everyone will be fresh and firing on day one in Tokyo.
But he can go faster, too. How much faster?
‘‘I’ve got no idea. We took four seconds off last year; we took two seconds off this year. Maybe another second is the predicted line but if I can break the trend and take another four seconds off . . . I don’t know if it is possible but I’ve just got to believe in myself and put my head down and do everything I can to give myself that best opportunity.’’ At a glance New Zealand swimmers to win a world championships medal: Gary Hurring 1978 Anthony Mosse 1986 Danyon Loader 1994 Lauren Boyle 2013, 2015 Lewis Clareburt 2019
‘‘I’m not sure I ever will [believe it], to be honest. I never imagined myself getting a bronze medal.’’
Lewis Clareburt