Cate and Bronte Campbell

SPORT: Swimming Swisse Olympic Ambassadors

At the 2012 London Olympics, Bronte and Cate Campbell were the first Australian siblings on the same Olympic swimming team since the 1972 games, and the first sisters to ever compete in the same swimming event at the Olympics. Rio will be Cate’s third Olympics and the second for her little sister. It’s fair to say there’ll be some healthy sibling rivalry in the pool given it’s how things got started. “Bronte beat me a few times and then rubbed it in – wore her medals around the house, trophy at the dinner table,” says Cate. “So, I decided, you know what, the medals are really shiny and I want some. She created me, which is kind of ironic because now we race each other.”

ON NOT GIVING UP: “We’ve been close to that a few times,” says Bronte. “Cate and I had glandular fever and post-viral fatigue, which pretty much knocked us both out of the sport for a few months. We weren’t able to train, which is the worst thing that can ever happen to an athlete. We almost didn’t come back from that, but it was friends and family and our support crew that got us through.”

ON WINNING: “The only thing you have to do to win is be in the race,” says Bronte. “That’s it. You’ve just got to get yourself behind that block, in that final, with the seven other athletes. Once you’re in it, you can win it.”

MOTTO: “You can do it. I pretty much tell myself that on a daily basis,” says Cate. “When I can’t get out of bed and that alarm is going off or I’m struggling in training and having a bit of a cry behind my goggles, I’m like, ‘You can do it.’ It lets you know that you can. And even if you can’t, then at least you tried.”