Cate with destiny for calm Campbell
CATE Campbell’s dedication to the task is honourable. She will slog through a four-hour opening ceremony in oppressive heat for the distinction of carrying the Australian flag at the Tokyo Olympics.
The risk is that she will sink when she swims because of the unavoidable fatigue … but you have to understand the deep personal significance behind her decision to go where few Australian crawlers have gone before.
The ceremony begins at 8pm and finishes at midnight, local time, which means Campbell will be up and at ’em from 5pm until about 2am. It will be a mentally and physically taxing assignment to go eight hours the night before competition begins at Tokyo Aquatic Centre.
Campbell is only the second swimmer to hold the honour since the flagcarrying tradition began 101 years ago at the Antwerp Games. Andrew “Boy” Charlton did it at Los Angeles in 1932. Aged 25, and after testing positive to influenza a fortnight before the Games, he slumped to sixth in the 400m freestyle and bombed out in the semi-finals of the 1500m.
Max Metzker carried a flag of sorts with Denise Robertson-Boyd at Moscow in 1980 – an Olympic flag in an Australian protest against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Metzker finished with bronze in the 1500m.
Umpteen swimmers have held sufficient esteem to perform the duty – Dawn Fraser, Murray Rose, Kieren Perkins, Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett – but they’ve rarely wanted to attend the Parade of Nations for the world’s most obvious reason. Events at the pool start the following day.
Campbell wouldn’t touch the ceremony with a barge pole if she wasn’t on flag duty.
Her 4x100m heat is on Saturday night. The final is Sunday morning. A couple of days off. Then it heats up. Her 100m freestyle heat is Wednesday night. Semi-finals are Thursday morning. Final is Friday morning. Her 50m freestyle heat is Friday night. Semi-finals are Saturday morning. Final is Monday morning, as is the 4x100m medley relay if she’s involved. That’s up to nine full-throttle swims in eight days.
Stay in the village. Get a good night’s sleep in your disposable cardboard bed. That seems the sensible option. But the new, more relaxed Campbell, the queen of Instagram modelling the swim team’s Olympic kit in front of a mirror in the village, is intent on walking the gauntlet. If she’s feeling the pressure, it’s not showing.
She’s waited five years to avenge her self-described “greatest choke in Olympic history” in the 100m freestyle at Rio. When she wobbled on the starting blocks, thought she would be disqualified, swam in a panic, came sixth.
A devastated Campbell walked away from swimming for two years.
Part of her recovery was consulting sports psychologists who worked with Australia’s elite armed forces unit, the SAS. They made her realise the 100m freestyle was hardly life and death. Campbell started concentrating on the simple things in life. Breathing. Nature. “Finding things in life to be grateful for,” she said.
She’s loosened up for her fourth Games. Seems intent on enjoying it.
She will carry the flag with a smile on her dial. Who can deny her that?
Campbell is allowing herself a night on the town because she cares less about her swimming than she did in Rio. Which means she’s caring just the right amount. She’ll swim better now she’s free.