STROKE OF LUCK FUELS ATHLETE’S GOLDEN BID
HE ALMOST didn’t get a ticket to Tokyo but despite being a late call-up Blake Cochrane still plans to bring home a medal from his fourth Paralympic Games.
Cochrane, 30, trains with the University of Sunshine Coast and has found his way to the podium at every Paralympics since Beijing.
He was competing at the grand prix event in Brisbane in July when he found out the International Paralympic Committee had granted him an extra place in the Australian swimming team bound for Tokyo.
“I was gunning for my fourth Games but had missed out because of restrictions on numbers,” Cochrane said. “I was waiting for the process to unfold and had almost given up, but then to be told I was going to Tokyo, it’s just very exciting.”
With two gold and two silver medals from his previous Paralympics, three minor World Championships medals and four from the Commonwealth Games, Cochrane is one of Australia’s most decorated para-swimmers.
He will compete in the SB7 men’s 100m breaststroke at 6pm on Wednesday.
Before the Games he put a lot of work into his turn in a bid to save himself half a second.
It could be just what he needs to get back to his best time of one minute and 16 seconds, which he was just shy of at the trials in Adelaide.
“A half a second on the world stage can be the difference between a gold medal and a silver,” Cochrane said.
“I don’t train for second place and you don’t go to the Paralympics chasing anything other than the ultimate performance, which is a gold medal.”
Cochrane grew up in Redcliffe, north of Brisbane, and always had a love for swimming – first in the bathtub and then at the beach and in the pool.
“I’ve always loved the water,” he said. “I started at the pool when I grew too big to do laps in the bathtub.”
Like many others who take up swimming, Cochrane had asthma, which was one of the reasons his parents enrolled him in a learn-to-swim program.
“I learned to love it and I still do today,” he said. “When I step on the world stage and get those butterflies and passion to perform well, that is what I love about being an athlete.”
There had been rumours Cochrane planned to hang up his green and gold togs after Tokyo but he said he had far from made up his mind.
“With how I’ve been training over the last 18 months and now that I’ve found the perfect work-life balance, I’m in a really positive place and am just taking it one competition at a time,” he said.