SWIMMING MUST SPLASH CASH

AS GLITTERING as they are, Olympic gold medals just don’t pay the rent for Australia’s best swimmers.

The same Dolphins who reinvigorated Australia during the worst of last year’s pandemic with their inspiring performances remain among the most underpaid athletes in the country.

But the times may finally be changing, albeit slowly, starting with a head-to-head clash against America’s stars in Sydney later this year.

It’s the latest reincarnation of the Duel in the Pool, but this time there will be a wad of cash on offer.

However, the organisers were shy about revealing how much - and it’s little wonder.

The combined prize pool for the showdown with the star-studded Americans, plus a second sprint competition that will stretch the races out to a week, is a paltry $200,000.

And that’s to be split between more than 60 of the world’s swimmers, who each train for around 30 hours a week.

As Americans say, do the math, because the money on offer is below minimum wage and a pittance to other sports where less-talented athletes wouldn’t get out of bed for anything below a seven-figure sum.

It’s a shocking reminder just how poorly elite swimmers are paid, but the most damning revelation is that this is a rare windfall.

“It‘s actually a lot of money for us,”

Swimming Australia boss Eugenie Buckley said on Friday.

“But we’re working on changing that so there’s a number of things we want to do.

“First of all, we want to make sure we can give more opportunities to our swimmers to swim and get rewarded for it. And we want to attract new audiences.”

Some of the sport’s biggest names have made a good living from spending their lives soaked in chlorine through a mix of funding, prizemoney, sponsorship, reward schemes and a new professional league.

But most elite swimmers end up with little to show for their work because the global administrators spent most of the profits on their own lavish lifestyles instead of the actual competitors.

That all changed last year when FINA was shamed into major reform and the benefits are now starting to flow into Australian waters, though there’s a lot of catching up still to do, as Buckley explained.

“We still don’t have a major partner for swimming yet,” she said.

“So we’re really hoping that this event will help us sort of kickstart those conversations around sponsorship. We’ve had some good traction.”

To get things moving again, Swimming Australia has made some key personnel changes, recruiting not only Buckley, but also Tracy Stockwell as the new president, and former Sydney Sixers general manager Jodie

Hawkins to head up the commercial and marketing department.

Taking a leaf from the Americans, they have ambitious plans that are now being put in place, including transforming the vastly underplayed Olympic trials into the massive prime-time event it should be, staged at marquee venues.

“We’re always looking for content and new ideas, so we’ve gone out to each of the states and all the state tourism bodies to present our vision for working with them,” Buckley said.

Swimming Australia is also working closely with FINA about creating a new global calendar, which could produce a massive windfall for Australia.