How world record holder emerged from Games ‘wilderness’
Roger Vaughan |
Cam McEvoy is back where it feels like everything really started, four years after his swimming career nearly ended.
The 50m freestyle world record holder enters the Glasgow Commonwealth Games as one of the event’s biggest superstars, spearheading a swim team that is expected to do the heavy lifting on Australia’s hunt for gold.
The Paris Olympics gold medallist set a personal-best training time at the Dolphins’ camp in Germany, signalling his drought in individual events at the Commonwealth Games will likely be broken.
While McEvoy swam at the 2012 London Olympics, the 2014 Glasgow Games were when he announced himself with two relay gold medals.
He was 19 then, “super shy”. It was a lifetime ago.
“I’m in the same sport,” McEvoy, now a 32-year-old father, explains.
“But the way I’m conducting training on a day-to-day basis, the way being on the team feels now compared to (being) a rookie, (it) almost feels like it’s a new sport, in a sense.
“It’s nice, I will just take it all in.
“I was basically a kid back then and now I have my own kid.
“There’s actually a member of the swim team who’s 14 (Mia Hogan), so she was only two when I … was competing here last time.
“A lot has happened. Basically my entire international career has unfolded.”
This will be McEvoy’s third Commonwealth Games, after his year-long sabbatical sidelined him for Birmingham 2022.
He emerged from the break a different swimmer, revolutionising his training and becoming the sport’s renaissance man who stormed to gold in Paris.
“Four years ago I was definitely in the wilderness. I wasn’t swimming, at that point I wasn’t sure if I was going to come back,” McEvoy said as the Dolphins arrived in Glasgow on Tuesday (local time).
“I was still on the fence. But I definitely watched it … a lot of the guys were on fire back then.”
The Queenslander noted Elijah Winnington, in particular, motivated him to return after watching his teammate rebound from missing a medal at the Tokyo Olympics to win the 2022 world title and Commonwealth Games gold in the 400m freestyle.
“I saw that as a massive inspiration,” McEvoy said.
The sprinter is unsure what his training PB over 35m will mean at the Games, where he will compete in the 50m freestyle and 50m butterfly after also winning a relay gold at the 2018 Games.
“It’s hard to say – it was a training PB for a 35. One perspective is to say everything has moved forward and there should be a drop in the end result,” he said.
“The other perspective is maybe I’m just getting more efficient at training.
“I will find out next week.”
The Commonwealth Games men’s 50m freestyle final is on Monday morning (AEST).
AAP