Champion Australian swimmer Cate Campbell is unsure whether she’ll head to a fifth Olympics when the 2024 Paris Games roll around.
Despite being just 29, Campbell has achieved it all in her sport, winning four Olympic golds, four World Championship golds and six Commonwealth Games golds.
With the freestyler one of the nation’s best ever at her craft, many hope that she’ll appear one last time in the green and gold in France in two years’ time, but Campbell at this stage isn’t sure whether her body will be able to handle the run-up to another Olympics.
“I’m just trying to be really strategic about it,” Campbell said on SEN 1170 Breakfast.
“The extra year that got tacked on to our prep (for Tokyo) kind of really pushed my body to its absolute limit.
“If I do go on to Paris, it’s the end goal. I’ll have to get my body in a good enough condition that it peaks for Paris.
“Hopefully there won’t be any more delays … it’s more about making sure my body is capable of going on again.
“Allowing it to have a really big break, let all the inflammation settle down and all of my injuries settle down, do all the boring physio exercises.”
While there’s no doubting that she’d like to compete at the next Games, Campbell says she has set herself a timeframe on whether she makes a Paris tilt or decides to call time on her glittering career.
“I’ll have made a definite decision by the middle of the year I think,” Campbell explained
“I’m keeping myself in really good condition, (and) mentally I’m also letting myself have a really good break.
“I’m trying to steer clear of the black line and swimming up and down in a pool.
“I’ve had to look at what other sports and exercise I can do - the answer is I can’t do a lot very well.
“But it’s very humbling and very grounding.”
Despite her status as a champion swimmer, Campbell says she’s been avoiding the pool as much as possible since the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
“I have been in once,” she said.
“I love water, so every chance that I can to be in amongst water at the beach or at a watering hole somewhere, I absolutely love it.
“But I think what I struggle with once I hop into a swimming pool - as I usually go into a public lane - is the eyes that I see on me and the looking, people commenting. I’m not ready to go back to that yet.
“A lot of my memories attached with swimming are about pushing my body to the absolute limit.
“When I swim now, I just want to rediscover that enjoyment of it and not feel that pressure to push myself really hard.”
If Campbell does make it to another Games, she’ll have a chance to overtake five-time Gold medal winners Ian Thorpe and Emma McKeon as the nation’s most prolific Olympic swimmer.
Listen to the full chat here.