Australia’s Cameron McEvoy heads to the Rio Olympics as the world’s leading 100 metres freestyle swimmer and ready to “push the boundaries of human achievement” in the event.
The physics student and aspiring astronaut laid down a marker at the national selection trials in April with the year’s best time of 47.04 seconds, almost a second quicker than his nearest rival. McEvoy told AFP in an interview that a 46sec 100m is definitely possible during his career.
His April time was also the third-fastest 100m time in history, bettered only by Brazil’s Cesar Cielo and Frenchman Alain Bernard in the now-banned “supersuits” of 2008-09. McEvoy, 22, leads a strong Australian cohort of gold medal contenders in Cate Campbell, Mitch Larkin, Mack Horton and the sprint relay teams vying to challenge the United States for supremacy in the Rio pool.
He is also bidding to become the first Australian Olympic 100m freestyle champion in almost 50 years since Michael Wenden at Mexico City in 1968. Known as ‘The Professor’, McEvoy is the figurehead of an Australian team chasing gold in the 50m and 100m freestyle and three relay events, but it is the blue riband 100m which fixates national attention.
The Aussie, who is as conversant with gravitational waves as he is about swimming, is working towards his goal of a 46-second swim. It may not come in Rio, but his progress has been astronomical. “It’s definitely a possibility at some point in my career,” he told AFP.
“Given the short period of time it will probably be difficult to improve between the national trials and Rio. If I do get improvement I’m guessing it will be down to the minor things that I’ve improved on, that is the start, turns, body position in the last 10-15 metres of the race might get me a one percent improvement.”
McEvoy is reluctant to predict a time for Rio, adding that “at any Olympic Games the 100m final is generally not won in the fastest time swum that year”. But he believes he has it in him to push the “boundaries of human achievement for the 100m freestyle”.
“I am nudging that goal and I am trying to expand that as much as I can just to show the swimming community that it’s not impossible to do that or that it doesn’t require some sort of superhuman freak to come along to do a time like that. I like that idea,” he said.
McEvoy is a refreshingly different sporting character, given his scientific bent and a determination to share his curiosity of the universe with the general public. He’s always wanted to be an astronaut, although his future may lie in earthly pursuits. “I have said that I would like to be an astronaut if the opportunity arose, but being an Australian I don’t think that possibility is going to arise,” he conceded. “I guess with many people it’s a dream but I also have many other things I want to do with my life. I want to go down the research road and spend my life in physics learning as much as I can about it and trying to bridge the gap between science and the general public.”
Melbourne’s Swinburne University has already invited McEvoy to become an advisory board member in its proposed new Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, a prospect that excites the young swimmer. “That works really well with the vision of what I want to get done in some part of my life,” said McEvoy, who sported an image of gravitational waves on his black swimming cap at the national trials. “That is going to schools and trying to integrate science into public schools around Australia and talk about astrophysics, cosmology, space and gravitational waves. I just want to show the kids that you don’t have to pigeon-hole yourself into an athletic pathway or an academic pathway, but that you can do both.”