Cooper - The Finest Gold: Memoirs of an Olympic Swimmer

THE FINEST GOLD

Brad Cooper (born 19 July 1954) is an Australian former freestyle and backstroke swimmer of the 1970s.

Scribe Publications
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First published by Scribe 2018

Copyright Brad Cooper 2018

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

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9781925322699 (Australian edition)
9781947534735 (US edition)
9781925693232 (e-book)

A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.

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CONTENTS

Speed

Gills (19611972)

Times (the 1972 Olympics)

Warm-down (looking back)

The successful coach places his finest china in a sturdy bag which he then slams repeatedly into a brick wall. If he finds a piece intact, thats his swimmer.

OLD COACHING PROVERB

SPEED

The 20th Olympic Games,
Munich, West Germany, September 1972

Obviously you cant accept the gold under those circumstances, insists the Sydney Sun s Ernie Christensen from the edge of my dorm bed; Im still off balance from finding his baggy-suited form in my room after dropping by to collect gear for tonights 1500-metre final. Hunched keenly at the foot of my bed with notebook at the ready, his hack reporter cliche lacks only a fedora with a press pass in the band. The gold is the medal which might soon replace my day-old silver for the 400-metre freestyle, on reports that its first owner returned a doping positive.

My first news of Rick DeMonts pending disqualification had come an hour ago at the briefest of briefings with our team sub-manager, Stuart Alldritt. Keep mum about it or were both in strife, hed winked roguishly, leaving me to suspect it was not yet a done deal. His only attempt at elaboration had been to mutter ephedrine positive. My reaction I was still shell-shocked with a sense of injustice at my 1/100th-second loss had been a messy thrill of shock, elation, and redress. Alldritts news flipped my world from Olympic heartbreak to a farce of firsts: the first electronic timing to make you lose by inhuman margins, the first swim doping disqualification, and then, presto! my first gold. Except that I was suddenly the one getting a fraction ahead of myself: Alldritt had raised only the likelihood of a medal reallocation.

And now the brashness of Christensens twin presumptions that I must reject a gold medal already mine plunges me back into confusion. Cant accept? I silently fret. Obviously? Is this a new sporting etiquette known to all but me? At barely eighteen, after a decade of waterlogged obedience, I need to add silver-tongued QC to my CV to succeed; ditto the still-sixteen DeMont. My old craving to be both glorious and agreeable is suddenly a pathetic conceit. Pressed for the reply, I remind myself that Christensens a tabloid journo fishing for a headline, and the jerk whod just baited me with the line, The poor kid was DQd for taking his asthma medicine.

Of course I wont, I scoff, until I get the full story, relieved to have defused his dodgy ploy for now. After he springs for the door with a parting tap on my shoulder, I stay on the bedside chair to let the interview sink in; his neat impressions still on the bedclothes, but Im left in turmoil. Why couldnt I have tartly answered, I dont make the rules, I just swim under them. Id been interviewed by scores of journalists in the past and had never felt steamrolled like this; even when the odd paraphrasing appeared in the stories, I hadnt minded, because I knew it simplified longwinded answers.

I dig for other slights too. Had he chosen his time knowing teammates and officials had already left for the finals? How had he known Id be dropping in? Whod given him permission to wait alone here, and pointed out my bed? And what was that about an asthma medication?

Soon Im trying to forget him as I hurry off with my gear to the warm-up for my 1500-metre final, thankful only that I never use its full time allocation. And I neednt concern myself about a frosty reception from my coach, Don Talbot. Weve been on near-mute terms for weeks anyway, from the day I impulsively jerked my arm free of his trademark custodial wrist clasp in a poolside pep talk. (Im not sure who got the bigger shock, but he was spectacularly speechless for ten seconds.) Im also over the novelty of his chest-poking rebukes. Its strongly rumoured hell be based in Canada after the Games, so those presumptuous handcuffs and savage pokes will soon be out of my life forever.

Yet Christensen isnt entirely to blame for my lateness. He kept a promise that hed only be five minutes, but earlier in the Olympic Village Id been unable to resist a chance introduction to Betty Cuthbert. I was immediately shocked and saddened to find runnings former Golden Girl in a wheelchair with MS, though her own impish charm and easy banter showed not a trace of self-pity. Because just one Olympics separated the end of her career from mine, Id anticipated the same vital figure of legendary press photos lunging at tapes with neck thrust, mouth ecstatically open, short curls flying. Soon finding her as inspiring in adversity as in health, and relaxing in her humbling aura, I chatted longer than Id allowed for. Leaving her for the dorm, I soon recalled that people of my fathers generation called MS the athletes disease, and wondered if a similar spectre stalked swimmers futures. (Id long been primed for such torments by an old schoolmates serial ribbing that all repetitive exercise fried motor neurons, but had never thought this more than a geeky taunt until now.) Was it possible that humans, with our highly symbolic drive for identity, could push our bodies harder than nature intended?

But Im jerked back to a more immediate concern as I follow the colour-coded overhead guide rails to the pool: the 1500-metre final itself. In a couple of hours, Ill dive in with the worlds best time after DeMonts, yet with my fitness suddenly in doubt after experiencing an all-too-familiar breathing tightness in the heats. Im hoping there wont be a repeat of the respiratory arrhythmia that left me clinging breathlessly to lane ropes in Januarys NSW 1500-metre championship.

But even before its underway, my 1500-metre final seems caught up in a new Olympic controversy. Theres a ruckus while were still in the call-up room: DeMont wont be swimming! Cursing and gesturing in disbelief, the world record holder and pre-race favourite looks set to defy a flustered steward ushering him away, while two security guards approach as a precaution. Watching in near disbelief, Im struck how little DeMonts hooded eyes have altered in expression, their usual whimsical detachment leaving his mouth to etch the limits of exasperation on his ashen face; how far he seems at this moment from any cliche of youthful athleticism.

Trying to get to grips with an odd sense of a kidnapping having taken place, I can only wonder if his removal is a late upshot from the 400-metre doping positive, the newly vacant seat beside me no help. A minute later, whatever remains of my full attention is glued to an in-house monitor screen showing my teammate Gail Nealls 400-metre medley final. Theres no vision of the race itself, just columns where swimmers lap times flash up when they touch for each 100-metre turn. But its easy to see those column divisions as lane ropes, and when Gails numbers take the opening butterfly leg, I suspect the excitement has gotten to her: some rate her lucky to be in the final. But when her times keep turning first through the backstroke then breaststroke legs, with only freestyle left, a thrill of anticipation gooses through me: a former Carlile swimmer, Gails trained all this season in the toughest distance freestyle lanes in the world under Talbot, so her freestyle has to be bombproof. In the still-confused pall of the call-up room, my involuntary half-leap from my chair when Gails time touches first could pass for rowdiness: its one of the most exhilarating sporting triumphs Ive seen. Not seen. Id once winced to hear a commentator describe a calm Elizabethan adroitness in Gails appearance, but in that five minutes or so she reigned with a mastery of race and career timing.