Aussie swim star says risky gamble will reap rewards
Six months after thinking he'd never race again, Kyle Chalmers is taking the biggest gamble of his fabled swimming career.
And the risk is already being rewarded to the extent Chalmers has put the Brisbane 2032 Olympics on his agenda.
Last December, the champion freestyler was retiring.
"I had my Christmas break and honestly I thought I wouldn't come back after Christmas," Chalmers said on Sunday.
The 26-year-old had just found out his fiancee, Norwegian swimmer Ingeborg Loyning, was pregnant.
"I didn't really know how that was going to go with swimming," he said.
Chalmers and Loyning, based in Adelaide, had created a swim academy serving clients in person and online.
"The only reason I got back in the pool was because we had some Japanese swimmers coming to train with us and also Matt Wilson was coming from NSW to train with me for a few days," he said.
"So I felt I owed it to them to be at training because they had come to train with me.
"And then I came back and just absolutely loved it.
"I'm not associated with ... a high performance program. I'm there with people that are paying to be there, they love swimming."
Chalmers shelved retirement and, with Adelaide-based sports physiologist Jamie Stanley, took a gamble.
They changed the training program that propelled Chalmers to the pinnacle in a career reaping nine Olympic and 12 world championship medals.
Chalmers has halved his training distance in the water in favour of cycling and running.
"It's a bit of a gamble changing what I know works," he said.
"I have done the same thing for the last 13 years so to actually change so much is a bit of a risk.
"It's not about training harder, it's about training smarter ... it's very different to what anyone else is doing because it's based around two other sports that are very different to swimming."
The first test of Chalmers' new regime came in April when he raced in Norway.
The result stunned the man who has won gold, silver and bronze medals in the 100m freestyle at the past three Olympics.
Chalmers clocked 47.27 seconds in his pet event in Norway - his fourth-fastest time ever and quickest outside of major meets.
He followed with a personal best, 21.78, in the 50m freestyle. A week later in Sweden, he set a PB in the 50m butterfly, 22.89.
"It was a massive shock for me," Chalmers said.
"It's nice to be swimming personal best times at almost 27-years-old."
Chalmers, who turns 27 on June 25, will race at Australia's world championship selection trials in Adelaide starting Monday.
He's bidding to make his fifth world championship team for the July 27-August 3 titles in Singapore.
Chalmers also wants to become the first man to win 100m freestyle medals at four consecutive Olympics at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
"LA is a massive target of mine," he said.
"But Brisbane (in 2032) might even be a possibility."
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"James is one of my really great mates so I'm definitely not going to knock him for going across there," Chalmers said on Sunday. "That is something that is hard in our sport, there's not a huge amount of money or prize money on offer and we kind of do it for the love of it. "So I am not going to be a person that slams swimmers for wanting to go across and make some money and give themselves a better opportunity in life or set their families up. "If they want to make that choice, then good on them ... I don't have any negativity towards that and especially towards James." Enhanced Games, founded by Melbourne-born entrepreneur Aron D'Souza, is offering $US1 million in prize money for anyone breaking the 50m freestyle world record and other events. Enhanced Games has already paid that bonus to Greece's four-time Olympian Kristian Gkolomeev for bettering the legal world record of 20.91 seconds set by Brazilian Cesar Cielo in 2009. Gkolomeev, while on performance-enhancing drugs, clocked 20.89 at a trial in the US last February. World Aquatics last week passed a by-law giving the global governing body powers to ban anyone who supports Enhanced Games. But Chalmers hoped Enhanced Games, to also feature athletics and weightlifting when staged in Las Vegas in May, would prompt World Aquatics to increase prize money. "I really, really hope so," Chalmers said. "Swimmers have been underpaid for a very long time at the big competitions. "I have never thought about it a huge amount because you do it for the love of swimming, and I have been well aware my whole career that there's not a lot of money to be made in it. "But when something like that comes in where there's so much money, I think it would be pretty enticing for quite a lot of athletes. "I'm very lucky to have a lot of personal sponsors so I do OK for myself, which is nice. "But I know that there's a lot of swimmers out there that really struggle." Gkolomeev's million-dollar pay-day came after the Greek said he made only $5000 a year during his clean swim career. "To make $1 million in one race is incredible," Chalmers said. "So I really hope that there is a shift, that we are able to get a little bit more prize money for what we do, but I guess we'll see. "I think it's threatening World Aquatics a little bit." World Aquatics has urged national federations, including Swimming Australia (SA), to enact their own bans. "At the moment, Swimming Australia's board is meeting to look at what is the policy that World Aquatics put down, I'll leave that kind of stuff to them," SA's head coach Rohan Taylor said on Sunday. "For me, I'm just focused on this team and working with these guys and providing the right environment for them for safe sport, clean sport - that's what we're about." Kyle Chalmers hopes the drug-friendly Enhanced Games will push World Aquatics to boost prize money for clean swimmers. Chalmers doesn't begrudge athletes, including compatriot James Magnussen, from competing at the multi-sports event with no drug testing. "James is one of my really great mates so I'm definitely not going to knock him for going across there," Chalmers said on Sunday. "That is something that is hard in our sport, there's not a huge amount of money or prize money on offer and we kind of do it for the love of it. "So I am not going to be a person that slams swimmers for wanting to go across and make some money and give themselves a better opportunity in life or set their families up. "If they want to make that choice, then good on them ... I don't have any negativity towards that and especially towards James." Enhanced Games, founded by Melbourne-born entrepreneur Aron D'Souza, is offering $US1 million in prize money for anyone breaking the 50m freestyle world record and other events. Enhanced Games has already paid that bonus to Greece's four-time Olympian Kristian Gkolomeev for bettering the legal world record of 20.91 seconds set by Brazilian Cesar Cielo in 2009. Gkolomeev, while on performance-enhancing drugs, clocked 20.89 at a trial in the US last February. World Aquatics last week passed a by-law giving the global governing body powers to ban anyone who supports Enhanced Games. But Chalmers hoped Enhanced Games, to also feature athletics and weightlifting when staged in Las Vegas in May, would prompt World Aquatics to increase prize money. "I really, really hope so," Chalmers said. "Swimmers have been underpaid for a very long time at the big competitions. "I have never thought about it a huge amount because you do it for the love of swimming, and I have been well aware my whole career that there's not a lot of money to be made in it. "But when something like that comes in where there's so much money, I think it would be pretty enticing for quite a lot of athletes. "I'm very lucky to have a lot of personal sponsors so I do OK for myself, which is nice. "But I know that there's a lot of swimmers out there that really struggle." Gkolomeev's million-dollar pay-day came after the Greek said he made only $5000 a year during his clean swim career. "To make $1 million in one race is incredible," Chalmers said. "So I really hope that there is a shift, that we are able to get a little bit more prize money for what we do, but I guess we'll see. "I think it's threatening World Aquatics a little bit." World Aquatics has urged national federations, including Swimming Australia (SA), to enact their own bans. "At the moment, Swimming Australia's board is meeting to look at what is the policy that World Aquatics put down, I'll leave that kind of stuff to them," SA's head coach Rohan Taylor said on Sunday. "For me, I'm just focused on this team and working with these guys and providing the right environment for them for safe sport, clean sport - that's what we're about."
