Original subtitles

[man] Take your mark.

[horn blows]

[Bronte] I've always loved the feeling of being in water.

Everything shuts down, and just goes really, really still.

[Thorpe] Every stroke you take,

it feels like you're actually skimming across the water.

It's a very addictive feeling.

[Cody] I just grew up around swimming.

And it's the first thing I ever knew.

[Kyle] I think I'm addicted to pain.

I love pushing myself to the absolute limit.

[Brett] Push!

[Hanson] As an Olympic swimmer,

there's four main phases you've got to go through.

[Cody] I had no delusions about how difficult it was going to be.

[Hanson] First phase is making the team.

Not unless you've been through that

that you realize just how hard it can be.

[Cody] I don't want to croak when it's important.

-[Simon] How you gonna do it? -Be fucking fast.

[Hanson] The second phase, you've been there, done that.

The toughest thing is climbing that mountain again.

[Kyle] You work so hard, day in, day out, for years and years,

and you get 47.5 seconds in the limelight.

[commentator] And he's the Olympic champion!

[Hanson] In phase three, athletes, coming towards the end of their career,

trying to hang on, they want to be able to finish on a high.

[Bronte] No one wins all the time.

You'll win. They'll win. Nobody wins forever.

[Hanson] Phase four, and an athlete's got to make a big decision on retirement.

It's not an easy transition for Olympic athletes.

[Brett] All I care about is what's coming for you.

[Cody] We do too.

[Brett] Then fucking do something about it!

[man] All right, boys! Come on!

It's time to go!

[Peter] They make you look silly.

[Kyle] Trials is more stressful.

There's tears, there's happiness.

There's emotions all over the joint.

[Thorpe] You have something that is so consuming

of all of your life,

and then, all of a sudden, it isn't there.

[man] Take your mark.

[Heston] G'day. Welcome back to the Voice of a Veteran podcast.

Today is an epic episode. I have the man himself, the Thorpedo,

Mr. Ian Thorpe, Australia's most successful Olympian.

One of the most celebrated and world-renowned sporting stars.

Ian, it's a pleasure to have you here on the show today.

-[mumbles] Thank you. -Ian, how do you like to be known?

How do you like people to reference to you?

Firstly, I prefer not being called Ian.

-I prefer Thorpie. -Thorpie? Done.

Which is what people go with.

[Hanson] If you get a chance to watch Ian Thorpe swimming up and down,

it's just like poetry in motion.

He had the body to be able to produce the perfect stroke.

And that perfect stroke combined in the package he had,

made Ian Thorpe the greatest swimmer we've ever seen.

[crowd cheering]

[Hanson] The boy was born to swim.

And I remember seeing him swim as a 13-year-old

at the National Age Championships.

He won 10 gold medals.

Um, I got first in 50 meters breaststroke,

first in the 50 meters freestyle,

first in the 50 meters backstroke,

first in the 100 meters freestyle,

and first in the 200 meters IM.

[reporter] Did you expect to win those events?

-Some of them. -[reporter] Do you train very hard?

-[Thorpe] Yeah. -[reporter] Do you love swimming?

-Yeah. -[reporter] Is it your favorite sport?

Yeah.

[Heston] The Voice of a Veteran podcast is all about talking to those

who might be struggling in their own transitions.

Transitioning from high performance back to everyday life.

And you have been at the very highest levels of performance

in a very public way

and have achieved amazing things from a very early age.

You're still at a very young age yourself at the moment

and experienced so much more than many others,

um, could dream for their life.

[crowd applauding]

[man] Gold in the 200-meter freestyle, gold in the 400-meter freestyle,

silver in the 4x200 freestyle relay, bronze in the 100-meter freestyle.

You know who I'm talking about? I'm talking about Ian Thorpe.

[crowd cheering]

[Thorpe] After the 2004 Olympics, I had a long break.

I was thinking, "I'm not doing another one of these,"

because of how much pressure I was under.

And I didn't like that.

I achieved what I wanted to achieve when I went in the race,

and, um, I was happy with the time.

It was weird. No one had prepared me for this.

Uh, no one had trained me.

I don't think anyone else could appreciate the pressure that he must be under.

[Thorpe] Swimming was not about training and performing anymore.

It was doing press conferences and sponsorships

and dealing with a public image.

Respect... [stutters]

-That's one. [chuckles] -[man] All right.

Even though I could have continued for a number of more years,

possibly for two more Olympics,

in 2006, I decided that I was going to move on with my life.

I was a young man,

I've achieved my lifetime dream.

Um, and I thought, "Is there more here?"

For athletes, that transition away from the sport can be difficult.

You had something that is so consuming of all of your life,

and then, all of a sudden, it isn't there.

And you received adulation from it.

Um, you have success,

so the endorphins that come with it,

um, and those from training as well.

Being part of a group, a squad, um, that's familiar,

that's there for you as well.

That kind of disappears over a period of time.

Um, and then adjusting to a new life.

Um, that's difficult for anyone to go through that.

The people who struggle are those that don't understand

that this major part of their lives does not exist anymore.

-[Heston] Yeah. -They're trying to adjust

to what they think they should be moving into.

[waves crashing]

I told a lie once and said to the crowd

that I really liked hearing them cheer for me in the last 15 meters.

You can't hear shit. You can't hear anything under water.

I can't hear a crowd underwater, only when you walk out.

-[announcer 1] Bronte Campbell! -[crowd cheering]

[announcer 2] It's the young Bronte, the silver medalist from Glasgow.

It's just this wall of sound and light, and it's loud. Noisy for ages.

[crowd cheering]

[Bronte] And then as they blow the whistle,

and everyone goes completely quiet.

-[whistle blows] -[cheering stops]

[Bronte] No one's moving,

and it feels like everyone's holding their breath.

You all get on the blocks.

The guy goes, "Take your marks."

It's always a guy.

[man] Take your marks.

[horn blows]

[Bronte] Then it's just straight into that underwater world

of everything goes completely muted.

There's not a lot going on.

The noise the water makes when it moves past you is great.

I love that noise.

But it's almost like

only once I've seen my result did someone turn the sound back on.

Everyone's just going nuts. It's a circus again.

[announcer 1] Gains record time there for Bronte, and she can't believe it.

[announcer 2] You would not have written this as a Hollywood script.

Oh, my goodness.

[crowd cheering]

I love racing. I'm really good at it. [laughs]

I'm way better at racing than I am at training.

[crowd cheering]

[announcer speaking indistinctly]

[Bronte] Every four years, you get a shot at something great,

and you've got 30 seconds to make that happen.

Learning from that, for me, has always then been about

trying to fall in love with the process of what I'm doing,

and not make it about the gold medal.

My actual goal for the Olympics

is to swim my fastest-ever time in an Olympic final.

If I could swim a PB in an Olympic final,

I'd be amongst very few that can do that.

I'm thinking of this as my last Olympics.

But I also don't want to cut off the possibility of ever coming back.

The pull of the outside world is pretty strong for me at the moment.

But when I get there, I might not like it more than swimming.

And so I might wanna come back.

[upbeat music playing]

[Kyle] The men's 100 freestyle is that real alpha-type group.

These big alpha males in there, these big sprint boys...

It's this big pissing contest.

And you want to stand out as well. [chuckles]

When I stand behind those blocks

I like to think that it's my race.

If I'm standing behind the blocks, I believe I can win.

[Peter] What are you trying to do?

Just be fucking fast.

[Peter and Kyle laugh]

[Peter] Two, one, go.

Forty-seven less!

I love training. I love pushing myself to the absolute limit.

I love pain.

I think I'm addicted to pain.

When you've got so much lap pain, you feel like you're gonna spew,

I love pushing through that.

It's just so satisfying.

You work so hard, day in, day out, for years and years,

and then you get 47.5 seconds in the limelight.

[announcer] Eighteen years of age and he's the Olympic champion.

Describe what it's like when your name's on the top of that list?

It's unbelievable. I'm only 18.

[announcer] Kyle Chalmers.

[crowd cheering]

[Kyle] Winning the gold medal in Rio

was the most overwhelming experience of my life.

[announcer] A new star of Australian swimming has emerged before our eyes.

I've got goosebumps thinking about it.

Look, I went away again, just turned 18,

no one really knew who I was.

I knew I could do well,

but I didn't expect to win and become this national hero.

[reporter] A royal reception for King Kyle.

[all cheering]

[Kyle] Day-to-day life just changed so much for me.

Everywhere I went, I was getting stopped.

I would have signed thousands of photos and signatures.

I'm happy that I've been able to achieve some great things

that lots of people never have,

but I'm not satisfied.

[instrumental music playing]

[Cody] I grew up on the Gold Coast in Australia.

The joke was that I was swimming before I could walk,

and it's relatively true.

I remember falling in love with it

from the very first time I raced.

I won my first little race and got such a kick out of that feeling

that I said, "This is actually something I could be good at."

I remember making it through to my first Australian school nationals

when I was 10 years old.

And I remember winning eight gold medals at that nationals.

I was then put on the radar

to all the coaches in the country,

and everyone started to look at me as like, "Okay,

"if this guy continues on this path,

"by the time he's 16 or 18, he'll be really good."

I thought swimming would be the thing.

[guitar music playing]

[Cody] But right around, uh, 12, 13,

I was writing these songs, and Myspace had become a huge thing.

And so I put songs that I wrote on guitar, on Myspace,

and started to put videos of me playing on YouTube.

Just covers of songs that I liked and things like that.

One of the videos hit a million views,

kind of out of nowhere.

It wasn't long after that that I was receiving interest

from producers and record labels and stuff in the States

because I was just somehow racking up these listens and views on Myspace.

[singing upbeat song]

Then we got a call, like,

"We're offering you this deal.

"You'll have to move to the States if you want to take this seriously."

I said, "When else would this happen?

"Like, I can't say no."

So I had to do it. I took it.

My family was supportive enough to come over with me.

I started recording with the label that I had signed with

and they were pretty eager to start releasing things.

It wasn't long before that I was being sent out on tours,

and it was just like my whole life had been turned on its head.

[singing upbeat song]

[crowd cheering]

[Cody] The one thing I haven't really told too many people yet was that

I knew for sure at some point I was going to come back to the sport.

The day I stopped, for the last 10 years,

I don't think there was a week or a day that went by

that I didn't still think about swimming

or try and figure out when I was going to swim again.

But I just knew that I wasn't done with it.

I knew that I had...

You feel like you have unfinished business.

If you feel like you have immense potential in something,

it's like, if you stop short, that fire never goes away.

So that fire never died in me.

So that was really interesting, going about my business,

touring and releasing music and being so wrapped up in this other life

and still being like, "Is there a pool in this city?"

Like, all that stuff.

I would tell anybody I was close with,

"I'm gonna start training for the Olympics in 2020."

They were like, "What? You're going to leave this behind?"

I was like, "Yeah, for four years, I'm going to put everything else aside

"and train for the Olympics."

It's hard to put a gauge on or have an expectation

when something that doesn't have a rulebook or a playbook

and hasn't been done before.

No one's really ever stopped swimming at 13 and come back at 24.

This is absolutely not like a random thing at all.

This is nothing that was brought upon

by COVID or out of boredom whatsoever.

This has been my plan pretty much the whole time.

Definitely my plan the whole time.

Do you know where the tape is?

Yeah. Look at that. What do you know?

What do you know?

Yeah?

Crikey. [laughs]

Yeah, I'm bloody moving.

I don't know if this is sticky enough.

We thought California would be semi back to normal by now. It's not.

Finding places to train and finding pool space

has been a weekly challenge for us for the last six months.

Like training in a country club pool with no blocks,

flags, even often with no lane ropes.

Which is why we're going to Orlando and why we got to get out of LA.

This is my little logo.

On the inside I put the Olympic rings.

And I started logging...

I'm starting to log my, uh...

just thoughts and progress in the pool and stuff.

The mental side of, like,

traveling somewhere for a purpose helps.

We're going to Orlando to train, so that's what we're going to do.

It's much easier to do that and to dive, you know,

as deeply, pardon the pun, into what I'm doing now.

[cell phone ringing]

-Ian. -[Thorpe] Hey, buddy.

[Cody] Growing up a swimmer in Australia,

Ian Thorpe is the GOAT.

He was like the first swimming superstar, you know?

It's really epic to have somebody like him

so interested in my journey.

And willing enough to, uh, actually kind of assist

and mentor me through it.

Where are you at the moment?

In LA. Um...

Just literally packing up my whole house and moving out. [chuckles]

-Oh, wow. -[Cody] Yeah.

We're going to Orlando for a month to train long course.

Obviously, as you know, before that, we were just in

some pretty crappy pools, so...

Seeing what you've actually done,

having a start in your backyard pool,

then trying to find lane space to train in.

-Yeah. -This year is the year

where you have to be able to adapt to all of these moving pieces,

and have to be able... And the people who do that best

will be able to perform the best.

You're not gonna have the perfect day. You don't get to choose it.

-How's training going? -Training is going really good. Um...

Um, we fixed my fly a bit.

Um, I want to show you what the stroke looks like.

-It looks a lot better. -Awesome. Look forward to it.

Awesome. Talk to you soon.

Cool. All right.

Catch you, mate. Cheers.

[Thorpe] Okay. Bye.

[exhales]

[chuckles] Yeah. So cool.

There are going to be people that really do not like Cody

for what he's doing. And most of that comes out of jealousy.

But he'll have media pressure. Like, "Why is he doing this?"

You know, "This is stupid. He wants the attention."

Or "It's for his career in something else."

You can find strength in proving people wrong,

um, if you look at it that way.

Right now...

he wouldn't final at a national championship.

That's the reality.

Um, but the improvement that he's making,

there's this possibility that he may be at a level

where he can actually place,

and I think with someone like that,

that is making these momentous giant steps back,

he shouldn't put restrictions on what he should be able to improve in a year.

[crowd cheering]

[Thorpe] In Australia, swimming is the most high-profile Olympic sport.

That pressure that came from it,

that's difficult for anyone to go through.

Parts of my sport that I enjoyed have been taken away from me.

The parts that I didn't like were the ones that were being emphasized.

When I couldn't train and have the privacy around training that I wanted,

um, that was it for me.

And that's what happens for a lot of swimmers.

[Kyle] It's a very convenient area.

Um, everything's really close to me.

Well, everything I need. I never leave this little bubble.

And it's seven minutes to the pool.

I went from being son of Brett Chalmers, [chuckles]

to he went to father of Kyle Chalmers.

-within 47 seconds, pretty much. -[interviewer chuckles]

Um, because he was that elite athlete.

[announcer] Chalmers will get run down, gets the kick away.

It's a huge kick.

[Kyle] He's a very strict, hard dad.

He's a real typical country, off-the-farm kind of man.

As a kid, I always wanted to please him.

No matter what, whether it was from racing, like competing to footy,

whatever I was doing, it was like, "Look at this, Dad.

"I'm doing it," type thing. [chuckles]

And he was the best. He'd get up in the morning,

drive me to training. And I hated training as a kid.

I would not want to go. [chuckles]

It would be the argument every morning

when he'd come in, turn the lights on

at like 3:30, 4:00 in the morning.

I'd be like, "This sucks. I'm not getting up."

Swimming coaches wanted me to swim before I played footy on a Saturday.

I was like, "This is not possible for me.

"Footy is my main focus." [chuckles]

[man] When did that focus shift for you?

2015.

[announcer 1] Kyle Chalmers!

[announcer 2] He's 16, he's been on the radar for Swimming Australia

for a couple of years now,

[Kyle] In 2015, it was the World Championships trials for Kazan.

I was still focused on footy. I was doing footy pre-season.

[announcer] Here's Chalmers, just 16 years of age, the baby of the competition...

[Kyle] Made it through the semifinals, ranked third going into the finals.

And I remember that 24 hours from the semi to the final,

dreading it, going, "I do not want to make this team."

[announcer] McEvoy's in...

[Kyle] I think that final,

I don't actually think I swam the best I possibly could have swam

because I knew that I didn't want to be on that team.

[announcer] And McEvoy surprises again!

I ended up making the team. [laughs]

Two months out from world champs.

Played a game of footy 'cause my dad was the coach of the school team.

Ended up cracking a bone in my wrist falling down.

So I couldn't swim with the wrist.

I had the head coach of Swimming Australia call me in and go,

"You've got to make this decision right here, right now.

"You playing footy or representing Australia at swimming?"

The only reason I chose swimming

was 'cause I'd signed on and I'd earn money.

That was great.

But for me, that was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made.

[announcer] Second swimmer in for Australia.

The youngster, the teenager, Kyle Chalmers.

It's been a really good swim from him.

[Kyle] World Champs in 2015, I was going to Kazan.

Only South Australian kid going.

Didn't know a single swimmer at all.

I remember crying. [chuckles]

"No, I don't want to go."

Uh, Mum crying, Dad being that, "What the hell are you crying about?

"Get it together," type thing.

[announcer] And it's the baby of the team, Chalmers.

He wasn't even born when teammate Grant Hackett

contested his first World Championships in...

[Kyle] I was 16 at the time,

so I'm the second-youngest male to ever represent Australia,

behind Ian Thorpe, so...

That was a very daunting experience.

[announcer] Well done, young man.

Kyle Chalmers closes it out for Australia.

[Kyle] Australia did extremely well that year.

I remember being so proud of these guys winning gold medals,

and I went, "Swimming's really cool.

"This is something I actually want to do."

After that, I wanted to be an Olympian desperately.

[tattoo machine whirring]

[Kyle] All right, let's do it.

-Ready? -Yeah. Yes, Laz.

Yes, Laz.

[tattoo machine whirring]

[Kyle] Laz is one of my best mates.

We come from two completely different walks of life.

He's a tattoo artist.

[Laz] How does that feel? Pressure's okay?

-Mate, you're killing me. -Really?

-Are we almost done? -No.

[Kyle] We just hit it off really well,

and I never talk to him about tattoos,

and he never talks to me about swimming.

He probably doesn't even know what event I swim.

Back in today, Laz is putting the butterfly-bee on me, so...

Uh, a great Muhammad Ali quote.

"Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee."

-I think it's a... -"Rumble, young man, rumble."

...very cool quote.

For me, I've always wanted to get tattoos.

Um, I think mainly because my mom always said no.

I'm the person that,

if I'm told no, it makes me want to get it even more, so...

-[Laz] Sorry, Jodie. -Sorry, Jodie.

-But we're back. -[Laz] We love you.

I remember when I was maybe 16, when I made my first Australian team,

we get given a number on the swim team.

So I'm number 761.

So that means I'm the 761st person to represent Australia.

That was such a proud moment.

I was like, "I want to get that tattooed."

And from there, the addiction's kicked off.

When I got back from the Olympics is when I got more tattoos.

Then I got the number 31 on my wrist here for the 31st Olympics.

He did that there, which is "Citius Altius Fortius,"

which is the Olympic motto.

After World Championships in 2019,

I came in and got my first side of my sleeve done.

I got a big lion to represent courage.

Uh, I wanted that with a chain going down to my heart.

I've had three heart surgeries.

And the broken chain is like the heart was holding me back.

Now the heart's been fixed,

so the chain's been broken, and I'm the lion.

It's called Supraventricular tachycardia.

I have an extra circuit in my heart.

My heart rate would go 200 plus and stay up there.

I'd feel dizzy and be close to blacking out.

Then it started to happen more frequently, started happening in the pool.

So they decided to burn that extra circuit.

And it grew back.

2015, I had it. 2017, had another surgery. They thought they'd fixed it.

They took the circuit out the last time, no issues since.

But, yeah, it's a lot more common than people think and know.

-[Laz] It's done. -Legend.

That's cool.

Cool, cool, mate. Very cool.

-There you go, mate. -Thank you.

-Well done. -Well done.

[Hanson] Four years after Kyle Chalmers won the Olympic gold medal,

he's ready for phase two.

It's not going to be easy for him to defend.

He's had his hurdles to overcome too.

Um, he's had his heart issues. He's had shoulder surgery.

But if anyone can overcome hurdles, I'm sure Kyle can.

If we look at who has one, two 100 meters freestyles,

the Duke has,

and Johnny Weissmuller also defended and won two in a row,

two iconic swimmers from a completely different era.

When we go to more recent history,

there's Pieter van den Hoogenband, um, and Alex Popov.

They're the two best sprinters that the world's seen.

That list is a significant list.

But Kyle has the chance to join that.

He is under pressure.

Um, but part of that pressure will be what motivates him to train well.

[Bronte] Having gone to two Olympics and four World Championships

[chuckling] and two Commonwealth Games...

I've been doing this for almost 10 years.

I know not to set expectations, especially these games.

Nobody knows what they'll look like, if we're going to have crowds,

who's going to go over there.

We don't know how long we're going to be over there for.

I just focus on doing the next best thing, and the next best thing.

All that swimming is just like...

Just trying to get from one wall to the other faster than someone else.

What that is is breaking down every single moment into

what's coming now and now and now and now,

for every millisecond of 52 seconds,

which is an intense amount of concentration.

Everything in my life's so fast.

My races are decided by one hundredths of a second.

But, um, plants, they force you to slow down a bit.

You've got these things that take a little bit of a slow time.

You look after them, care for them, and very slowly, they reward you.

Like, this guy I've had since he was about half that height.

Went through issues. He's got burned leaves.

You look after him for a few months

and he pops out a new leaf, and you're celebrating that,

and suddenly, that's the highlight of your day.

Doesn't really say "ruthless swimmer," does it?

But I've made it that way on purpose.

It's a bit of a antidote against the outside world,

which is a bit fast and furious.

[reporter] In breaking news,

several states have now declared all of Sydney a hot spot

and will soon slam their borders shut.

Sydneysiders are no longer welcome anywhere beyond New South Wales.

[Bronte] COVID's this thing that keeps popping up.

It's like some weed that goes underground

and just pops up somewhere else.

It's not great when you hear places are going into lockdown.

It's not what I thought would be happening.

Before Christmas, I thought I'd go up to Brisbane, no worries.

I thought I could see my family over Christmas,

but not to be.

[line ringing]

-[Simon] Hello. -Hey, how are you?

-[Simon] Good. Yourself? -Yeah, good.

Do you reckon I could go to Canberra and train there for a bit?

So I could be with Shannon's squad

then go up to Brisbane after that?

[Simon] At this stage, best option would be

quarantine in New South Wales.

Yeah, okay.

We'll stick to Port Macquarie, but it'll just be...

It'll just be me, then, without the other squad.

[Simon] Yeah.

-Okay. -Thanks for that.

-[Simon] See you, Bronts. -See you, Simon.

[Simon] Bye.

It's stressful when you just want to get into it.

I just want train with my squad and coach, and crack into it.

It's 2021, an Olympic year again.

If I have to train by myself for two weeks, that's fine.

I'll just head up to Port Macquarie...

stay up there for two weeks,

and hopefully that'll be the best way to get me into Brisbane.

All I need to do is find a way across the border, basically.

We're just having two friends over from up the road,

we'll cook some food,

and break the news that we're going to have to...

leave, and I'm not gonna be back for a few months.

Do you have a knife?

When you're an elite athlete,

you make the decision that's best for your sport.

And we put in my swimming before pretty much anything else.

Just for this little bit.

Let's have a toast.

Cheers to Bronte.

-We'll miss you. -[Bronte] Cheers.

-[woman] Good luck. -[man] We'll miss you, Bronte.

I'll miss you guys.

[alarm ringing]

[Cody sighs]

[grunts]

What's on the menu today?

[Brett] I'm working on the quote of the day today.

By Nietzsche.

He was one the first to say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

I'm doing something very similar to that.

"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."

-That is the quote today. -Is it?

-[chuckles] Yeah. -Yes!

[Cody laughs]

That is it.

This guy's got some good stuff.

-I love it. -Yeah.

[Cody] When I met my coach, Brett,

we got connected through some mutual friends,

and we started chatting during the lockdown.

And I told him I wanted to start swimming again and training.

I think the first day he got to LA, he gave me this really nasty set.

By the end, I was just completely drained.

I stared at him like, "Why you doing this to me the first day?"

He's like, "You want to be a swimmer?"

I'm like, "Yeah, I do." He said, "That's why."

[Brett] It's all about...

It's all about routine and habits, my friends.

Routines give you confidence.

I am a two-time Olympic athlete for Australia,

and then was coaching at Auburn University from 2006 to 2018.

You don't need to engage your abs to float.

But once you do the hips...

[Brett] Matt is a two-time Olympian as well.

He is an NCAA Champion.

To have someone in your corner as a teammate,

as a friend, as a training partner,

it's been super critical for us, actually.

You're shifting weight from one side to the next.

Here, here, boom, shift.

[Cody] First thing I told my coach, Brett, was,

"I want you to make me great in four years."

But after that first four weeks of training,

he said "I could make you great in 12 months."

I was like, "Okay, I trust you."

You have to trust your coach, right?

Every hundredth counts.

[Cody] He said, "I could have you competing at Olympic trials next year."

I said, "All right, I'm in."

[Brett] Let's get it on.

Time is against us.

Cody's gonna have a lot of eyes on him.

The swimming world will be watching what he's doing.

There's more pressure on him

than any other swimmer I've met, other than Michael Phelps.

He's world-renowned.

So I'm gonna put him in uncomfortable situations physically, mentally.

He's not going to feel like he wants to be in that space,

but I'm gonna force him to keep going back into that space,

so that when we get to the moment of truth,

we're 100% prepared.

I want speed, I want race. As fast as you can now.

Listen for the whistle.

Clear your mind.

[whistle blows]

[Brett] He's getting beat every time.

This is where the competition in practice is so critical.

[whistle blows]

[Brett] Yeah. Yeah. Yes, that's it.

It's gonna get heavy here. You'll feel this one.

[whistle blows]

[Cody] Fuck.

[Brett] Too heavy? Let's get it. Come on, find a way.

Think of staying bigger in that point.

-[whistle blows] -[Brett] Go.

Push! Push! Push! Up!

Yes!

[whistle blows]

[Brett] It's a little faster. That was too comfortable.

30.3. That's a lot closer there.

Only 3/10ths off.

Considering what an Olympian needs to do

in the 12 months leading up to the games...

[Brett] 2.25, man. You got this.

[Thorpe] It means that when you wake up

and you don't know which part of your body isn't sore,

-you keep going to training. -[whistle blows]

[Brett] Come on. Push!

[Cody groans]

When it hurts incredibly,

you find something else to give.

You find more.

[vomits]

[upbeat music playing]