'I'd like to be here': The moment Cameron McEvoy decided to chase gold at Paris 2024 - and upend swimming forever
PARIS: A little over two years ago, Cameron McEvoy stood in front of the Arc de Triomphe.
The sprinter, wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the Olympic rings from his third Games in Tokyo, decided then and there he would be back for Paris 2024.
"We were over here for my girlfriend's sister's wedding," the 30-year-old recalled after a blistering swim to win gold in the 50m freestyle at La Defense Arena on Friday night.
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Cameron McEvoy jumped out of the blocks and held on to win gold. Getty
"It was on that day where the photo was taken where I was like, 'I'd love to be here, love to give it a crack, don't know how it's gonna look.'
"But that was the day where I went all in."
His Instagram post from that day - May 18, 2022 - is captioned: "Reconnaissance."
That day was a step in a journey where McEvoy, ever the student of sport science, and his team threw decades of swimming wisdom out the window.
Why should a sprinter, whose race is over in less than 22 seconds, spend hours pounding out laps?
McEvoy and his team instead trained out of the pool with rock climbing and weights to build his strength - a move vindicated with gold and one that may upend sprint training forever.
"I started off with the perspective that it would give me closure," he told media, including Wide World of Sports, in the bowels of La Defense Arena.
"I always knew there was potentially another way to do things for sprint freestyle.
"If it didn't work, the closure is right there and that's just where I was in my career.
"There's the potential I could live up to and then if it worked, it was like, 'OK, see how far I can get and then I can get closer in terms of that as well.'
"So it was a win-win situation for me."
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Cameron McEvoy with the 50m freestyle gold medal, his first individual OIympic medal. Eddie Jim
McEvoy's fourth Olympic Games was already a first for an Australian male swimmer.
But at 30 - an age when most splash-and-dash athletes are long retired - Brisbane 2032 is surely a bridge too far, right?
Don't count on it.
"The home Games would be absolutely unreal," McEvoy said
"I'll be 38 and there's been older swimmers who've won world championships at that level.
"We'll see what time has for me."
