Coming up for air

Two swimming greats open up on life out of the pool

Despite both hanging up the goggles years ago, a strange symmetry continues to shape the lives of Kieren Perkins and Grant Hackett.

The pair stand as giants in Australia's swimming folklore, and their rivalry remains one of the nation's great sports stories.

They were part of a golden era in Australian swimming, a far cry from the scandal and disappointment that has dogged the sport of late.

And while Perkins has managed a smoother transition from swimming than Hackett, both men have revealed the struggles that come after a life spent chasing the black line in pursuit of Olympic gold.

A golden era

The monotony of it and the repetition of it is really tough. Just to be able to do that takes an enormous amount of mental strength, and there's no doubt that he had that in abundance. Daniel Kowalski

'King Kieren' reignited Australia's love for the 1,500m event, building on the legacy of former swimming greats like Murray Rose and Andrew 'Boy' Charlton.

The endurance race of thirty 50-metre laps is not for the faint-hearted or the emotionally fragile and that's why, according to rival and former Olympic medallist Daniel Kowalski, the swimmer stood out from the pack.

"The monotony of it and the repetition of it is really tough. Just to be able to do that takes an enormous amount of mental strength, and there's no doubt that he had that in abundance," says Kowalski.

Hackett says his idol and rival's strategy was go early and go hard.

"Kieren's race strategy was very, very clear. It was to go out hard and try and break these guys early on and make them feel like they were racing for a silver medal and that is exactly what happened," he said.

"Kieren just had to put the accelerator down to the floor at the start, go 'This is going to hurt like hell'."

Perkins developed this mental strength at an early age under the tutelage of coach John Carew. But it was at the age of 16 that he really burst onto the scene, setting an incredible personal best and achieving something most at that time thought impossible. At the 1990 Commonwealth Games the school student broke the 15-minute time barrier by swimming each 100 metres in less than a minute.

From then on his career skyrocketed.

Just 10 months after finishing school he was off to his first Olympics. He was Australia's favourite in the 1,500m race and took out the gold.

Perkins kept on winning. In the years that followed the swimmer broke numerous world records – sometimes two in one race. It seemed there was nothing that could throw him off his game.

"You're in this environment where the rushing past your ears is creating noise that's sort of drowning out any distinct sounds. When you're in that world and you're in that moment the clarity that it provides mentally is quite extraordinary," he said.

"I think all of life's problems are solved very quickly and simply when you're in that space because you're not being distracted."

The Atlanta 'miracle'

But by the time the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games rolled around things were different. Kieren had discovered more to life than the relentless monotony of training and competition. He'd moved out of the family home to set up house with then-girlfriend Symantha Liu.

"You do have the potential where you just become so closeted in your own environment that there's not much else going on in your world," says Perkins.

"Just being able to have a conversation with somebody that wasn't related to swimming was quite nice."

This whole reality of the pressure just collapsed on me, and if I'm honest, I just panicked. Kieren Perkins

Life by then also involved more travel, more red carpet appearances and more time spruiking products for sponsors. And that time spent away from the pool would come under the scrutiny of both his family and his coach as to why he came close to losing his chance of competing in a second Olympic Games.

Half way through the week of selection trials Perkins was still failing to swim fast enough to qualify for the team and everyone around him wanted to know why.

Ultimately, Perkins says the spotlight fell unfairly on his relationship with Sam.

"I know my parents tried to approach it with Sam and they also came to me, and mum and dad were reminded that I was an adult and needed to get on with my own life and so of course it ended up falling on Mr Carew's shoulders to be that person," says Perkins.

In the end Perkins made the Australian swim team. But he was the last athlete selected. The message was heard loud and clear. In the months between the selection trials and the games, Perkins did nothing but train.

By the time he arrived in Atlanta he told an anxious media he'd never felt more committed. It was something he felt at the time was true. But the day before the 1,500m final it became obvious the 'Super Fish' had lost his super power.

It has taken the 18 years since that infamous sporting moment for Perkins to finally understand and articulate what went wrong.

"This whole reality of the pressure just collapsed on me and if I'm honest I just panicked. It's something that I can only articulate now. The reality was in the middle of the heat, at that heat, I panicked in Atlanta," he says.

Australian fans watching the race on their televisions back home saw the result. King Kieren almost failed to make the final and was the last qualifier across the line.

Just scraping through, he would have to swim at the edge of the pool in the dreaded lane eight.

Hours out from the big race, Perkins had his ultimate crisis of confidence.

"I actually started to get really nervous, like 10-year-old-freaking-out, I'm-going-to-die, my-life's-over kind of nerves," he says.

"And as this kind of thing progressed, as I got more and more stressed about what was happening and you know I'm sweating and my heart's exploding in my chest and all of this stuff's going on, I actually hit this moment where I got angry with myself because of the physical state that I was in, completely ignorant that the emotional triggers were the problem.

So I kind of gave myself a bit of a mental slap and started to think about what I used to do as an athlete and how I used to cope with these moments as a kid."

For Perkins, any chance of winning gold would come down to the ability to do two things in those final moments: compartmentalise his thoughts to put aside his fears, and trust his body to do what it knew best – swim fast.

"I did really shut everything out. There was just nothing else, there was no noise, there were no other athletes, there was just this 50 metres of water where I had finally the opportunity to see what I had and really test myself and prove it."

That 11th hour comeback where Perkins cleared the field to secure his second Olympic gold is described by many observers as a "miracle" and it still rates as one of Australia's greatest sporting moments.

A challenge for the crown

When the Games rolled around once more, there would be another challenge to Perkins's claim for three gold medals at three successive Olympics. But this challenge would prove to be an unstoppable force, and the one thing he had no control over: competition.

Grant Hackett had risen through the ranks. He was younger, fitter, faster. Perkins was now a father of two and in his late 20s.

Much was made of their rivalry. Each man responded differently.

"The thing that still worked for me was that I wasn't particularly worried about the individual and I know that sounds a bit odd and selfish, but at the end of the day when you're standing on the blocks there's seven other bodies in the water with you, who they are, where they come from, what they like or don't like – who cares? It's irrelevant. They're just seven other bodies that need to be dispatched like anybody else," says Perkins.

Hackett says Perkins dominated the field before he even went in the water.

"For a guy who actually doesn't think he tries to out-psyche his competitors or try and play games or anything like that, he's very good at it. It's constantly like he's playing chess, like he's always looking for the next move.

"Even the way he presents himself in the media towards his competitors and the way he even raced the event, he went out there and he tried to break people, that was his strategy and it worked."

He says that while he was the in-form swimmer coming into the games, Perkins had the rest of Australia on his side.

"I hadn't been defeated in four years in the 1,500m freestyle so there was this expectation that I was going to win. Yet in terms of 23 million Australians wanting to see a third Olympic gold medal in a row after '92 and '96 with Kieren in that race, he was certainly the home town favourite, so it was hard," says Hackett.

"I was going up against the guy who was my hero or my idol, up against as my main rival. I was at an Olympics in my home country yet probably didn't have anywhere near the support of my fellow countrymen.

"I remember one journalist saying I might as well be American, and that broke my heart."

For Perkins, Sydney was a chance to enjoy the fruits of a lifetime of hard work.

"You could probably argue that maybe that impacted my ability to really focus and get the job done because in Sydney for the first time in my career when I walked out behind the blocks I actually looked at the crowd. I stopped and listened to the noise. I saw the officials behind the blocks and I kind of soaked in, even momentarily, it wasn't you know a lackadaisical walk out, it was just this moment of 'Wow, I'm here and this is the Sydney Games," says Perkins.

Grant Hackett and Kieren Perkins claimed two medals for Australia in that race, gold and silver respectively, cementing Hackett's place among the swimming greats, and depriving Perkins of the fairytale end to his career.

Hackett calls the moment after his victory, when Perkins leant over to congratulate him, magic.

"There we are first and second and his words were so kind. He said to me 'You deserve this', and I've never forgotten that," says Hackett.

"Did I feel like I dethroned someone that the whole country wanted to win and was I the person who shot Bambi? Did that ever worry me for a second? Not at all, not for a nanosecond.

Did I feel like I dethroned someone that the whole country wanted to win, and was I the person who shot Bambi? Did that ever worry me for a second? Not at all, not for a nanosecond. Grant Hackett

"I was so happy to be that person to do that because I'd worked every bit as hard to get myself to that level and, to execute that race, that one opportunity every four years."

Perkins says despite coming second he felt nothing but pride and relief.

"What I really remember is touching the wall and looking over at Grant and seeing him there and hugging him and congratulating him and I, you know I told him he deserved it [and] 'Congratulations you've done a great job'.

"You know I can honestly say that when I got out of the pool in Sydney the sense of I gave it a red hot go, I've got nothing left to prove and I'm done, was just this, this really beautifully relaxing feeling that washed over me."

Leaving the pool behind

Perkins had long planned to retire from swimming after competing at three Olympics. And just like he dealt with tasks in his first career, transitioning to "life after sport" was something he set his mind to.

He got busy drumming up work and trying to find a purpose after leaving the pool.

"When I went from being an athlete to being someone that's trying to build a business and get involved in that, all of a sudden your focus is on that and it's very easy to fall back into that selfish athletic mindset," says Perkins.

"I've got no doubt that when I retired, Sam and the kids probably expected that all of a sudden I'd be more present and I wouldn't travel so much and I wouldn't be running around completely ignorant to everything else that was going on. But I don't think that stopped. Not sure it has to this point either, to be honest."

It would take him 10 years to settle on a new career, and to come to terms with the shift from swimming.

"That creates stress. It creates tension. It creates lack of confidence. There's no doubt there were periods of time where I struggled very much and was certainly depressed, but never in that clinical sense that required any great intervention ... I just got a bit irritable and difficult to deal with," says Perkins.

"I reacted poorly to things, where the kids would do something and instead of it just being something to rouse on them for and move on, I'd blow up and carry on about it for days when that's not who I am."

Hackett would contest another two Olympics, equalling King Kieren's record by taking gold in Athens and silver in Beijing. And despite never being close personally, eventually both former athletes wound up working in the banking industry.

You've got to find that sense of purpose, that sense of direction, what you're passionate about and start to pursue that - and then recognise you're not going to be world champion at day one on that. Grant Hackett

"It's quite funny, when I actually heard he was going into banking, then he was working for NAB and I work for Westpac, I thought to myself 'We're just destined to be rivals'," says Hackett.

Hackett says he also felt the same struggle to adjust to life after swimming.

"You come to all these realisations in that first six months [after you retire] and it is a really difficult thing to all of a sudden realise you’re never going to actually have that sort of feeling again," he says.

Hackett says shifting away from the structured world of competitive sport to a regular life is a challenge.

"There is such a high level of purpose when you're an athlete and such clarity over your goals, such clarity over success and failure and then all of a sudden you're going into something else that could be a little bit more grey," he says.

Following the black line

John Birmingham John Birmingham writes on the sense of rootlessness that beckons when the monotony of training and the glory of swimming gold are gone.

"Like any sort of loss, you go through a grieving period and everybody goes through that in different stages or different periods, so some people could feel that for six months, some people could feel that for six years.

"You've got to find that sense of purpose, that sense of direction, what you're passionate about and start to pursue that - and then recognise you're not going to be world champion at day one on that.

"You're not going to be at the top of your game like you were for the past decade or more.

"So you've got to eat a bit of humble pie, and that humility is really, really important and as soon as you can bring yourself back to that and then get onto the pursuit of, of something else that you've got purpose and direction and good support around, the better off you’re going to be, but it's a challenging period."

The price of fame

At the age of 40, Perkins has now been out of the pool as long as he spent in it. He has spent more than a decade living a "normal" life and yet he says it is still a difficult place to be at times.

In 2012 he announced his split from Symantha Liu, just three weeks after Grant Hackett's marriage also came to an end, with both divorces playing out across the front pages.

This year Kieren will marry the new woman in his life. Karen Davis is a banking executive with whom Perkins works at NAB. He says what attracted him to her was that his fiancé did not view him as a swimmer.

For Hackett the demise of his relationship with Candice Alley has been bitter and very public, with the former Olympic medallist recently seeking treatment for dependency on the sleep medication Stilnox.

"There were some days that I went through where it was just difficult to keep on pushing through and you want to give up, and feel like you don't have the answers," he said.

"I probably go to extremes to try and absorb more rather than actually going 'Hey, have a bit of self-awareness here'. When you're sitting in the pressure cooker for so long with the lid on and someone keeps turning up the temperature you're always looking at ways to be able to manage yourself more effectively, and for me I did use the sleeping tablets," says Hackett.

"That can break anyone after time and it can lead anybody to exhaustion and you’re only a human being and you're certainly not perfect… you’ve got to take some time out for yourself.

"I just wasn’t very good at that because I was always trying to overcome things. That's what you do as an athlete: you have adversity, you overcome it and unfortunately you can take that into every other part of your life but it's not necessarily the best solution or best strategy."

Perkins says it has been hard watching his former rival struggle in the public spotlight.

When you see your personal life cast across the newspapers, when you see reports that are so far from accurate it's not funny, it is very, very difficult to digest. It is very difficult to take, but unfortunately it comes with the territory. Grant Hackett

"When you see somebody like Grant fall and have the troubles that he's having it's impactful because you see another athlete, another swimmer, another part of the fraternity that's not coping, behaving, doing the things that you expect others to do because they are also custodians of this thing that you hold to high esteem and value," he says.

"But you've got to also then step back and say 'Well, they're a human being. What's going on in his life that allows this to escalate to a point that that occurs?'

"We all know that there's not a lot of support to help people transition to life after sport. Most of us do it on our own and sometimes it goes wrong."

Hackett feels the media's impact on athletes has changed throughout his career, and he has struggled with that scrutiny far more in retirement than when he was competing.

"Everyone's a reporter, everyone's a journalist, every single comment out there is put up or sensationalised. I think there's a lot more data that can be misconstrued or misinterpreted these days or sensationalised, and athletes competing in this day and age have new challenges that I really didn't have through the peak of my career," he says.

"When you see your personal life cast across the newspapers, when you see reports that are so far from accurate it's not funny, it is very, very difficult to digest. It is very difficult to take, but unfortunately it comes with the territory.

"When I was 13 and I said I wanted to win an Olympic gold medal did I picture my life like this? Not in the slightest. Did I expect to have any sort of celebrity because I swam fast? Not in the slightest.

"Do I like it? No I don't. I've always said I would have enjoyed being really, really successful without anyone knowing about it, but that's not the case."

But he says he feels that this ordeal has in some ways strengthened him as a person.

"Life's not always about how hard you can punch, it's almost just how hard someone can punch you and you can keep on going, and keep on trying to achieve your objectives or your outcome," says Hackett.

"And at the end of the day it's just being a good person, and if you can be that and tick that box, then you've done OK."

Credits

For more on this story, watch ABC1's Australian Story tonight (May 26 2014) at 8pm.