Open water swimmer Chelsea Gubecka first named in squad

Open water swimmer Chelsea Gubecka has become the first athlete named in Australia’s Paris 2024 Olympic Squad.

Transcript

00:00 Well, I'm here in Brisbane with a special member, the first member of the Australian

00:06 Olympic team for Paris, Chelsea Goebeke.

00:09 How does that feel to have the very ticket that will take you over to the Olympic Games

00:15 next year?

00:16 It's absolutely surreal.

00:17 It's definitely been months awaiting and we certainly knew that we were nominated for

00:22 the position back in July.

00:24 So, you know, it's a testament to the last 12 months of work that my team and I have

00:28 put together and I'm really looking forward to the next nine months now leading into those

00:32 Games.

00:33 A marathon swimmer.

00:34 Tell us what marathon swimming is and what event that is that you'll be competing in

00:38 next year.

00:39 Yeah, so 10 kilometers, two hours, so quite a long way.

00:43 We're swimming 1.66 loops, so six laps of a course on the Seine River.

00:49 And yeah, really excited, looking forward to it.

00:51 It's going to be quite tight, really tough, fast competitors, fast racing.

00:56 Looking forward to honing in on some skills and getting myself ready.

01:00 You've just come off a silver medal at the World Championships.

01:02 How much is that driving you to go one better next year in Paris?

01:05 Yeah, I certainly want to try and get one better, but I think just being on the Olympic

01:08 team alone is something really special.

01:10 We're definitely cherishing today and what it's all about.

01:13 And I'm really looking forward to putting in the work over the next nine months to potentially

01:17 produce a special result.

01:19 Congratulations Chelsea.

01:20 And I'm sure the next nine months, as you mentioned, is going to be very special.

01:24 We're going to find out over these next nine months about 460 teammates of yours that you

01:29 will have joining you over there in Paris.

01:32 Yeah, no, super exciting.

01:34 It's great for sport, of course, in Olympic years, just super, super exciting for everyone.

01:39 So really looking forward to seeing who's making this team over the next few months

01:43 and looking forward to getting to Paris and making Australia proud.

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