Aspiring athletes living in country towns say they often must work hard to overcome the tyranny of distance to follow in the footsteps of their Olympic heroes. In the South Australian regional city of Port Lincoln, the success of gold medal Olympic swimmer Kyle Chalmers is inspiring a new generation to aim high.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00This is Port Lincoln's Gold Squad, the same West Coast Sharks team multiple Olympic medalist
00:09Carl Chalmers began his competitive swimming career with.
00:12Pretty cool dude, yeah I've met him once, he was pretty cool, he came and gave us a
00:17big pep talk before my first sapsizer swimming event.
00:21With Brisbane hosting the Olympics in 2032, some of these kids are hoping to be there.
00:27Yeah I'd hope to reach the Olympics one day, it's the dream.
00:32But living in regional South Australia makes it difficult to reach the top.
00:36Travelling to Adelaide for competitions, we're just as far away as Melbourne, it's a seven
00:42hour drive or an expensive flight and so up against the city kids that swim and race our
00:48opportunities are a lot limited.
00:51One of the squad's top performers, Tyrell Nemeth Ford, recently broke four state records.
00:57I broke the 100 IM, so 100 individual medley, 200 individual medley, 200 free and 50 butterfly.
01:06He's moved to Adelaide, like Carl Chalmers did, to give himself the best chance of making
01:12it to elite competition.
01:13We didn't have the facilities and coaches at Port Lincoln that I needed to get to the
01:20next level in sport.
01:22I could only train five times a week in Port Lincoln, now I'm training nine.
01:27And the gold squad has an important message for the Australian team as it prepares to
01:31take on the world's best in Paris.
01:34Go Olympics!
01:35On a good week, I might swim up to 10km, but these kids are clocking up to 20km.
01:44That's the kind of dedication that could see them win a place on the Australian team for
01:48the Brisbane Games in 2032.
01:51Adam Sheldon, ABC News, Port Lincoln.