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[Music] Lou [ __ ] welcome to my podcast thank you thanks for having me bro I'm so pleased
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we finally made this happen I went back through our DMS we've been going backwards and forwards for a while and
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uh just last week you won the world Champs in Doha and here you are now it's
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not it's not every day you get to have a world champion sitting in your bloody
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spare bedroom can you just turn the fers down a bit you're peeking oh really okay I'll
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keep your headphones on for a little bit just to check the sound one two one2 do you want to check
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yours one two one two how's that Max Jackson okay easy Lou clearit welcome to my podcast
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thank you very much for having me mate it is an honor to have you here in my podcast room just last week you became a
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world champion in Doha yeah it's actually pretty wild to think about that or hear people say that
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to me um I honestly coming into this year or sort of this last campaign I'd never thought that I'd sort of be going
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into Olympics as the world current world champion um but here we are that immediately sounds like a lot
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of pressure to me um and there is that saying that pressure is a privilege but um yeah how
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how do you feel about that like when you think about um the Paris Olympics later
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this year and you having such a big Target on your back does it um excite you do you have moments where you're
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just in a cold sweat thinking about it uh I guess I haven't really thought about at too much yet um going into
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Paris you know we still got six months um I think it's like 121 days until we
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leave for our staging camp in Spain um but I guess if I look back to Tokyo Olympics I definitely did feel a lot of
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pressure even though you know I wasn't as competitive as I am now um but I think this year will be a little bit
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different because you know I've got one under my belt I sort of understand how
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the whole system works and pressure like you said is a privilege and I think I'm
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just ready to just swim fast that's my main priority at the moment and I think
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if I swim fast then you know everything else will come with it yeah there's um so much to talk about
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with you you just mentioned the um Tokyo Olympics then there with the co Olympics
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where you were at and you actually blew up on Tik Tok became a Tik Tok star think there's one Tik Tok of you getting
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a free pair of Asic that's got like 9 million views um so there's that to talk
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about the commonwealth games where you won a couple of gold medals and you've
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got a couple of bronzers this is the drama with you in Wellington which forced your move to Oakland um so much
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to unpack in the Louis Cleber story and yet only how old what are you 24 [ __ ] is
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that is that sort of um in terms of SP career middle age yeah it's I was actually it's interesting you say that I
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was looking at the ages of just the recent World Champs because they usually have your birth date and your entries
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and I was probably like one of the older ones in my event like there's there's one guy
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1995 one guy 1994 and like I'm racing guys 2005 2006 now which is weird and even younger even if well if you look at
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the girls it's even younger than that but yeah we are we're getting middle-aged in the Su Community right
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now yeah so but so but you you've got Paris this year um so the next Olympics
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after that La you'll be like 28 29 I suppose you haven't thought beyond that or have you to be honest my plan
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goes until Paris mhm um obviously I'd love to keep going um all the way through the LA and I mean see how far we
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go um but like there's heaps of heaps of factors that go into you know a whole
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another fouryear campaign and the first one is obviously training environment if
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you're if you can feel like you can sustain a good training environment funding how your performance is going
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and then the main thing is just if you're having a good time I mean I summ in an event where it requires so much
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energy and focus to actually go into making sure you're swimming fast in that
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event um that I have to make sure I've got enough energy to actually you know
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push through yeah and and also the amount of like personal sacrifice that goes into that yeah that cannot be
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underestimated and I'm I'm looking forward to sinking my teeth into that
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exactly what's uh involved in getting to where you are um okay first of all for
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by the way there might be a lot of dumb a dumb questions here from a non-swimmer
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that's right um first of all uh 400 m individual midle uh what is that event
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what does that mean so it's for Olympic distance so we have what we call um a 50
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m pool and a 25m pool and for the Olympics we swim in the 50m pool and then there's a whole bunch of I mean
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actually there's three different lengths of the pool mostly in America you swimm
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in short course yards which is 25 yards um and then we have 25 M which is you sort of do that in winter it's like our
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winter sport so you go from Summer which is obviously the 50 um the 400 m individual medle is two laps of every
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single stroke for the Olympic distance um so you start with butterfly and then you go into backstroke brush stroke and
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then freestyle yeah so bring it home freestyle which is obviously the fastest stroke wow so you have to be good at
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everything well you don't have to be perfect at everything but essentially the guys that are best in the that the
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best in the world don't really have a weakness yeah yeah so so did Michael Phelps used to win this event
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yeah so he was the actually the word record holder up until last year where someone um absolutely thrashed his
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record wow okay so for perspective because I think everyone knows you know Michael Phelps is one of these um Sports
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people that have sort of transcended this Sport and you know how many medals did he how many Olympic medals like 30
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or something something ridiculous I mean he won eight Golds and one Olympics seven so so so what would um what I
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don't know if you know this information off the top of your head but what would
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he do for the 400 meter individual medle and what do you do so he his personal best was a
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43.8 and my personal best is a 408 so I still got 5 Seconds he's still got 5 seconds on me is that a lot that
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doesn't sound like a lot I mean it isn't but it also is like if you look at the
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pool I'd be way out of the frame in the in terms of camera um it's probably
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around maybe just under 10 m yeah a little bit less than that yeah right so you're not
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Eric the Eric the Y not quite quite you're still there or thereabouts can can you can you make up that extra time
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to get to that sort of speed or is that you know you talk about like marginal gains or 1ent or whatever is Is it
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feasible from where you are now to shave like another four or five seconds off that time for sure absolutely yeah I
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mean we look at the race we split it into hundreds so each stroke um there's
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heaps of different factors you know there's your speed on top of the water your speed on under the waterer um so
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you're every after every war you you got to do your underwater work and then your
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turn um and then just putting that all together you get a you know an equation or you put an equation in you get what
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whatever you put out um and so there's ideal splits for every single 100 so if
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I wanted to if I for say wanted to beat that word record I'd be going out 55
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seconds and then i' go 102 110 and then 55 again so that would give me 402 um and then you have loose change
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obviously with the that extra splits um so it is a bit of a science experiment when you're when you're working out
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putting all these different numbers for each stroke together um and then I look at it usually and I'm
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like oh yeah all those splits they're super easy to Hidden training and then
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it's when you put the whole race together yeah so and um okay CU I can understand in training you can have a
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coach there or a teammate you know shouting out the splits to you what happens in competition are you just sort
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of like just going balls out basically as fast as you can trusting the training knowing that you've done it in training
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so you can do it in real time yeah what's different for every every event um like at the World Championships
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recently I did the 200s and I did the 400 um the 200 butterfly right yeah 200 butterfly did the 200 mle and the 400
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mle okay um for the 400 mle it's slightly different um it's no known as like a middle to long distance event so
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for me I can't just go ball the wall straight away like you've got to actually pace yourself quite nicely and
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um like the first sort of 100 Turners for me is just like relaxed easy speed so I'm going as fast as I can but not
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trying to tax my body um so you got something in the tank for the tail end yeah yeah pretty much and like the way
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I've swam over the years has changed a lot like I used to go out so fast in the
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butterfly um and at the recent worlds I went out 2 seconds slower in the first hundreds so like I've there's always
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like you're always changing and and I mean on the day it's different as well
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like there's so much I guess pressure on that one that one race that like it is
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it is scary going in I can't imagine like I'm um I I love my running and um but I've never been
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competitive I've never been fast I've never been good I'm only ever competing
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against myself but the the news that I get like pre and like you know I did this thing called the coastal Challenge
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on the weekend just a 22k run from long B div Port I get pre-race nerves for that so I can't imagine like what it's
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like you know I know I said pressure a privilege but [ __ ] it's a lot it's a lot
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eh yeah yeah I mean you'd understand right like you spend 99% of your time training and then you do that one run I
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don't know it might be every couple months or whatever we have maybe one or two major competitions a year where we
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have to be in the best shape of our life we can't be sick we can't have anything
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wrong with us like we're essentially like you talk about a Formula 1 car like we're a Formula 1 car
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we can't have anything wrong with us going into um these major competitions because it's like there's so much on the
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line right like it's pretty much like that's our funding for the year if we
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don't swim fast then see you later you know you're not getting paid this year
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yeah it's brutal isn't it yeah it's brutal so yeah obviously in Doha um this
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is the event where you became the world champion everything went right but you looking the lead up to it there's the
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Wellington stuff which we'll get into which um was less than ideal um and then
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didn't you um didn't you lose your gear bag on the on the day of the event
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didn't you lose your togs and stuff yeah so the everyone lives in this like one
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apartment or like this one hotel and every day R would come along and we'd go
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into the food Hall and we'd all just put our bags on the outside like outside of
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the food Hall cuz it's pretty like dis respectful if you bring your bags in or
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whatever so we would leave our bags out so like a games Village yeah pretty much
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but swiming it's not as olypic vill um and yeah I walk out of lunch and I'm
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like looking around and my bag isn't where it is meant to be um and I asked the whoever the um the manager is and it
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took like an hour and a half to get it back but it was it's like an interesting moment
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where you're like well I don't have any goggles I've got no racing togs I had
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one spear racing tog like one spear set that was like just like my training set um no accreditation so it is a bit of
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like a was a bit of a shock and like just unet like yeah it is unsettling but I mean I I trusted that like I was in a
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pretty safe place um like there are security cameras everywhere in that place so I knew that they were just
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going to check the cameras and it was all going to be good but yeah it's like
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a little bit of an on edge moment yeah so so the race itself um how how do you know how do you know
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how well you're going during the race or don't you don't you have any idea I
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suppose if the if the if the top seeds in the lane next to you I suppose you can have them in your peripheral vision
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yeah we we have goggles that like they're pretty wide angle so like you can get a pretty good angle um but I
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mean butterfly you breathe forward backstroke you breathe up and then breast stroke you also breathe forward
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so we I only really see the guy next to me a lot of the time um until I get to the free cell and then I can sort of
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look across the pool um there's a huge thing on which side do you breathe for
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freestyle so a lot of people will only breathe one side not not two um I can breathe both ways so I usually would
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look across the pool one way and then look the same way the next lap so I can got that flexibility um but yeah I I
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assumed going into the into the race that I was going to be quite behind um at the end because there was one guy
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that he's sort of like the silver medalist like got second at the last World Championships by the behind um a
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guy that got the world record and I assume that head' be wayhe head um the guy next to me he was the Bronze
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medalist and I was in front of him so I knew I was in a pretty good pretty good position um but yeah I pretty much
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didn't know until the last 100 yeah man and then um your celebration at the end
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um you what's it called is it a pukana yeah pukana yeah yeah yeah yeah was was
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that sort of um spontaneous or was it sort of pre-planned were you like if I win I'm going to do this it was
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reasonably pre-planned um we I sort of talked about it with my coach and some of the like the the guys
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on the team um cuz I'd done it it was my um like my walkout move so everyone has
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to do like a video for the um the TV production team so when you walk out it plays on the screens around the pool and
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so that was the move that I did um walking out and I sort of just thought it' be pretty cool if I could replicate
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that um if I'd won so most people get up on the l r once if they win the race and
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I did that but I honestly didn't think it would be that big but I guess because
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of the All Blacks and the New Zealand culture like people love it like we would walk around the pool and be like
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when you got people would be asking us when are you guys going to do the haaka um and so I think the world just loved
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seeing the the New Zealand multic culture on the world stage especially for for a country that you know we
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usually don't perform that well um in swimming yeah yeah it's been been turned
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into a cartoon and it's on a t-shirt now it looks bloody epic yeah it's really
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cool yeah you you seem like um I don't know prankster is the word but like just
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really light-hearted like you um yeah at the Paris Olympics um no sorry at the um
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Tokyo Olympics um yeah you did a mano into the pool um and then there's the Tik Tok stuff you can trouble for any of
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that or as long as you're swimming well everyone just leave you the hell alone
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um definitely mixed mixed reviews um I am like you said I like to be like lighthearted people see me as like this
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real serious guy and my humor is actually quite serious but I'm you know not as serious as people think um it
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does get me in trouble for sure yeah because I feel like um like the the the Tik Tok stuff which was I think it was I
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think it was Bloody great like it's just gives every yeah we'll get to that in
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more detail later but it just give gave everyone sort of an insight into you know a side of the Olympics that I guess
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we never see but um I know was that Comm games it was Olympics Olympics yeah yeah
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um and the comth games where you won like two gold medals as long as you're getting the results and everything's
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going well I suppose everyone's going to sort of give you a wide birth but as
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soon as you're doing that stuff and not getting the results that's when people
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will blame the non results on the other stuff potentially yeah which is unfair but yeah yeah I mean like if you're
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compe like you said if you're racing well like everything's good what yeah
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yeah um I mean it was a little bit different in Wellington like we I did have a lot of restrictions around like
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what I could do with filming and stuff like that and it pretty much like whatever the restrictions they had was
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just like it meant that I couldn't do anything so I just gave up on it but um
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it was it was really fun like I I had such a good time doing all that sort of stuff and I
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mean like we when it's going viral viral like you're having a good time regardless because people are viewing it
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you're getting awesome comments like people yeah everyone was loving it yeah
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I feel like um yeah you need like a a stress relief like otherwise what do you do you just sit there getting in your
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own head for days on end overthinking the event it's probably a nice stress release um okay so like the Doha thing
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the world Champs um for that and I suppose the Olympics and comth games run through like um like an average final
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day like how does yeah from start to finish yeah so for me like I'll arrive at the pool 2 hours before I'm set to
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race they are pretty regimented on like when you're racing so like I was I think
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I was at like 8:32 my race was planned to be so I'll get there like six 6:00
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just just after that in the evening in the evening yeah so we race what do you do all day we sleep eat like we I sat in
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my room I was I had my own room so I was a bit of a loner over there um I just sat in my room and did nothing um pretty
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much the whole afternoon I actually had to order food out because the food Hall only opens it a certain period And I was
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already going to be on the way to the pool by the time that happen so um I ordered food out and then you do the bus
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ride over which is like 30 minutes um and then when I get to the pool it's sort of you click into like this
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timeline that I create or my coach creates um that we all sort of get structuring the routine very structured
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down to like the minute sort of thing um so I'll do pretty much I'll do 30
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minutes of stretching activation preactivation I'll do around an hour of inwater warmups so it's around like 3 km
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maybe and then by the way for most people listening to this it's a big swim it is yeah it's
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it's a decent amount like especially like towards the end of the competition
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when you're you're getting tired you actually need to do more rather than
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less to get the body awake um and then I'll probably maybe 30 minutes before
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I'll have like a sports gel has a bit of caffeine in it um and then you have to
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put your raceit on usually takes 15 20 minutes cuz they're like they're tight
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they um they still look like bike shorts yeah there's like Gemma style um they go
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just above the knee um and my ones can go like quite high around my hips why do they take so long to put on cuz they're
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just like skin tight um they're essentially meant to stop drag right so they have to be pretty flush with the
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body um and they especially when it's hot you can sweat while you're put in
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the on so um yeah so so you're like naked in the changing rooms trying to get these things on for quarter of an
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hour yeah pretty much we we usually we put the tow around us and we're you know whipping them on
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but yeah it's uh it's probably the worst part of the preparation when you have to
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put your suit on that's what by the way that's um that's the most mind-blowing
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thing for me so far really 15 quarter of an hour to get some TS on yeah and the girls the girls even longer like some of
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the girls are in there for half an hour even more that what are the what are the
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girls it's just like a swimsuit isn't it they've they've got the same okay but
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then their ones go all the way up and over their shoulders so it looks like a sort of a triet suit yeah exactly like a
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triet suit yeah yeah but they sort of because they're so tight in the girls most of them will only put the shoulder
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straps on like just before they walk out um cuz they're like they're super
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uncomfortable for them so you don't train in that suit no we're just training sort of Bud Smugglers yeah okay
00:20:25
and you um are you how do you Psy yourself up you you listen to music or or you just sort of meditating what are
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you doing bit of mixture um I've changed things over the years I've just do
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whatever I want pretty much but I talk to people in the the marshalling room um there's a few really good guys that I
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race against that we have a good yarn this year I um listen to music uh DMB it's pretty good bit of rap as well I I
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went to America over December and got into rap um did you yeah yeah cuz that's
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what I listen to they don't list about in we you Arizona all right yeah yeah
00:21:01
it's whole different music scene over there I sort of like eye opening yeah but it was um it was cool and then you
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go into marshing like 20 minutes before you race and then you just sit there just
00:21:12
waiting and then they do the um oh and then they do the like the call out thing swimmer by swimmer where they sort of
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introduce you and stuff what what are you feeling at that point are you just like amped and ready to go or are you
00:21:24
[ __ ] yourself uh sometimes I'm tired like start of the week I was I got really tired cuz I was racing a lot um
00:21:31
but by the time I got to 4 into midle I was just like energy rushing through me yeah like I was pumped walking out um I
00:21:39
think I was just I was I was a mixture of angry and ready to swim fast like I'd
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missed the qualifying time for Olympics twice well actually six times before going walk actually seven times walking
00:21:52
before I did the 400 midle final um so I and I really wanted to make sure that I'd qualified at the world Champs um and
00:22:00
so I was just ready to go man that is so cool and everything went well yeah I mean it wasn't a
00:22:08
personal best like I didn't some lifetime best um but in terms of when you get into that Championship final
00:22:15
like you throw the time out the bag like it's just racing um and I mean to Come
00:22:20
Away with a gold medal and to be new ze's second ever person to win a a world
00:22:26
championship gold medal and it was in sort of one week where we got both of them was was pretty special who who is
00:22:32
New Zealand's best male swimmer ever would it be danion yeah I think so danan
00:22:37
we've got Lauren Bole we have we have quite a few like historically you know
00:22:42
really good Summers yeah yeah yeah is that I don't know if you want to say this out loud but like would that be
00:22:48
your goal to be New Zealand's best ever male swimmer I think so I mean I've
00:22:52
never really thought about it like that I mean we've always seen danion the guy
00:22:56
that won I think he he won two golds in one o games late yeah that was before you were born right
00:23:04
like the year yeah yeah so like we've always seen that as unachievable like we
00:23:11
we don't we don't think well in my eyes like I don't think anyone could ever do
00:23:15
that again I mean but you never really know right like we could but I've always
00:23:20
seen as seen that as unachievable yeah okay well that gets us up to speed with where we are now so let's um Loop all
00:23:27
the way back to the beginning and then work our way through the Louis CIT story so um early years when did you start
00:23:35
swimming honestly I'm not sure like Mom and Dad threw me in the water at 3 um to
00:23:40
learn how to swim dad dad was a Clubby so he did surf life saving um he's from
00:23:45
py North as well actually um and he got me and my two older sisters into swimming because he was never very good
00:23:53
at swimming in the in the surfly saving scene um he reckoned that he'd be like
00:23:58
the best ever surf life sa if he just knew how to swim that's why he got me into swimming yeah I don't know if
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there's much of a surf life saving scene at um hangi yeah that was his local Surf
00:24:08
Club yeah was it actually a hell of a beach it's like a state highway like you
00:24:13
have cars like zooming along the beach yeah that's crazy so Al um so it's like
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one of your earliest memories then just swimming um what other sports did you do
00:24:25
everything I was running golf I was a bloody Road cyclist North Ireland Champion um who you what age year eight
00:24:34
so 14 wow why did why did you give that away uh I just chose summing yeah so you
00:24:41
sort of um okay so you went one of these kids that was doing like 6:00 a.m. swimming swimming school all
00:24:48
through not really like I would I mean I would be busy every morning and every afternoon with sport whether it was
00:24:54
swimming or other sports um like I did rugby as well but yeah like I sort of just Mom and Dad were like you just do
00:25:02
whatever you want do everything um and then later down the track you can sort of choose what one you you want to do
00:25:09
and summing sort of picked me I guess because I was reasonably good at it um and with success you sort of that is fun
00:25:17
so I just kept going with swimming and sort of slowly dropped everything else that's such a good attitude by your
00:25:23
parents yeah I'm Co yeah Mom and Dad were they're they're pretty awesome dad
00:25:28
ask me too many questions nowadays about swimming what do you mean like what he loves he loves well he loves swimming
00:25:34
now he's more knowledgeable in swimming than I am but he especially because now
00:25:39
that I'm not in Wellington he doesn't have that sort of daily you know we
00:25:43
don't cross paths every day um so he loves asking me questions anything swimming yeah well I suppose um yeah
00:25:50
asking you questions is better than like telling you like you're messaging you
00:25:53
hey the swim went well but you could have done this better or yeah yeah they've always been good that yeah so um
00:25:59
yeah swimming some I'm I'm intrigued by the sport like I've never been a swimmer
00:26:03
but all my cousins were and the the amount of training that goes into it um you can see why people end up dropping
00:26:09
off because for every Louis Cleber there's probably like I don't know another 5,000 swimmers that are going to
00:26:15
the pool at 6:00 in the morning with their parents and going back to the pool in the afternoon and never making it to
00:26:19
the S level you have it's a in terms of training it's a it's a hell of a
00:26:23
commitment hey there so much work involved yeah it is and like if you want to be the best like you can't have
00:26:29
anything missing right like you have to do everything right pretty much like there's there's a few guys that would
00:26:34
get away with not doing everything but I mean for me and especially in my event like we we have to do everything right
00:26:43
we can't miss one session if you would you miss a session that's someone else
00:26:47
that's got one extra session over over you so like we yeah we're we're
00:26:52
pretty it's high performance to the to the peak yeah how um how um tuned in with Michael Phelps are you and the
00:26:59
Michael Phelps story and training ethos and all that I think growing up a lot um
00:27:04
nowadays I don't really like to think about too much um I mean like I'm always
00:27:09
learning I think most elite athletes while the best in the world are constantly learning about how other
00:27:15
people do things and um I've used I guess a lot of his theories and what he does I've tried to bring bring them into
00:27:21
what I do like the way he used to eat was incredible right like everyone everyone used to see how much he ate I I
00:27:28
don't think I could physically eat that much ever but like fueling is like a
00:27:33
huge factor and or like a component yeah but he he was like a training Savage um
00:27:38
like I saw a clip on YouTube of him talking about um his reason for training seven days a week and it's a thing
00:27:43
called compounding time and he's like if um my opponent's only doing six days a
00:27:47
week by the end of the year I've got 52 more days training under my belt than
00:27:50
what they have when I um who that it did make me think of you and the and the lockdown lockdown phase um [ __ ] that
00:27:58
have been tough so you couldn't you couldn't train in the pool um yet your
00:28:03
um you potential future opponents in other parts of the world they're still back they're back in the pool training
00:28:08
or they never had like training restrictions on um what was that like was it a good reset for you or was that
00:28:14
um like mentally really tough I think it was it was a good reset for sure like I
00:28:19
hadn't I never really had any time off like even since lockdown I haven't
00:28:24
really had any time off proper time off um but it was tough tough like I mean when you train 22 hours plus per week
00:28:35
and then suddenly you go from doing that to doing nothing like what do you do with your time I had all the Time in the
00:28:41
World to do whatever I wanted I play Playstation like 12 hours a day like I was like I literally just turned into a
00:28:46
Hermit um doing nothing but it was it was good you know it things like that I mean for short
00:28:54
periods of time right like it was reasonably long but for short periods of time things like that that happen they
00:28:59
just make you hungrier like they just you feel you feel like you're missing out so you want to do more to try get
00:29:07
yourself back onto back on track and I think it just made me more motivated to to get back onto you know the the
00:29:14
training regime and um I was lucky I actually had a family in Wellington that had a endless swimming pool in like
00:29:22
their house so they oh you're like a like a like a big Spar pool but it's got
00:29:27
yeah you're swimmming against the thing yeah yeah so um when like the levels all allowed I don't know what
00:29:32
level it was that it was during the co um they let me come in and do a bit of swimming um every day for like an hour I
00:29:40
actually I cranked the like the thing so high that every now and then I'd Short
00:29:45
Circuit the whole house um so it was sometimes I I hit the limit yeah yeah which was cool and I did
00:29:54
the same actually there was um last end last year I went to the new Institute of
00:29:58
sport in Wellington um and we had the The Flume or the the endless swimming pool going max speed and I short
00:30:04
circuited the whole building yeah front of feel you say this almost like a badge
00:30:08
of honor it is an honor yeah so so how much of um of what you do is um like natural
00:30:14
talent and how much of it is hard work you mentioned just before uh 22 hours a week training is it is it like a
00:30:20
combination of of both or is it way more just um hard work than natural Talent yeah I mean I'm not sure right like you
00:30:28
can get I think with swimming you can get to a certain point as an age group with natural Talent um and then once you
00:30:35
get um to like a I guess when you leave High School like you're pretty much the
00:30:40
guys that are the best that mostly know how to work hard um but yeah like natural talent I think is probably a
00:30:47
pretty big component like I just I think I grew up with the feel of the water um
00:30:53
like technique is huge in swimming like if you're efficient in the water then
00:30:57
then you're to go and I think I I was probably like naturally had a lot of that um and that's probably because I
00:31:05
grew up in the water you know dad was a Clubby um in the surf and we always used
00:31:10
to go surfing and stuff so I was sort of just born into it oh that's cool yeah what does an average week look
00:31:18
like you mentioned 22 hours yeah how's that broken up well I say it's Tuesday
00:31:22
now right I've done 21k in the pool so far um and I've got one more session
00:31:27
this afternoon but we do like we split we sort of split the week up into two Monday to Wednesday
00:31:33
and then Wednesday to Saturday um and so I do two swim sessions on Monday with a
00:31:40
gym session and then Tuesdays two swims Wednesday one swim in a gym and then the
00:31:45
afternoon you get the afternoon off so it's like your reset then the second half of the week you do two
00:31:52
Thursday a a Friday swim and then gym and then depending on who you are you might do
00:31:59
another swim so I'm adding that another swim in on Friday and then Saturday morning is like your final session of
00:32:06
the week and that's like your hardest the best session of the week yeah oh my
00:32:11
God what what does a hard session look like in terms of distance or intensity bit a mixture of both yeah distance
00:32:18
intensity and short rest yeah so if you add all those together then you got a recipe for a a pretty hard session so do
00:32:27
you know um what you're doing before you like have you got an app from your coach
00:32:30
or a diary from your coach or did you just turn up and he wh writes it on a whiteboard how does it work yeah I come
00:32:36
to the pool and I get handed a piece of paper and that's when I find out what
00:32:40
I'm doing yeah my what I used to do what my old program it used to be pretty
00:32:45
regim regimented you used to I used to be able to sort of guess what I was going to do that day you know we had
00:32:50
those hard well those key days where there be key sessions um but moving into this new program up here in Oakland um
00:32:57
it's like every day is a surprise so I sort of have to prepare the same for each each session cuz I do do you like
00:33:05
that or you're full of anxiety driving to the pool um I quite like it you know
00:33:09
I think if I knew if I knew going in like what I was doing it would give me more anxiety but because I don't really
00:33:16
know then I've only really got like two or 3 minutes before I get in the pool to
00:33:20
have that anxiety attack and then and then do it lead oh my God it's so I I don't think people would understand
00:33:28
like you know or comprehend just how much work goes into it you must just be exhausted all the time it makes me super
00:33:33
appreciative that you're here this afternoon in between sessions yeah it's
00:33:38
it's I mean it's tough and you know I was I think I was saying before like the
00:33:42
best way for me to explain it is probably not a very good way to explain it is I'm pretty much a vegetable 99% of
00:33:47
the time like I I have like very low energy cuz we're we're heading you know
00:33:54
the we're redlining most of the time we're here like well we're sing um and I
00:34:00
mean in my opinion like there's like there's like where you're getting sick
00:34:04
there's like this bar here and then we sit just below it so we're like we're
00:34:09
pushing just beyond just below Breaking Point yeah so we're pushing just be like
00:34:13
just below Breaking Point um during a End season yeah yeah I can see why you only do it um like Olympic cycle by
00:34:21
Olympic cycle think um Michael FS I I read that he was 11 when he like wrote a 12E a 12y year plan for his life and
00:34:29
it's like I don't know how you can how you can do that because it's um yeah the
00:34:33
sacrifice involved it's it's it comes at a huge personal cost I guess yeah I mean
00:34:38
I think my family probably feels it more than me yeah what way um I mean I'm
00:34:43
traveling a lot um I mean now I'm not in the same city as them and it's hard to
00:34:48
get home to to to see them because you know I'm I guess I'm swimming most of
00:34:53
the week and it's actually hard to you know find time to come back and travel
00:34:57
was I mean it takes up energy right like if I do a weekend trip and then I'm having
00:35:01
to get back in the pool um can be tough um but yeah like I I do have to sacrifice a lot of that time and social
00:35:10
time as well but also like I choose this life right like I enjoy it this is this
00:35:15
is fun for me I'm I'm challenging myself every day like I think if like for an
00:35:21
everyday person like I just set goals and I'm chasing after them and it's
00:35:25
keeping me busy yeah it's a good attitude there's um there's a podcast I
00:35:30
really like this guy called Jay shitty have you heard of Jay shitty no he's like a he put out a really good book
00:35:35
called um think like a monk and it's about re one thing he talks about is rephrasing things so if someone says to
00:35:40
you hey Louis do you want to come to a party tonight um you could say oh I can't I I have to go to training um but
00:35:47
his way of rephrasing is saying I get to go to training like turn it into a positive rather than negative rather
00:35:52
than you're missing out on something but do you do you have much of a like a
00:35:55
social group do you have any friends outside of swimming or anything yeah I have people like I mean I've got heaps
00:36:01
of friends that like you know that I that I catch up with all the time most of the time it's just for coffee or
00:36:06
lunch or whatever because you know that's have to eat anyway um but yeah like a lot of my my circles are summers
00:36:12
you know guys that I train with day in day out I'm pretty lucky that um you know the guys that I sub next to are
00:36:19
some of my best mates um and the guys that I compete with around the country also my best mate so you know we we all
00:36:25
sort of live similar Lifestyles um obviously a lot of us are different stages of our career um but yeah like we
00:36:32
have so much fun during during the day during training and stuff like that yeah yeah well that makes perfect sense
00:36:37
because I think in any sort of like working environment you sort of become you become friends with the people that
00:36:41
you spend most of your time with right so it makes perfect sense but for example your your 21st birthday what did
00:36:46
that look like well it was it was actually meant to have a 21st birthday um but it was during so the Olympics
00:36:55
just got cancelled and so I was like sweet I'm going to have a 21st um and then I was like a week out from having
00:37:02
the 21st was meant to be like a normal 21st you know like do all the normal stuff and then like the the week of the
00:37:09
21st uh Co lockdown happened in ockland so all my Oakland mates couldn't come
00:37:14
down so we had to cancel it um but I still had like a little get together but it was just like any normal 21st even
00:37:19
without the orlanders yeah so so you've never been like a like a big partyer or
00:37:24
a big drinker or anything like that no not overly like I I don't really like alcohol like if I'm
00:37:31
good yeah like I mean I like some things like is obviously the rtds that you drink and they're just like drinking
00:37:36
juice um but yeah like I I'm either I'm on two spectrums right like I'm either
00:37:42
drinking nothing or I'm drinking everything and I'm I'm ending up in the
00:37:46
gutter sort of thing so like and I don't do that often and that that might be
00:37:50
once a year you you'd be um a super lightweight wouldn't you like I'm
00:37:54
imagining after the common worth games where you won like two gold medals and a bronze you you having a a massive Bender
00:38:00
after that would be three beers wouldn't it yeah if that yeah oh that's cool that's awesome what
00:38:07
would your girlfriend say about so you you mentioned um before your girlfriend moved from Australia to be with you and
00:38:12
now she's stuck in Wellington and you've moved from Wellington to here what would
00:38:16
um if she was here in the room what would she say that you like to be around like during the week are you like are
00:38:21
you in between swimming sessions like are you grumpy are you like a beer with a sore head or uh um good question we
00:38:29
should actually get her in she's up here at the moment um but I think like a a mixture you know
00:38:35
sometimes I'm just tired um a lot of time I'll she'll she's into walking and
00:38:40
running and stuff um she'll want to go for a walk I can walk into a certain point and then I get tired so I either
00:38:45
get on my bike and walk next to her I like bike next to her um you tired from walking yeah M I'm was tough yeah
00:38:53
actually um the world doesn't know this but um whenever we go to competitions
00:38:59
like walking is huge for swimmers so we try and minimize as much walking as possible and even weight on our
00:39:04
shoulders so you know how most people have a backpack we go to the extreme of taking our suitcases to the pool so we
00:39:10
just we minimize full weight off our body um is that is that overthinking it or is that one of those like marginal
00:39:16
gains I think it's just one of those marginal gains yeah cuz like when you're
00:39:21
in a village type scenario walking you are walking a lot you're walking to the
00:39:25
buses um you're walking from the bus to wherever you want wherever you're going
00:39:29
um you have to walk to the Food Hall you just you do a lot of additional walking
00:39:34
that you wouldn't normally do during a normal week of training yeah yeah I suppose it's easy to um without even
00:39:39
thinking about it get that step count up eh yeah yeah for sure but still going for a STW with your your misses come on
00:39:45
yeah like that's need jump on a live scoter then non-negotiable I guess I I do have to do it yeah but I think yeah
00:39:51
like you said like I think I I am like I am sometimes a mixture you know happy sad um like the week of that competition
00:39:59
at the world Champs like I went went the greatest high at the end and I had a roller coaster fix before that you know
00:40:07
I think even if like if I asked her how she thought I was feeling throughout the
00:40:11
week she would have said yeah he you know he ended up being really happy but the 3 days before that I was down in the
00:40:19
dumps you know like I was I was pretty upset with myself um and yeah like to turn it around um she probably would
00:40:26
have thought she was pretty proud of Yeah well yeah I mean that's that's the
00:40:30
thing like sitting in front of you now it's the first time we've met we've been
00:40:32
talking for 40 minutes you can put on a like a mask and even though you've swam
00:40:36
21 K in the last two days you can put on a mask and be pleasant but for um someone that knows you intimately you
00:40:42
tend to drop that mask so she gets to see the real unfiltered you how um how has your mental health been is it is it
00:40:49
pretty good yeah I think it is like I I went through probably a period last year
00:40:55
where it was like not very good I mean when was that the Wellington stuff which we yet to get to yeah it sort of it sort
00:41:02
of started when I didn't swim so well last year at our our key key event and
00:41:07
um I had to change a few things to to get myself back on track and um I I feel like you don't really sometimes know
00:41:15
that you're struggling until you know you have that you have a moment um and I
00:41:21
had that moment last year where I was like actually like I'm probably not in a good space
00:41:26
right now you know I I wasn't I wasn't putting in 100% of my effort to to make
00:41:33
sure I was being a fast swimmer um and that's when I sort of I guess made the
00:41:39
decision that I was no longer going to take crap from people around me in my environment so I you know that's maybe
00:41:46
when I started burning a few Bridges with the Wellington city council and those sort of things so yeah by the way
00:41:51
I'm firmly team leis but what was um yeah what was the moment in particular where you realized
00:41:57
[ __ ] it's not where it should be I just swam like [ __ ] yeah yeah like real [ __ ]
00:42:01
I mean it wasn't real [ __ ] but it was [ __ ] um and I thought I deserve more um
00:42:06
and yeah I just had a realization of you look back on that previous six months of
00:42:13
what you were doing on a day-to-day basis and I I didn't think it was it was
00:42:16
good for me and I I wasn't happy with with it I wasn't happy with myself yeah
00:42:20
have you had have you been to a sports psychologist or you had access to one over the years yeah yeah I I I've had a
00:42:26
couple yeah um and I I do enjoy talking with them I do find it really tough for me as myself to to get deep and to
00:42:35
really like express my feelings there's a lot of guys that I train with that are
00:42:39
like really open and can like easily talk about how they feel but I sort of can't you got walls up yeah like walls
00:42:47
up but like I I tried drop them but I don't know how to you know cheer yeah so
00:42:53
it is it is interesting yeah that is interesting yeah it's um vulnerability is like a really big word these days and
00:42:59
it's you know I'm probably about the same age as your dad so we grew up in a
00:43:03
different generation where you just didn't show any sort of weakness but you
00:43:06
like to think it's getting better but I suppose often it comes down to a personality type you just you know you
00:43:10
feel comfortable sharing that stuff or you don't I'm trying to get better at it
00:43:13
cuz I understand how important it is and it's really cathartic as well yeah yeah
00:43:17
yeah I mean my my dad's probably similar like he's he's a tough man um and I feel
00:43:22
like I'm probably pretty similar to them even though I don't like to say that but
00:43:26
yeah it is tough yeah oh good on you um okay so we'll go the first com with gam so
00:43:34
they were the First Comm games you went to they were the Gold Coast ones so you were how old at the time were you still
00:43:39
at school I just left school 18 so I the yeah I'd been out of school like three
00:43:45
months that's crazy hey crazy so you go from just leaving school to being um
00:43:51
like a bronze you've got a bronze medal at those games right yeah yeah and I
00:43:54
wasn't even meant to be there like I wasn't selected on the team in the original um announcement and it was like
00:44:01
uh yeah you're not on the team but we could find you a spot just before the games um and this is when I was like all
00:44:08
right well I finished school so I want to go to R&V and do all the festival normal nor like finish school type stuff
00:44:16
um and then they were like when the announcement happened they were like obviously yeah didn't make team but you
00:44:21
know you could make it so I was like all right so do I train like I'm going or do
00:44:26
I just go to the normal school stuff and they were like well you probably got to
00:44:30
train like you're going so I spent the next like however many months just training as if I was going and then I
00:44:35
was lucky enough to obviously get that call up um and I knew if I wanted to get if I knew if I got the call up I didn't
00:44:42
want to be not prepared or not take that opportunity for granted um and I was just lucky that um I just grabbed it
00:44:51
with both hands and went in to the games obviously no one knew who I was I'd
00:44:57
never properly done an international competition and managed to snag the bronze which was pretty cool for me yeah
00:45:04
that was amazing um what was that like for you uh suddenly you go from you're
00:45:08
being on nobody's radar to I suppose getting a bit of media coverage back home a little bit of recognition and
00:45:14
stuff um did you did you did did things feel any different when you came back I'm guessing in particular in that sort
00:45:19
of pool environment yeah I I felt like a superstar right did you honestly I thought my life would
00:45:25
change I thought I was going to be a millionaire um welcome to a high performance sport
00:45:31
buddy um but yeah it was cool like I was like the man in the group you know like
00:45:37
I was the guy yeah I was rolling around with the bronze medal um I actually had to go back and do like our Nationals
00:45:42
after which was like the week after um and yeah everyone was it was pretty cool like I I loved sharing that moment with
00:45:50
with all my mates you know they were I was probably the only one in my Edge group that had qualified for the games
00:45:56
at that point um but yeah it was so much fun just coming back and like sharing that experience with everyone were you a
00:46:03
comth games family growing up CU I feel like there's two sorts of families families that commor games isn't really
00:46:08
a thing and family is where it is like I was a massive commor games um household
00:46:13
growing up so I understand the import the importance of it but a lot of people that like me Olympics and nothing else
00:46:19
we used to love it at Olympics comth Games those like we were glued to the TV um and I mean we had sort of personal
00:46:26
connections cuz cuz we I mean I swam a lot of the time next to the guys that were going to the comth games in
00:46:32
Wellington they used to be a high performance unit down there um and I remember watching Gareth Keane who's
00:46:37
like a new zealan record holder in the Turner back and you think he still has a lot of those records and he got a silver
00:46:43
middle and I mean I just used to idolize guys like that and that was probably part of the motivation to be like yeah I
00:46:49
want to do that and so um yeah that was cool being able to grow up next to those
00:46:53
guys so so that bronze that you got where you when you were 18 uh um what did your parents do with that or what
00:46:58
did you do with that like the physical metal yeah yeah yeah um it's in Wellington I think it's in my um little
00:47:05
townhouse still in Wellington in the just hidden in a corner somewhere I do love it's actually not this so it's on
00:47:12
display somewhere not in a sock drawer no no it's not on display yeah it's it's
00:47:16
it's like literally in a probably a sock draw sort of thing no I have a I have a box of
00:47:21
international medals um that are like I sort of know where they are um that I usually pull out um but that is my
00:47:28
probably still to this day my favorite metal and metal box just because it was like it was so special to me to be able
00:47:36
to get to get that one yeah yeah there must have been a crazy feeling those games so there you are like fresh out of
00:47:41
school um basically there as a as a tourist like no one's expecting I don't
00:47:45
know if you were expecting to do that well yourself but no one else was expecting you to do that um and then
00:47:50
you're in that environment and um yeah were you sort of like fanboying a bit
00:47:55
yeah being in the New Zealand yeah yeah like I was I was rolling up to the the village and I was seeing all my idols
00:48:01
and I was like yeah I'm one of the boys like I'm cuz when you're in the games
00:48:06
environment you have sort of like the team New Zealand um apartment complex and so um everyone's in the same
00:48:12
building and you know everyone meets down the bottom where there's like New Zealand snacks and like there's Team New
00:48:18
Zealand guys and they look after you and it's it's a whole lot of fun and we I
00:48:22
mean I was on the team with Sophie Pasco and she was like the legend she is the legend of swimming in New Zealand
00:48:29
especially paralympic swimming um and like I was chatting with her every day like it was the coolest thing ever um
00:48:37
and so yeah what what sort of chats with these people like pecking their brains about different bits and pieces or yeah
00:48:44
I guess so and just life chats we have these things well this thing called a lift chat so um every Olympic Games you
00:48:52
what do you do you have a lift Chap and yeah it's like oh how you going what
00:48:56
what Vue got or wins the final and you know that sort of thing and it's it's
00:49:00
usually only like maybe 10 seconds cuz you know that's how long last yeah yeah
00:49:04
so that's like the the lift chat yeah I love that and did you um did do you form
00:49:09
any like firm friendships with anyone I've had I've had um Sam Tanner the 1500
00:49:14
meter Runner and H ker the high jumper both on the podcast and they sort of um they met at one of those events Olympics
00:49:19
or com games and like bro it out pretty hard you met any um anyone that you've
00:49:24
become like FM friends with um yeah over the years for for sure um David liy probably um he's a weightlifter he's
00:49:31
like I remember him for like it's a very unlikely peering yeah yeah like I I mean
00:49:37
we we've only met like maybe three times but like we're like best friends on
00:49:41
Instagram um well I reckon we are um but I remember him being at the the go Coast
00:49:46
com games and I thought he was like an absolute Legend because he used to roll around with like a strap um like a strap
00:49:52
rounders thing with like the speaker and he'd be like the team DJ it's like all
00:49:56
all the bus rides and stuff he'd be rolling the the tunes and stuff so I thought he was the man and then a couple
00:50:02
years down the track like we're sort of good mates now so it's pretty sweet oh
00:50:06
that is so cool and then okay so that was the uh the com games your first experience that s of an International
00:50:11
Event and then there was the um the Olympics um which and hind like giving this is the beginning of your career and
00:50:17
you've got Paris and whatever's beyond that it's probably an exciting thing to
00:50:21
be involved with because there's never going to be another Olympics like that
00:50:23
you wouldn't think in your lifetime like the co games yeah it's wild right
00:50:28
like I mean I'm not sure what a normal Olympics is like cuz I've never been to
00:50:33
one um but you could see the potential and you could see how big it would have been um but yeah it was cool and I think
00:50:40
that was one thing that was was incredible was that brought the whole New Zealand team together because we
00:50:46
couldn't do anything like we were just stuck we're pretty much stuck in our
00:50:50
apartment complex um during the non-competition times so where did I feel like form quite a lot of
00:50:58
relationships with just like the New Zealand team and um I remember talking to Hamish Bond it was the first time I'd
00:51:05
properly met him and he comes up to me and he's like Louis you're a lot smaller
00:51:11
in person and I was like Chez mate like thought I was this big dude but n I'm skinny man he's not he's not big
00:51:23
himself as well especially not um standing next to ER I've never youve never met him is he
00:51:29
you're quite tall is he shorter than you he's definitely shorter than me he's
00:51:32
probably got a bit more like muscle but yeah he wasn't he wasn't too big
00:51:37
himself feels like a mind game in a way say to someone that's taller than you
00:51:41
yeah yeah that's cool was that a good experience at the Olympics um yeah I loved it I mean like you probably saw it
00:51:47
on Tik Tok social media like I sort of tried to make the most of it um I mean the main reason why I did so much Social
00:51:54
Media stuff is because when I used to watch the Olympics you know these guys would be having McDonald's and stuff and
00:52:00
they never really used to show much like you'd see maybe the photo um but I guess
00:52:05
with the Tokyo Olympics like videos were a thing and Tik Tok had just sort of hit
00:52:11
the charts and everything so I was like well little Lewis little kid Lewis 10 years ago would love to see this so I'm
00:52:18
going to share it and that's just sort of how it all kicked off and I think yeah I was just trying to show the
00:52:25
little LS what I was was doing yeah well and um also yeah big Dom here well I me
00:52:31
it really resonated because yeah as I said earlier it's like a peek behind the
00:52:34
curtains that um 99% of us never get to see you know i' I've always been
00:52:40
intrigued about the you know the layout of the food court at the Olympics and things like that and it was a
00:52:44
interesting Peak behind the curtain but your biggest um tick Tok from those games was you lining up for a free pair
00:52:49
of asex like 9 million views that was quite alarming that that had so many views why do why do you think that um
00:52:56
Reon so much everyone loves free [ __ ] you know and I mean I'm I'm not no different
00:53:02
like I love some free [ __ ] honestly the the shoes were the worst shoes of like I
00:53:08
don't use them at all they they were like slippers they weren't even proper
00:53:11
shoes but like the idea of like getting them custom fitted and all that sort of crap was like I think people just like
00:53:20
were like damn that is so cool but honestly the experience wasn't that cool like it was it was pretty like you got
00:53:26
your your your foot scanned on the scanner and then it just determined what size um inner so you got everyone got
00:53:34
the same size shoe but it was just the in AOL right yeah so I don't know it was
00:53:38
pretty cool and I mean I I was filming it and I was like giggling to myself because I was like this is going to go
00:53:43
viral no matter what yeah so it was quite funny it was a fun experience yeah was it that the games where they had the
00:53:48
wooden beds know the the cardboard beards yeah they were actually made a cardboard yeah yeah so actually it was
00:53:54
funny I was on Tik Tok I was known is the um official bed tester of the games so I did like this whole brand deal with
00:54:01
Tik Tok being like the official bed tester it was quite cool but yeah the the beds were interesting they were
00:54:08
strong I mean David ly slipped on one and didn't break it so obviously there's
00:54:11
not a problem with issues um they even had a bid extension so if you're a basketball player you could throw
00:54:19
another couple meters on the end of the bed and you're good to go yeah soing it
00:54:23
was cool and did you um due to the natur of the games being the co games I don't
00:54:27
know if you have any cool stories but anyone that's been to the Olympics I ask
00:54:31
about the um you cool Olympic stories if any I think the the winner so far would
00:54:35
be Susie Bates you know Susie Bates New Zealand cricketer no yeah New Zealand New Zealand Cricket Legend but when she
00:54:41
was like actually probably similar age to what you were at the com games she was 18 19 she went over playing um
00:54:48
basketball for New Zealand and the bunch of the girls ended up on um the bus with
00:54:52
the American redeem team so they they went out St in with um LeBron and Kobe ended up in a booth with David beam as
00:55:01
well I think that's the the Pinnacle of Olympic story so far did you have anything or um everyone walking around
00:55:06
with a mask on so you couldn't tell who was who yeah I guess probably the main
00:55:11
the main story I probably shouldn't talk about just cuz that's the one we want
00:55:15
yeah that's the one you want um but another one that I'd probably I'd openly
00:55:20
talk about was on like the last night of competition you're not allowed to drink
00:55:23
you know like well the co games weren't allowed to drink but we actually managed
00:55:29
to sneak in like a bowl of vodka um and anyway there was like it was a last night of swimming so all the
00:55:36
swimmers had decided that we were going to go meet on the grass field in front of the Olympic rings that where everyone
00:55:42
gets the photo and we were all there like there was a huge group of us and we pretty much I mean were outside so we
00:55:48
weren't adhering to any of the co restrictions I guess we can probably say it now because like oh no one cares
00:55:54
anymore no one cares anymore um but yeah we were all just having a good time you know like someone had a speaker
00:56:00
we were yarning like I was sitting next to the guy that I just raced and he got a silver medal sort of thing um and it
00:56:06
was a good time and then all of a sudden like all these security guards start marching out and this like
00:56:14
starting to surround us it was like we're about to get like arrested and then like everyone's like oh crap like
00:56:20
we're going to get in trouble here so it was like disperse of athletes as this
00:56:26
as these security guards trying to tried to surround us to to get us out but yeah
00:56:31
that was probably one of my like most memorable stories yeah oh my God oh my God and then um and you struggled a walk
00:56:38
you said so yeah it was blurred vision a little bit you know trying to get out yeah I
00:56:44
can see why you wanted to do that because um you guys were well aware that you were on a flight the next day coming
00:56:48
back to New Zealand to spend you know two weeks in individual hotel rooms so after going through an experience like
00:56:54
that with the Olympics I can understand why you'd want want to LIT off a little
00:56:57
bit of steam yeah what was what was the other Story the one that yourself SE said on um oh it was just the plane
00:57:03
plane ride home oh yeah you might have heard no nothing I mean it was just like a good time I mean I was up in business
00:57:09
class cuz I'd actually um you well how they work the plane because it's a
00:57:14
charted plane so we're the only ones on the plane the Olympians um and because
00:57:18
of Co there was like three different planes or whatever cuz we all had to just like leave as soon as we finished
00:57:23
um competing um I actually some one of the rugby boys came back and was like oh I do want to trade seats cuz I just want
00:57:29
to sit with my boys so I got to trade seats with him and so he he was in economy or premium economy and I was I
00:57:39
was in premium economy cuz it's lottery so you get your you find out your seat
00:57:43
when you go get your ticket at the reception or whatever you get your ticket from um and yeah like I I was up
00:57:51
in business class and just living the dream yeah me and two of my mate Zack Reed and Erica F they just like having
00:57:59
the best time I remember at some point the pilot was sitting on the end of my seat and we're having a yarn and I was
00:58:05
like who's flying the bloody plane but yeah like it was it was such a cool flight and because it was like just
00:58:12
us just the athletes um we we just had a ball and we could just sort of like unload the last two weeks of competition
00:58:22
yeah well that's a cool story there was there was no Scandal no nothing that
00:58:26
came out about it no no was there was there something that I missed there was like a one article that was like oh
00:58:31
athletes go crazy on the plane um but like it was humble like it was really just like a good time I mean like I was
00:58:39
in business class there was only like 20 other people out there but you know we were all just yarning having a good time
00:58:43
we had a few photos with a few gold medals rolling around from the rowing and like it was like such a cool
00:58:50
experience just like having that moment where you're stuck in the air for 9 hours with all the other athletes yeah
00:58:56
that's amazing and were you happy with your results at those games given it was
00:58:58
your first Olympics and you're still quite you made two finals didn't you
00:59:02
yeah yeah I mean I think overall like I'm really happy um I went into the I got second out of the Heats going into
00:59:09
the final so I was essentially ranked second um and I completely bombed the final um so I I believe I should have
00:59:17
been on the podium um but I just didn't swim very well in the final and Honestly
00:59:22
for probably two years I couldn't watch the race because I was that disappointed
00:59:27
myself but now looking back on it like it's it was a moment in time that you
00:59:31
know I [ __ ] up and I just we just have to move on and we had to figure out ways
00:59:36
that I didn't [ __ ] up again yeah the way you phrase it I don't reckon you've
00:59:41
moved on honestly probably not but do you do that you you like self self-critique self analyze beat yourself
00:59:49
up a bit after these things yeah I was actually listening to your um Mark Richardson podcast and I've probably
00:59:56
pretty similar to to him but maybe not on the extreme but like I like in training like I I remember those moments
01:00:03
and I try fix them yeah so you use it as fuel yeah yeah more fuel than anything else yeah and and in a sense I guess
01:00:11
those those Olympics I mean you were very young at the time um it sort of takes takes the unknown out of the the
01:00:18
Paris games where you you're potentially a real hot real you know real shot at
01:00:21
meddling so it's not the big scary Olympics anymore you're not a first Tim
01:00:25
you know what a is yeah 100% like I'm going and I know my body more now like I
01:00:31
one of the biggest issues for me was like the morning it was the morning final so we would have the heat at night
01:00:37
and then we'd have to go to sleep and then wake up the next morning and do the
01:00:40
the final and I didn't have a proper protocol with racing in the morning um I've got quite bad asthma um and it's
01:00:49
more like exercised and Juice Asma so um I didn't have a protocol back then to
01:00:54
actually be able to hand or understand like how I could get through and now I'm
01:01:00
moving on three years you know I've I've got that routine that I've you know that
01:01:04
I do that you know allows me to actually swim really well in the morning now yeah
01:01:09
you know in Paris if there's like a massive line to get some free AIC you'll
01:01:12
be like nah yeah ex got them already just going to rest up okay so after that came the um the most recent com games
01:01:19
these were the Birmingham once they were 2022 2022 okay so that was like a year and a half ago and and you [ __ ] you
01:01:27
cleaned up right a bronze medal and two Golds yeah just insane that was pretty sweet I think everything went right not
01:01:35
really to be honest like we'd have we'd had the World Championships um like just under a month
01:01:42
beforehand and I got food poisoning lost three or four kilos um and then um pretty much had to spend the
01:01:52
next month trying to put that weight back on um and it also this is another cool drunken story I
01:01:58
ended up in the gutter after that like from having a really good night out the town and I'd fallen down the stairs on a
01:02:06
boat and I'd really hurt my tailbone and I couldn't do brist joke for like three
01:02:12
of the four weeks letting into the com games um but obviously it didn't really
01:02:17
matter cuz I'd done a personal best time and all that sort of stuff at the end
01:02:21
but it was a it was a moment where the team man manager swimming his own was really pissed at me like i' I'd [ __ ]
01:02:29
up like and i' accept that I probably shouldn't have whatever I did I shouldn't have done um but yeah it sort
01:02:36
of like was that moment where it's like oh I just made more hungry to make sure
01:02:39
that I'd fix what I'd done um done wrong and yeah like almost overcompensate to put it right these um
01:02:47
these stories are are really pleasing to hear because I'd hate to think that your
01:02:51
life is just um even though it's the life you've chosen for yourself is just
01:02:55
you you know swimming for a few hours in the morning having a nap swimming again
01:02:58
in the afternoon you know rinse and repeat for 4 years without any sort of social life so the fact that you are you
01:03:05
know I don't know letting your ha down a little bit from time to time I think I
01:03:09
think yeah that's it's a good thing you want to have some sort of um sense of a
01:03:12
normal life don't you yeah yeah I mean and probably the stories that I'm
01:03:15
telling you are like the drunken stories that probably makes me sound like an alcoholic but like we no to me it sounds
01:03:24
like you're just like a a very very normal you know guy in his early 20s yeah like we have fun you know like and
01:03:31
I mean I've got the recipe that if I'm having fun then I'm swimm fast yeah and
01:03:35
you know that is literally my recipe for success for me um so yeah another thing
01:03:40
that's probably worth worth mentioning not that I want to put words in your mouth but it's like Mo most guys your
01:03:45
age have probably got a story like this from every couple of weekends and it probably involves some Kine or some MD
01:03:50
or whatever else the fact that I feel like you've told me just about every drunken Story You've Got pretty much
01:03:56
yeah i' maybe got one or two more but that's yeah so those yeah those games were good
01:04:04
did life change when after that at all I you know you know you said you thought after the the um Gold Coast games when
01:04:11
you won the bronze medal you thought you know things were going to change did life change after that two Golds and a
01:04:15
bronze um Yes actually quite a lot I mean I thought that it was going to open more doors for me and it did um it
01:04:23
brought in you know a lot of opportunities like I've working with fory bar and you know there's there's a
01:04:28
few opportunities that I that I got from it but also it closed a lot of doors um
01:04:34
how so eyeballs so I had a lot more eyeballs on me um straight after those games and I felt like I was under the
01:04:42
spotlight during you know certain situations and so you can't get drunk on boats anymore yeah what you mean no no
01:04:49
like in terms of so I um this is like restrictions around what I can do and what I can't do like I would come to the
01:04:57
pool and it would be no you can't do that because there's people watching and if
01:05:04
you do that then everyone else is going to want to have to do that and it's going to be a nightmare so um I had a
01:05:10
essentially like I I came back from from there and um I couldn't couldn't train
01:05:16
like I normally would train yeah and and it was tough yeah is is that where the the problem started with the Wellington
01:05:23
situation I for sure yeah it sort of Amplified it yeah yeah I guess sort of alluded to that a couple of times and
01:05:31
there's probably some people listening that have no clue what we're talking
01:05:34
about but um yeah the reason you're sitting here today in my podcast studio in Oakland is because um you've recently
01:05:41
moved from Wellington where you had um um a very sad breakup by all accounts um with your coach Gary Hollywood who's
01:05:47
been coaching you since you were 16 so he's been there through all these events
01:05:51
we've talked about you know you finishing school you're getting that first bronze you going to the Olympics
01:05:57
he he didn't go to the Olympics with you he wouldn't have been allowed no he did
01:05:59
oh he did yeah yeah so he was there he was at the Gold Coast with you when you w every every sort of main swimming
01:06:06
achievement that you've had he's been by your side and then um you reached the
01:06:10
tough decision of having to leave Wellington and him and he's got a family in Wellington um yeah how was that was
01:06:17
he sort of pushing you to leave you you just you had to leave and we'll get to the the ins and outs of
01:06:22
that soon but um yeah it was devast like a like a relationship break up for both
01:06:27
of you guys yeah it was tough and I mean Gary was the guy that put me on the map right like he was the guy
01:06:37
that turned me into me um he was he was so know he's so knowledgeable when the
01:06:43
world was swimming and um like he he was the guy that I would go to and just be like so what do I do in this situation
01:06:49
and he would just tell me um slightly crazy all coaches have to be slightly crazy you know slightly inhumane you
01:06:57
know they would that' give you sets that you'd look at and you'd be like what the
01:07:01
hell am I going to do like this is tough um and he worked me like a Workhorse um
01:07:06
and it was good you know I've just made me the person I am um today but um it
01:07:13
got to the point yeah that it was it was no longer Workhorse it was there was too
01:07:20
many distractions um where I was so like it was I had to make the decision um he
01:07:27
was like he still wanted to to keep to keep the well he still wanted me to stay he thought that it would um it would
01:07:35
come right um but I thought there was there was too there wasn't enough time
01:07:40
to go through this process we'd been through it three times of something would happen and I'd get pissed off
01:07:48
because I could no longer swim like I would want to swim um and so it was the point where I was like right stuff this
01:07:54
like I'm I'm gone yeah and so he I mean he couldn't move with me right he's got
01:08:01
a kid and and a wife that and a house um yeah I always had a bit more flexibility
01:08:07
I guess yeah it's got to be hard cuz there's a lot of Coach athlete relationships that end um you know on
01:08:12
sort of bad terms but this is most definitely not one of them um I read an article and it sounds like he was like
01:08:17
heartbroken by the split yeah I think it what hurts him more than me right like I
01:08:22
I continue my my journey um whereas he he was his only job was to coach me like he was employed by
01:08:31
swimming New Zealand just to coach me and if I left then he loses his job so he essentially lost his job um he was
01:08:39
able to sneak back into Club um coaching and I'm sure he probably won't have an
01:08:44
issue getting jobs anymore just with you know the talent that He is um but yeah like he it's his dream as well right
01:08:54
like he wanted he he was he sacrificed a lot to be a part of this journey with me um and yeah it's sort of
01:09:01
the way ended was tough but yeah like I think you know we're we both understand
01:09:06
yeah yeah there's an analogy I like to use it's like um climbing a tree so you
01:09:11
get to a branch and then you hang to that Branch for B then you want to climb to the next branch and I suppose that's
01:09:15
just the natural progression in the Louis Cleber story it's like you know you just sort of
01:09:20
outgrew that pond which was Wellington and Gary and you had to move on to the next thing did he did he message you
01:09:26
after after Doha like he's still in touch yeah yeah um if you know well you the people that know Gary know that he
01:09:34
is like the worst person ever to try get in touch with so any message any message
01:09:38
you get from him is like wow that is insane so he he did message me um and I was like cheers G mate like you're a
01:09:46
play Legend but um yeah like if you know him you know that he's just like he's a
01:09:50
man of very few words on like in terms of compliments and stuff yeah like if you get you get a compliment from him
01:09:56
you must have done something bloody well well that's cool yes so what was the story with Wellington so um I read a
01:10:04
bunch of articles about this knowing that you were coming up i s when it happened I think that's when I first
01:10:08
reach out to you knowing you were moving to Oakland so there was a little piece on the news which I saw um but I went
01:10:13
into a deep dive in the last couple of days reading articles and the whole seems thing just seems faral like
01:10:18
actually embarrassing for New Zealand in a way the fact that you've done so well
01:10:24
so far um in spite of all this sidh that's been going on incredible it's
01:10:30
incredible so so what happened so you swimming at a Wellington city council pool yeah yeah so we like all I mean
01:10:38
there's not many private pools in New Zealand at all there's probably two or
01:10:43
three and the two that are in New Zealand I'm training at right now so um they they I mean it's their pool they
01:10:51
own it they own the rules they do what they want essentially um and we try to influence them as much as we can and I
01:10:59
mean we learn a lot over you know every time we go away we we come back with new
01:11:05
ideas or innovations that we want to implement um and there's things that as
01:11:11
a swimmer um especially a competitive swimmer you require so that's Lan space
01:11:17
you know you don't want to be swimming with eight people or little kids or whatever so you know we we had a deal
01:11:23
with the council that you know would allow us to do that and um I guess the simple the simplest way to
01:11:30
explain it is like it it just ended up being too tough like we by the way from what you've explained it sounds like a
01:11:38
very very reasonable request yeah and and for the most part we got it you know we we we did pretty
01:11:45
well with what we had in Wellington that there's one major pull in the whole city
01:11:51
um and we were we were in there training next to God knows how many different sports and we pretty much got what we
01:11:58
what we needed um not maybe what we wanted but what we needed um but yeah like I said it just got really tough and
01:12:06
it got quite political um and like I said before when you got eyes on you like there was serious some serious eyes
01:12:15
on me doing my day-to-day business like I sometimes like I would be swimming and
01:12:20
there'd be someone standing in up in the stands like waiting for a wrong move for
01:12:25
for me to do something wrong um and it just got so toxic that I was like yeah like this I just can't be here and do my
01:12:33
job yeah do you feel like that's toall poppy syndrome in a way yeah yeah yeah yeah for sure for
01:12:40
sure yeah like I mean I think it's in every sport some way or the other um and I'm
01:12:49
probably like I get jealous of when people compete really well and it's not me but that just cuz probably more of my
01:12:56
competitive spir Spirit um but yeah like there there was a um a part of that and I think it was
01:13:05
in other swimmers as well like they I mean if you see me doing well you want to do what I'm doing right um and so
01:13:13
there was there was another club that was formed that was essentially trying to take off what what we were doing um
01:13:20
and and a coach that was really pushing um to to get me out and Gary out he honestly he despised both of us oh now I
01:13:29
I read is this the coach that um complained about the music yeah so you what's the story it says like you had
01:13:34
your own UI boom and were playing some music and he was like it's it's not a
01:13:37
rave yeah yeah so if if you follow me on Instagram I've got this this message
01:13:43
group chat calls the 6 a.m. club and it was at 6:00 a.m. when this guy came up and he was like you can't be playing
01:13:50
that it's not a rave and I was I was essentially like [ __ ] you like we're
01:13:55
listen to music no matter what because like I'm not here to fall asleep in in
01:14:00
the morning sort of thing like I'm like I'm working this is my my work hours so
01:14:05
um and I didn't want to stop playing music um everyone listens to music when
01:14:10
they're working out um but yeah I just pretty much told him to piss off um and
01:14:15
that was when it's like I try explain it as like um what is what is it so it's gone out
01:14:24
of my head now um there's passion and my passion was so strong for this that nobody was going to stop me
01:14:33
from doing it because I knew that it was it was going to make me successful and if someone got in the way from me doing
01:14:41
that like I go from nice Sky lwis to piss off like the like you're not my mate anymore sort of thing so yeah like
01:14:51
I have a lot of passion for swimming and success and um that was my formula and yeah there was no way some some guy
01:14:59
random guy was going to stop me from doing something that I that I thought was going to help me I love that I love
01:15:03
that so much I've um I've been I got I've been banging on about this in
01:15:07
podcast recently just because it's one of the most recent books I've read
01:15:10
there's a guy called Tim Grover who's like a personal trainer and mental
01:15:13
skills coach of the NBA and he just talks about the guys he's worked with you know LeBron MJ Kobe and they're all
01:15:21
[ __ ] like they they work themselves harder than anyone else but they you know they just have that this sort of
01:15:26
tunnel vision it's it's amazing I think it's necessary but um so when did all
01:15:30
this go down like November October no um so the actual like altercation happened
01:15:37
like years ago I think um so it's been festering well I guess nothing would have happened unless
01:15:45
well this probably wouldn't have risen again the the that whatever happen um
01:15:51
but because I left and all the other stuff blew up about the Council This Guy's in Canada like he's not even in
01:15:57
the country anymore um he obviously didn't like me that much that get that far away to avoid your playlist
01:16:05
yeah yeah but he he's that far away and he still wanted to talk about me so obviously he he didn't like me that much
01:16:12
so I'd cause that much of a trouble for him um but yeah like like you're saying
01:16:19
like sometimes we do have tunnel version and I see myself as like one of the nicest people ever like I see myself as
01:16:25
as a nice guy but like if you're trying to you know undermine what I'm trying to
01:16:29
do then like you're going to hear about it for sure yeah well this whole um sesow I think it makes what's happened
01:16:35
in Doha even more remarkable like you've had a buildup that none of your competitors had it's and it's crazy to
01:16:42
think that so you you uprooted your life moved to a new city um had to like get your head down with a new coach new swim
01:16:49
team um and basically sort of reset and start again and build on what you've had
01:16:53
and uh you've done so well paying dividends already yeah thank you it's it's been a journey for sure the last 6
01:16:59
months you know like yeah like you said moving up here having to re out my life I pretty much packed up a ute full of my
01:17:09
stuff so I left most of it in Wellington um I'm living in an apartment that's 99%
01:17:14
empty you know I've got just the basics up here right now um but yeah like it it
01:17:19
has been a journey and I was lucky that I had Doha um world championship sh that
01:17:25
actually have that first sort of test and I guess update to see where I'm at
01:17:31
you know especially with my relationship with my new coach and my team and how that training is paying off or if it was
01:17:37
paying off um and so it did make me a little bit nervous going into sort of the Doha the competition where I was
01:17:44
like well I don't really know where I'm at if I'm if I'm doing well or I'm not
01:17:48
doing well I knew that was swimming fast cuz we' done a few usually do some time
01:17:53
trials and stuff like that and I'd push some some really good times just you
01:17:59
know before the competition so I knew I was ready um but you never really know until you known and that's when you you
01:18:05
race yeah oh how good and so so Paris What's um what would a successful Olympic campaign look like good question
01:18:14
I actually got asked that the other day um yesterday to be to be fair um and I think the most important thing
01:18:23
would be if I'm that I'm happy you know I'm happy to be there I'm excited I'm
01:18:28
excited to race um I'm having a good time and then obviously the next thing would be I just want to be swim fast
01:18:34
right like that's that's ultimately why I'm going I just want to go there and
01:18:38
swim fast um to be on the podium would be even awesome more awesome um I think it's I mean it's definitely um on the
01:18:46
table um but yeah just got to swim fast yeah is it is it an expectation even after the world after the world Champs
01:18:54
um um no I don't think so yeah I mean maybe for New Zealand they see that he's
01:18:59
won a World Championship gold medal that it should translate into Olympic gold medal um but N I don't think so I feel
01:19:07
like now I've got to a point of my life where I'm just like happy to just swim
01:19:13
and try swim fast and that's not whether that's metals or not you know I mean a
01:19:19
Middle's always nice and you it's like probably the I mean it's the the reason
01:19:24
we do this sport like sport right is to to get on the podium but I mean um I just want to be able to swim fast and
01:19:31
swim without restrictions yeah yeah you you seem really good at um blocking out that external pressure that external
01:19:37
noise yeah sometimes yeah yeah I mean I guess so I I if you talked to me three years ago
01:19:46
probably not but I think maturity yeah mature um I think I'm really just like
01:19:52
in a happy place right now for me yeah just always too tired to too tired to think about it yeah yeah are you um how
01:20:00
are you with reading reading stuff online about yourself um do you do you read everything or do you do you consciously
01:20:06
try and avoid reading about yourself I mean it's it's got to be hard to do when
01:20:10
things are going really well yeah I mean I mean when you open your your social media or whatever you know a lot of time
01:20:17
it's the first thing you see because of your bloody algorithms these days um but
01:20:22
yeah I'm mixed I I think I sometimes chuckle at some of the stuff I'm I'm
01:20:26
reading like I think one of the news stories that I've read um that someone sent me as well was like Louis clber um
01:20:35
he his best part of the medley was the breast stroke and that's like my worst
01:20:39
stroke but they they said that cuz I'd caught up in the breast strob and so sometimes I laugh I'm like ha like If
01:20:46
Only They Knew um but yeah I I read some I quite enjoy sometimes reading it um especially when you're swiming well you
01:20:53
know it gives a bit of that boost but when you're not doing so well um you just hope there's not too much negative
01:20:59
stuff but um I think generally it's I've only really had good stuff which is cool
01:21:06
so I I've had Lisa Carrington on the podcast Dame Lisa Carrington um she said
01:21:10
during like Olympic campaigns and stuff she avoids all social media stays offline all together because she just
01:21:15
doesn't need the additional pressure and stuff well um yeah do you have any sort
01:21:19
of plan or strategy for Paris I think this year I'll probably delete the apps
01:21:25
of my phone I oh not Tik Tok we need you Louis yeah maybe not honestly I'll probably say on Tik Tok yeah yeah I
01:21:31
haven't really done much posting since uh since Tokyo to be honest on Tik Tok
01:21:36
um it's a bloody hard app to crack um but yeah I'll probably delete like a lot
01:21:41
of those purely the messaging apps yeah so it's it is really tough to I mean
01:21:47
it's awesome how much support we get while away but it's really tough to
01:21:51
reply to everyone so I think I'll probably delete or at least mute the apps just so that I can just either just
01:21:58
post without restrictions and just not have to reply to people yeah yeah well speaking of um social media I put on
01:22:04
Instagram that you were coming over and I asked if anyone had any questions there there were a few um actually a few
01:22:09
comments as well um is it Ally your sister oh yeah yeah yeah she said no question just a a proud sister which is
01:22:15
really cool and two cousins as well two cousins message yeah yeah everyone seems
01:22:20
to you be just be rooting for you be really proud of the success which I think says a lot about you any a way
01:22:26
yeah I think um I I mean I love my family and you're tight yeah we're super
01:22:31
close and it has been tough not being in Wellington with them especially because
01:22:36
I mean I used to have dinner at my parents even though I didn't live with my parents I used to have dinner at my
01:22:40
parents every single night and so Mom really how far away did you live oh only like 10 minutes yeah yeah less than that
01:22:47
um so I used to see them every day yeah right do you drop off um like a basket of washing or anything or sometimes yeah
01:22:53
sometimes yeah that sh Mom Mom's a legend you know like I think moms moms love that it feels like they're still
01:22:59
they're still muming in a way yeah she probably misses it a little bit I mean
01:23:02
she still actually sends up bacon egg pie for me that's how much she probably
01:23:06
miss yeah so I just had a bacon egg pie last week sent up to me so I was it was pretty cool and who are they going to
01:23:12
Paris who's going to Paris yeah they all are yeah yeah yeah so they'll be their
01:23:15
tickets were like one grand a pop what do you get you going do free tickets nothing yeah yeah we get nothing I mean
01:23:24
they get if I make the final they get the right to purchase one ticket I think but they still have to buy it yeah yeah
01:23:30
so it's not like you know we the rugby where you can the players sometimes can
01:23:33
give away tickets yeah we don't get any of that unfortunately you can shout them
01:23:36
with your your salary from high performance sport New Zealand yeah Millions yeah quadruple figures or
01:23:42
whatever it is yeah all right some of these questions uh what advice would you give to Young athletes who look up to
01:23:48
you um have fun you know pick something that you're enjoying um not necessarily
01:23:55
what you're good at because I think if you're having fun then you'll get good
01:23:57
at it and be consistent and set goals yeah like if you're find that recipe where you know you're constantly trying
01:24:05
to improve then you know if you're always improving then you're going to be
01:24:08
a world champion right um so yeah just have fun and keep sitting those goals when you're not training or competing
01:24:14
what are your favorite ways to relax and unwind sleeping eating and gaming yeah I
01:24:22
haven't gamed a whole lot in the last couple years especially since you know I
01:24:26
was living with my girlfriend in Wellington but now that I'm not living with my girlfriend um gaming is is back
01:24:31
on the radar for me which is quite nice do you do you play with um friends online strangers online or just one
01:24:37
player games or yeah I I try play with people um but a lot of my mates have girlfriends so they're off the game as
01:24:44
well now so um it's not great for relationship so yeah no probably not so much um but yeah I like gaming with
01:24:51
people and having a yarn yeah it's good fun uh how do you prioritize your mental
01:24:56
health amidst the pressure of being an elite athlete still learning not sure yeah yeah yeah it's tough for sure it is
01:25:02
a it is a tough one eh it is a tough one thankfully like you're at the point at
01:25:06
the moment where I suppose you you're not um stressing about selection and things like that like it's you're just a
01:25:12
a fast track into the into the games uh so that's one less thing to worry about
01:25:18
but yeah a lot of pressure right yeah it is I mean like I was saying before like
01:25:23
a lot of your funding and all that sort of stuff is based on one or two competitions a year so it can be quite
01:25:29
stressful even just making you know those competitions but I think for me I'm like you said in a position where
01:25:35
you know I can I've been making the competitions um year after year and um the qualifying time is like I'm quite
01:25:42
beyond that so um I think for a fringe athlete it's worse because first of all
01:25:48
you're not getting any funding and you're sometimes making the teams and
01:25:52
sometimes you're not making the teams so like I'm I'm in a lucky position where
01:25:56
you know I've been I've been getting that for a few years now yeah by the way
01:26:00
this um high performance sport funding even the top tier stuff it's it's not
01:26:03
it's not great money is it no it's not exceptional money like it's um you're
01:26:07
barely sort of scraping by aren't you yeah I think if we're talking actual
01:26:10
numbers if you're Olympic gold millist you're earning 60 Grand a year yeah so
01:26:15
that's average wage for you know someone that's working class yeah yeah like
01:26:20
starting wage for a cop um yeah so did you finish your degree you're doing a
01:26:24
comic degree at ve did you have finished four more papers left wow so I'm I'm not
01:26:28
studying this yet but yeah I definitely want to finish it off at some point but yeah I've got four more papers left yeah
01:26:35
and you were interning at um foresight bar and they've sort of been um champing
01:26:38
you a bit so do they what do they do they throw some money away or yeah like I'm a I'm technically an employee of um
01:26:45
foresight bar and they've been awesome you know I've I've essentially how I'm
01:26:51
seeing it is um eventually hopefully maybe I'll be able to properly integrate
01:26:56
into the business after I um finish swimming um but yeah at the moment I'm just sort of doing bits and Bobs I do a
01:27:03
few events for them as many as I can um but yeah like they're s such an awesome
01:27:08
you know um organization to work with yeah oh that's so cool it's really
01:27:13
pleasing when you hear about companies like that like getting in behind athletes and stuff it's really cool
01:27:17
because you sort of rely on it don't you you need it yeah for sure and I've got
01:27:20
I've got a couple really good ones that you know I work with u Fusion 5 as well
01:27:24
the their business solutions like it little bit it company and there's a lady
01:27:28
Rebecca toal who just like loves swimming and she's been my biggest supporter since I started swimming
01:27:36
competitively in like well internationally in like 2016 2017 so she's been with me that long so it's
01:27:42
pretty cool oh that's neat oh thanks for giving them a shout out there you go um
01:27:46
someone wondered on Instagram is it true that you have a daily pie for breakfast
01:27:50
um I actually got caught right before I went um to the Doha games or Doha War Champs um at the Zid station getting a
01:28:01
pie I'm in a coffee but that was mostly because I ran out of food so I needed to
01:28:06
eat something yeah oh that happen once and suddenly you're the pie guy no it
01:28:10
happen it happened three times but yeah but I C I got caught once yeah yeah right right uh what's your what's s of
01:28:17
pie it was butter chicken pie butter chicken pie oh controversial before a swim mate yeah I mean it didn't have the
01:28:23
side effects that you probably thought but it was it was good I I did enjoy it but yeah a little bit controversial
01:28:29
speaking of yeah side effects with a butter chicken pie similar question to that from someone on Instagram um do you
01:28:33
pee in the pool uh no comment because either answer I give I'll I'll get in trouble yeah but I will say I
01:28:42
think people can make their own minds up you're sing 21k it's not practical to
01:28:46
get in and out of the PO yeah yeah yeah sometimes especially when you're in a
01:28:50
main set you it's um you're not meant to get out a main set and sometimes they
01:28:55
can go up to an hour a main set so um you make your own mind up there's plenty
01:29:00
of chlorine in there come on a little bit of Way's not going to hurt yeah yeah
01:29:03
and I mean for for me in my event you have to be very relaxed when you're swimming and so one way you can test if
01:29:10
your relax as if you can pee while you're swimming oh pee while you swimming yeah so if you're swimming
01:29:16
you're usually quite tense right but if you can pee while you're swimming then
01:29:20
you're relaxed okay I just had this mental picture of you like like um you're
01:29:24
waiting for the event to start like at the end of the lane or something peeing while swimming that's some Next Level
01:29:29
multitasking yeah yeah it's it's difficult for sure and this is not a question from Instagram this is a me
01:29:34
question um if if you if you fart in those togs like does it does it bubble in the back or uh it does a little bit
01:29:42
but then it when you move it pops out and and water farts are horrible yeah okay where is this interview going' been
01:29:50
doing so well yeah the wheels are falling off um okay favorite swimming meme page uh this is probably from
01:29:57
swimming memes I'm going to guess um swimming memes is pretty good yeah yeah
01:30:02
there's a Instagram page called swimming means actually a New Zealand guy and
01:30:06
they're pretty viral in the swimming community favorite Instagram page is a guy called Kyle sockwell though and he's
01:30:12
American guy he love he loves me I mean I don't know if he loves me but he gives
01:30:16
you a lot of like repost or no not necessarily that but like he pinned my comment one time and I was like this is
01:30:23
the yeah if if you could compete against any swimmer past or present who would it be
01:30:29
and why um Ryan locky oh the American guy the American guy weird weird dude he round about the
01:30:37
same same time as Phelps yeah didn't he there something happened some Scandal
01:30:42
like he pretended he got robbed at a service station and it was made up he was very like um controversial guy but
01:30:49
he would have been the Michael Phelps if Michael Phelps wasn't there yeah yeah
01:30:51
like he was Breaking All the records but that already been broken from Phelps sort of thing right yeah so he he was a
01:30:57
really really good legit swimmer yeah yeah he was Unreal and he was just like a funny dude he had his own TV show he
01:31:03
had a reality show that's right for a season but he was sort of um people sort
01:31:06
of took the piss out of him a bit right yeah yeah like he they say he's just
01:31:09
like nothing going on upstairs like he's dumb but he's he was funny yeah right
01:31:14
why why him I Reon just cuz he was a legend like he he brought like the coolness to swimming oric and like he
01:31:21
would get up on the podium and he'd have a like a diamond gold grill sort of
01:31:25
thing like he he just brought the fun back sort of thing yeah yeah yeah um what is the harshest criticism you've
01:31:32
received in your career probably when I was in year 10 at school my teacher said
01:31:39
to me you're never going to make anything from swimming like it's an amateur
01:31:45
sport yeah and I was like look at me today maybe not making money but yeah look at me today yeah have you have you
01:31:52
been back to that school like for a speech assembly or anything yeah oh my old school I love that school yeah yeah
01:31:57
yeah it was just like the one teacher but he was he's still Legend but I just
01:32:01
thought it was funny looking back on it now well because you've got that relationship and you think he's a legend
01:32:05
have you been like no I haven't seen him like since he's I don't think he's
01:32:09
teaching a school anymore but um he's probably like laughing right now yeah you're not really a I Told You So guy no
01:32:16
not so much no yeah no yeah um how do you how do you how do you envis envisage your life and career after retiring from
01:32:24
competitive swimming a for South B yeah potentially yeah um it's nice that by
01:32:29
the way it's really refreshing and nice that you're thinking about that already
01:32:32
yeah yeah for sure I mean there was a story of the marathon runner that came out and he was trying to extend his
01:32:39
career and he was taking drugs to extend it because he didn't have anything after
01:32:42
it um the Kiwi r i ca's name um and it sort of solidifies I think Plan B you
01:32:48
know everyone every athlete has to have a plan B and that's why I was studying
01:32:51
and having the foresight bar option coming up was will come up was pretty cool as well yeah oh that was zann
01:32:57
Robertson by the way had him on the podcast as well that's right I L yeah it's tough bloody said yeah it's bloody
01:33:03
said but it's um I mean he he he was a runner like he was he was Bloody good
01:33:08
like he would have he could tune up to any marathon in New Zealand on any weekend and had win it but the
01:33:12
difference between being that good and being like aliot Kip chogi world record good like you know being New Zealand
01:33:19
good you're never going to make the podium of a marathon it's it's a hard
01:33:23
it's a hard sport yeah um what goes through your mind when you're on the
01:33:27
starting blocks nothing I call it like Flow State yeah I'm not much meditator um I take my bike
01:33:36
out to do my meditation um but I call it Flow State just like this is just like where I'm relaxed and I'm just ready to
01:33:45
do what I do every single day yeah so not thinking at all and then and then when you're swimming in a race you're
01:33:50
just thinking of the stroke and how you your Technique think yeah just doing the
01:33:55
little things right making sure I'm just doing what I practice every single day
01:33:59
not thinking too much and trying to beat the guy next to me I guess and what about when you're training like you
01:34:04
mentioned it's Tuesday today uh you've got a training session after this you've
01:34:07
already swam 21k this week when you're doing those Long training sessions are
01:34:12
you are you thinking about other stuff honestly you think about everything under the sun right yeah but also like I
01:34:17
have to count my laps so it's hard to do two things at once so I'm it's a bit of
01:34:22
a mixture of both trying to count trying to figure out timing when you're leaving
01:34:26
on stuff um but yeah like I probably I think about a lot during during a swim session for sure
01:34:34
amazing yeah I'm just trying to think of if I like when I'm running I can think
01:34:37
about anything I can go out go out um for a 10k run and have complex problems in my life that I can solve on that time
01:34:43
but if I was swimming I'd need to be thinking about what I'm doing but I
01:34:46
suppose you know the am you're doing it's just something you could do literally in your sleep yeah it's
01:34:51
probably like you running yeah yeah yeah uh um cap from Instagram actually kind of serious ones to finish with if you
01:34:58
could go back and change one decision in your life what would it be um leave Wellington sooner
01:35:04
potentially no I think I you know it I probably made me the summer that I today it made me tough um one thing I mean I
01:35:12
could have gone to America and done the the college system I'm not sure how it
01:35:16
would have turned out there was a lot of unnown there for me um yeah I don't know not sure yeah
01:35:24
biggest adversity you've faced um good question probably the moment where I didn't do well in the 400 a.m.
01:35:35
Final in Tokyo where I was like [ __ ] this I don't want to look at the water
01:35:39
anymore and I had to get back in the next day because I had a 200 a. to do um and it was a moment where I was like at
01:35:48
the lowest point but also had to switch off and turn it on again yeah it was tough got how do you do that just out of
01:35:54
necessity pretty much yeah yeah we I mean I got a message from Moss burer who's a pre handed yeah Legend yeah
01:36:01
Legend something he was you read um he was like one of your sort of Inspirations or Idols growing up yeah
01:36:07
for sure for sure um and he was like well he did his 200 butterfly at the uh Beijing Olympics and he had the H 100
01:36:14
butterfly to go but he sort of wrote it off and didn't didn't S as well as he
01:36:18
could have um and he said to me like look you got to you got to get back on the horse sort of thing because you
01:36:23
don't to be like you know do what I did um and I sort of had to make the best of
01:36:27
the opportunity yeah and I was I was happy with how I performed in the 200 a.m. after that yeah and I suppose it's
01:36:33
um good for future events to know that you can you reset Park a disappointment and move on so quickly yeah for sure I
01:36:39
mean I did it in Doha like I was bloodly disappointed that I didn't qualify the
01:36:43
olymp for the Olympics there um in the the other two events but I had to park it and move on to the next one yeah yeah
01:36:51
and last one um when was the last time you cried um probably not that long ago cried of
01:36:59
Happiness to be honest like I it was it was probably when I moved up to Oakland and I sort of got into my routine I was
01:37:07
just like so happy that like I'd made the decision yeah that's amazing I when
01:37:13
you said tears of happiness I was just thinking my mind went immediately to the world Champs and Doha yeah no really
01:37:19
that's what so well I suppose you had so much like um anxiety and nerves about
01:37:23
what am I doing am I doing the right thing um so then I suppose when you have the moment where it's like oh yeah
01:37:28
everything's sort of clicking into place and it just sort of reaffirms that you
01:37:31
did do the right thing yeah what it was or was it just cuz you were actually so tired from swimming so yeah probably
01:37:37
just so tired yeah that happens as well actually yeah oh hey mate this has been a lot of fun yeah thank you yeah I
01:37:44
really appreciate you making the time and being so generous with your time and I'm really looking forward to seeing
01:37:49
what the year not just actually not just the year but what the future brings you
01:37:51
as well um yeah bloody great so the swimming after this what's the afternoon
01:37:57
session not sure I'll probably find out 2 minutes before I hop in but you must
01:38:02
have like an inkling an idea uh I've been told it's a breaststroke technique based set maybe
01:38:08
with a bit of fast stuff but yeah it's um hopefully recovery because it's been
01:38:12
pretty tough so far this week yeah oh God hey good luck mate yeah thank really appreciate it thanks leou
01:38:19
yeah thanks for having me on a [Music]