sport

A tall, familiar figure is walking towards me near Bulimba Ferry on the south side of the Brisbane River. It is Cate Campbell, the Australian swimming legend who announced her retirement last June. She is carrying a slight limp. She assures me that walking is fine, as long as she stays on a hard surface, off the grass.

We set out along the boardwalk over the river’s edge. Scales of late afternoon light reflect off the brown snake, muddied by ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred. A darter fishes in the shallows, undeterred. “I like to be next to the water,” Campbell says with a quick, self-conscious giggle.

In a recent Instagram post, Campbell told her followers that after 20 years chasing the black line at the bottom of the pool, she was trying to work out where the water ended and she began. Retirement, she says, means “doing all the things I haven’t been able to do – like Friday night drinks, and the discovery that a weekend was two full days, instead of one and a half.”

In January, she and her partner took a skiing holiday at Mount Kenashi in Japan. He was an experienced snowboarder; she was a novice.… Read more..