Cate Campbell knows the kind of leader she would like to become within the Australian swim team. The role model came in the shape of a team legend who simply took the time to make her feel comfortable when she was probably at her most vulnerable – competing as a 16-year-old at her first Olympic Games, in Beijing in 2008.
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''Grant Hackett was a massive role model for me,'' Campbell said ahead of the Australian swim team's selection trials for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games this week. ''I was lying on a physio table [in Beijing] and he came up and he pulled all my toes and he asked me how I swum and he knew actually how I'd done but he asked me how I felt about it and how I was coping.
''For someone of that calibre to come and speak to a 16-year-old who knew one person on the team was something immense. I couldn't believe it and from that moment on he's been cemented as a role model for me. That moment has stood out as one of the highlights of my swimming career, someone taking notice of me when I was feeling small and useless and helpless and someone taking the time to reach down and offer me a hand. I've remembered that and I've always wanted to offer that to someone else.''
Campbell was last year made a member of the team's leadership group, and impressed when she took charge when a shattered Alicia Coutts publicly berated herself for allowing the Americans to overhaul her on the last leg of the 4 x 100 metres freestyle relay final at last year's world championships.
Campbell rejected any blame for Coutts, Australia's most consistent performer during a difficult rebuilding era, reinforcing that the team had swum quicker than it had when it won gold at the London Olympics and had simply been beaten by a better team on the day.
Hackett has had his personal problems since retiring, with a series of highly publicised incidents, and the dual 1500 freestyle Olympic champion recently seeking treatment for an alleged Stilnox addiction. But Campbell, who will be looking to secure her place in the 50 and 100 freestyle in Glasgow, said the former distance champion would always be welcomed back to the team as a mentor alongside Susie O'Neill and Michael Klim.
''The consistency and the high level of his performances and his character both in the pool and as a team leader is definitely something that I would model myself off,'' Campbell said. ''There will definitely be a place for Grant once he figures out his life but right now we've got two great role models with Susie O'Neill and Michael Klim coming on board. They have a wealth of knowledge to offer us and we will definitely be learning everything we can from them.''
Coutts said she has refound her love for swimming and was confident of continuing to the 2016 Olympics, after struggling with motivation following London, where she was Australia's most successful swimmer.
Coutts, who won five golds at the Delhi Commonwealth Games in 2010, said a conversation with O'Neill helped her find the inspiration to continue swimming. ''It has been tough since London to keep the motivation. I'm obviously not as young as I used to be and there are other things I want to do outside of swimming,'' Coutts said.
''[But] after world championships last year I re-evaluated and started to do a few different things in training and it's given me a bit more love for the sport again. I mixed it up and made it a little bit more exciting instead of just plodding along doing the same thing over and over again.
''I spoke to Susie O'Neill when I came up after London and told her I didn’t know if I wanted to continue and she said she had the same issue following Atlanta and it took her two or three years to really get over it and be prepared to swim well in Sydney
''She told me I was too young to give up and I should at least keep swimming for a few more years ... I would like to finish on a high when I do finish swimming. I wouldn't be swimming if I was swimming slow or not making the team.''
