Stubblety-Cook broke his neck before winning Olympic silver medal
By Tom Decent
Zac Stubblety-Cook kept it a secret for months.
Less than nine months out from the Paris Olympics, Australia’s best male breaststroker was throwing around some weights in the gym, like he does nearly every day in training.
Stubblety-Cook, the reigning Olympic 200-metre breaststroke champion, felt something go in his neck.
He didn’t think much of it at the time and continued to push on.
The 2022 world champion thought he’d bruised the back of his neck, but later found out he’d actually suffered a fracture.
Stubblety-Cook is not the type of person to complain and he kept the injury quiet for months as he prepared and pushed towards his second Olympic campaign. He spent the best part of a month out of the pool, trying to recover from the injury.
It makes his silver medal in the 200-metre breaststroke, after also having a COVID-19 setback, all the more remarkable.
Zac Stubblety-Cook wins silver in the men’s 200m breaststroke final. Credit: Eddie Jim
“It caused me to have a bit of time out of the water, but I trained for three weeks with it and then had three weeks off, which sucked,” Stubblety-Cook told this masthead at a Speedo event overlooking the Eiffel Tower on Monday.
“I was in a good space and it just felt like I broke the momentum. It was a freak accident.”
Stubblety-Cook, who found out he had COVID on the opening day of competition two Saturdays ago, fought hard to claim a silver medal behind France’s Leon Marchand.
Despite finishing second, Stubblety-Cook can appreciate the significance of Marchand winning a second individual gold medal on the same night.
Every time Marchand came up for air in the breaststroke, the home crowd cheered.
“You could hear the crowd under water,” Stubblety-Cook said. “It was so loud. It’ll go down as one of the highlights of my career. If I’m gonna be beaten by someone, a Frenchman in front of a home crowd … isn’t that like the best combo?
“It sucks, not winning, but watching that and seeing that is incredible for him and the sport. Two golds in one night is crazy.”
Zac Stubblety-Cook says he feels sympathy for China’s Qin Haiyang.Credit: Getty Images
However, Stubblety-Cook had the last laugh when it came to his showdown with Qin Haiyang – one of the 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive to a banned substance before the Tokyo Games but were cleared to compete.
Qin missed the final of the 200-metre breaststroke, despite taking the world record from Stubblety-Cook last year.
Until now, Stubblety-Cook has stayed largely silent on the issue of Qin’s positive test, but admits losing his world record to the Chinese swimmer left a sour taste in his mouth. He wants greater transparency from anti-doping agencies moving forward.
“The system has failed, simple as that,” Stubblety-Cook said. “I do sympathise, I guess, with the individual because it’s not necessarily an individual’s faults. It’s the system.
“We can isolate China and Russia, they’ve repeatedly broken the rules. But it’s less about what nation they come from, and more about the system.
“You have 23 athletes … if that was Australia under sport integrity, like we saw what happened with Shayna [Jack], they would be provisionally suspended.
“That was the sad thing, right? We were talking about it three days before the games. Athletes have felt frustrated because it feels the system has failed.
“We all thought potentially something would come of the independent review. World Aquatics knew about it and it’s hard. Is it a commercial decision?
“I definitely have gotten more frustrated by that. I probably used it a little bit [for motivation].”
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