Olympian Cate Campbell on the men in her life

Cate Campbell is an Olympic swimmer, best known for winning gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The 31-year-old shares her memories of going on the water with her father, the dramatic arrival of her younger brother and meeting her partner five years ago.

My maternal grandpa, Louis, lived in South Africa and would regularly send gifts to me in Australia after we had migrated here from Malawi in 2001, when I was nine. He was a lawyer and wrote a Latin textbook. As kids, we used to call him King Louie from The Jfinger book film. I remember his beautiful study – he was a real intellectual.

My paternal grandfather, Bill, was a mechanical engineer, a quiet, calm and humble man who said more with his actions than words. I last saw him in 2022 when I visited him in South Africa for a few days. At the time he was caring for my grandmother, who was in her final stages of dementia.

Bill had prostate cancer and I saw some of the consequences of that disease for him. When the doctor told me I had stage 1 melanoma [in 2018; later successfully resolved]he was the first person I thought of. I had a very close and personal reference to what cancer looked like, and even though I was young when I watched him go through it, it left a mark on me.

My dad, Ericis the first person I call if I need help. He will drop anything to be there for any one of his girls. Where we lived in Malawi, he built us a gym in the backyard and was always taking us out in nature. He would sail catamarans and take us out on the water, too.

Dad is also the most non-accountant accountant you will ever meet. At home, he is always tinkering with things: nothing is ever fully broken until he has pulled it apart to check it can’t be fixed.

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I am the eldest child of five, and my brother Hamish is six years younger than me. I have a clear memory of his birth as it coincides with my sister Bronte’s fourth birthday. My mum, Jenny, had complications with her labour. Hamish was unresponsive in utero for 20 minutes and has cerebral palsy as a result.

We went from being very excited at having a new sibling, to Mum being in hospital longer than planned, to wondering if our brother would survive. Hamish was airlifted from Malawi to South Africa the night he was born, and the family followed a few days later as Hamish went through three weeks of intensive care.