- Zac Stubblety-Cook broke his neck before the Olympics
- The Australian won silver in Paris.
- He kept his injury a secret from the public.
Zac Stubblety-Cook has revealed the secret injury he kept under wraps ahead of the Paris Olympics.
Australian breaststroke sensation Stubblety-Cook arrived in Paris nine months after suffering a horrific injury that left her swimming campaign in serious doubt.
The 25-year-old was lifting weights at the gym when he felt a pain in his neck.
Without a second thought, he continued with his training but then discovered that he had suffered a fracture.
He spent at least a month on the sidelines but chose to keep his injury quiet, apparently not wanting to draw attention to it.
But her silver medal in the 200m is even more remarkable, considering she also battled Covid-19 during her time in Paris.
The Australian lost to French superstar Leon Marchand but has no regrets about his performances.
“It did take me a while out of the water, but I trained for three weeks with it and then had three weeks off, which was horrible,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Zac Stubblety-Cook revealed he broke his neck in a freak training accident
“I was having a good moment and I felt like I lost momentum. It was a freak accident.”
Stubblety-Cook reflected on what it was like to face Marchand, who wowed the French crowd with his incredible performances.
“You could hear the crowd underwater,” Stubblety-Cook said. “It was so loud. It will go down as one of the highlights of my career. If anyone is going to beat me, a Frenchman in front of a home crowd – isn’t that the best combination?”
“It’s a shame not to have won, but to see that is incredible for him and for the sport. Two golds in one night is crazy.”
Stubblety-Cook criticised her Chinese rival Qin Haiyang, one of 23 swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance ahead of the Tokyo Games.
Qin broke Stubblety-Cook’s world record last year but failed to make it to the final in Paris.
The Australian decided not to speak on the matter, but shared his thoughts in Paris.
The Australian star managed to recover in time for Paris and win a silver medal.
“The system has failed, plain and simple,” Stubblety-Cook said. “I think I sympathize with the individual because it’s not necessarily the fault of the individual, it’s the fault of the system.”
“We can isolate China and Russia, which have repeatedly broken the rules, but what matters is not so much the country they come from, but the system.
‘You have 23 athletes… if that was Australia under the Sporting Integrity Act, like we saw what happened with Shayna (Jack), they would be provisionally suspended.
‘That’s the sad thing, isn’t it? We were talking about it three days before the Games. The athletes have been frustrated because they feel the system has failed.
‘We all thought that the independent review would probably yield some results. World Aquatics knew that and it’s difficult. Is it a commercial decision?
“That definitely made me more frustrated. I probably used that a little bit (to motivate myself).”