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More than 1160 athletes have donned the coveted Gold Cap and swum for Australia as part of the prestigious Australian Dolphins squad. Former Tooradin Primary School captain Josh Beaver is one of them.
The four-time Commonwealth Games medallist spoke to Star News Journalist MARCUS UHE about his journey from the Cranbourne Swimming Pool to the Estádio Aquático Olímpico in Rio De Janeiro for the 2016 Olympics, and the lengths he went to so he could represent his country.
It’s been said that people learn more through their failures than successes.
For former Tooradin resident and 2016 Olympian Josh Beaver, missing qualification for the London 2012 Olympic team ultimately proved to be one of the best things for his career.
Having completed Year 12 at Haileybury College in Keysborough in November 2011, he had just a few short months to transition to life as a fulltime professional athlete and prepare for Olympic trials in March the following year.
“From what I’d done in the lead-up, I was swimming career-best times – racing and medalling,” Mr Beaver said.
“It’s a pretty cut throat event and if you’re on the wrong side of qualifying time, or touch third, you’ve missed the team and all the 12 months of preparation you’ve done in the lead up, gone.
“I thought I was a genuine chance to qualify but things didn’t pan out that way.”
Inspired by watching the likes of Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett, Matthew Welsh and Geoff Huegill at the Sydney Olympics as a seven-year-old, the backstroker adopted the gruelling routine of 4.30am starts and 10 training sessions per week before he finished primary education at Tooradin Primary School.
When he didn’t fulfil his goal at the first opportunity, he found the result difficult to swallow.
He’d put his life on hold in the hopes that his year would be structured around a mid-year trip to the UK, but was forced to settle for watching the event on his couch instead.
But rather than bemoan his non-selection and feel sorry for himself, he used it as motivation.
“It became one of the biggest turning points for me in my career because I never wanted to feel that way again.
“It was definitely a full lifestyle dedicated to swimming. I could tell you six months in advance where I would be every Tuesday at 6am. I was prepared for it, I was eating right, I was making sure I got the most sleep.
“I decided I needed a more balanced lifestyle. I picked up casual work at the pool, did some other things, and tried studying.”
Come 2014, the still-inexperienced but more mature 21-year-old was able to handle the wave of emotions in a more professional way.
Despite heading to the trials in “peak condition”, qualifications for the Australian team to head to Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games got off to a slow start.
He felt doubts creeping in and feared a repeat of two years earlier when results and times didn’t go his way.
But things were different this time around; he was entering his physical prime as an athlete and went on to swim better than he ever had before.
“My first goal was to swim a personal best (PB) and I did that at my first swim. How to swim a PB was the focus coming in.
“I ticked that off first and felt like it was a case of mission accomplished. I went on to swim seven PBs out of eight swims.
“In the water, you feel like there’s no better feeling when it’s all going well. There is no better feeling. You feel like you’re on top of the world.”
He returned from Scotland with some shiny souvenirs: a bronze medal in the 100 metre backstroke, silver in the 200 metre backstroke and silver again in the 4×100 metre relay.
Two years later, the former Tiger Shark who learnt to swim at the old Cranbourne Swimming Pool and worked-part time at Casey RACE achieved his life goal: swimming for his country at the Rio De Janeiro Olympics.
Reaching the semi-finals of both the 100 and 200 metre backstroke, he described the experience as “euphoric”.
While he didn’t achieve the results he wanted, the experience and rubbing shoulders with some of the country’s best athletes as a member of the prestigious Dolphins squad, let alone the world, was one of the highlights of his career.
“I dreamt of becoming an Olympian as a young boy, I lived that dream out and not many can say that they’ve done that,” Beaver said.
After another bronze at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in the 200 metre backstroke, completing an All-Australian podium alongside Mitch Larkin and Bradley Woodward, he began to look at life away from the pool.
While he was still weighing up his future at the time of the event, he realised soon after he had little more to give, having committed his whole life to sport from such an early age.
Having come from a life of setting goals and personal achievements in the water, he turned his attention to goals away from the pool, including spending more time with his family, and entering the fulltime workforce.
He landed an internship working with the operations team Swimming Australia and later took on the portfolio of running the junior excellence program.
He carries a significant amount of gratitude towards swimming and wants to repay the metaphorical debt to the sport that has given him so much.
As the current head of the swimming program at Mentone Aquatic, he hopes to develop the next Emma McKeon or Ariane Titmus.
During the recent Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Beaver returned to Tooradin Primary School to speak to students about his experiences, and the dedication and commitment required to reach the heights that he did.
“Swimming taught me so much. I owe a lot to the sport and a lot to the people that provided me with the tools to become the person I am and all the things I believe in. It taught me a lot about life both inside and outside of the pool.
“Not a lot of people get to do something they’re both really good at, and they love. I was really fortunate do that. I’m able to look back and say I gave it a red hot crack while in my window of being an Olympic swimmer.”
