my country childhood

ASK ANY SERIOUS Australian swimmer about their early years, and you can guarantee a rhapsody about splashing around outside. “It’s just so special, feeling the sun and the breeze on your skin,” agrees Libby Trickett, OAM, winner of four Olympic golds and Sport Australia Hall of Fame luminary. “Swimming outdoors is one of the best things about being from this part of the world.”

Libby was a year old when she learned to swim, and joined her first club at four, following in the wet footsteps of her siblings Justine, then 12 years old, Victoria, nine, and Stewart, eight. Growing up in Townsville, Queensland, she vividly remembers the searing heat and the relief of plunging into the pool in their back garden. That everyday occurrence led on to podiums in packed stadiums all over the world, but one of her most precious swimming memories is far more rustic.

Each Christmas, Libby and her family would spend a week or two on the sugarcane farm in Ingham, just