Behind pop star Cody Simpson’s ‘unheard of’ rise to the Australian swimming team

The dual Olympian, who became an American citizen in 2009, wasn’t going to let sleep steal this moment.

As he threw on a tracksuit and settled in front of the TV, Hawke realised that a journey which began in a country-club pool in sunny California two years earlier had finally reaped its first crowning moment.

Cody Simpson had made an Australian swim team.

After blitzing his heat earlier in the day, Simpson stood on the blocks of lane five for the final of the men’s 100m butterfly at Adelaide Aquatic Centre. Could he handle the pressure?

A stunning final lap saw him come home in third with a time of 51.96, trailing only Australian record holder Matthew Temple and former Olympic 100m freestyle gold medallist Kyle Chalmers. Simpson’s time exactly matched the FINA qualifying mark.

Hawke rode him home the entire way.

The result will book Simpson’s place in the Commonwealth Games team for Birmingham, while he’s likely to earn selection for Australia’s World Championships team, with Chalmers set to skip the meet.

Asked after the race if he would be heading to Budapest, Simpson said: “Oh God, I hope so.”

Having achieved his dream, his first instinct was to message the coach who started it all.

“He texted me straight away, which was a surprise to me,” Hawke tells CodeSports.

“He still does that. He gets so excited with his results. He‘s over the moon.”

Hawke has seen Simpson’s talent up close for the past two years. But the plan was never for him to hit such heights so soon.

“He‘s surprising himself. Even he’s like, ‘Brett, I’m ahead of where I thought I’d be’.”

Driving Simpson for the past two years has been one specific quest and it’s not about winning medals.

“He might not even say this but I think ultimately he‘s looking for some respect, he wants to earn that respect,” Hawke says.

“That‘s what he’s been seeking, he doesn’t want to just be a pop star who gets a lot of attention, he wants to be a swimmer who gets a lot of attention because he’s good at what he does.

“I think there was a little validation last night in that.”

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When Cody Simpson the pop star started his journey to become Cody Simpson the swimmer, he wanted to make one thing clear.

This wasn’t some passion project or a sabbatical from music. Simpson knew he could be elite and needed a coach who felt the same.

“That was kind of the agreement upfront. I wasn‘t going to work with him, he wasn’t going to work with me initially, if we weren’t on the same page,” Hawke said.

“I asked him very early on, ‘Is this something you really want to do?’ and once I found out that answer pretty quickly, then we just mapped out a path of how we‘d need to get there and the time that it would need to take.”

Hawke has had an extensive coaching career since retiring from swimming. He was the head swim coach at Auburn University for nine years and was named NCAA Men’s Coach of the Year in 2009.

But he immediately saw a special quality in Simpson that he had observed in only the world’s best swimmers.

“The thing with Cody, he loves the work that people don‘t see,” Hawke said.

“He loves putting in the grind. And that's what makes him special.

“A lot of people in Cody’s situation, you have opportunities, you have situations that can take you away from excellence. And he just refuses to get out of that, he stays in it and puts himself in situations where he can only be around people who are excelling in what they do.”

Simpson’s rapid ascent in the swimming world has turned heads, and rightly so.

He flew into Australian contention after qualifying for the Olympic Trials in June 2021 with a time of 53.63. A quick heat time of 52.84 saw him make the final, where he finished eighth.

Over the next 12 months, Simpson shaved that personal best time to 52.66, before taking almost a whole second off in the heats at this year’s Australian Championships, stopping the clock at 51.79.

Hawke believes the difference over the past 12 months has been Simpson’s relocation to the Gold Coast, to train at Griffith University with the legendary Michael Bohl.

Being surrounded by some of the best talents in the world, including Australia’s most decorated Olympian Emma McKeon, let Simpson realise his dream was in reach much sooner than expected.

“It’s the best squad in the world, so he puts himself in a situation where he's got no out, where he has to be excellent,” Hawke said.

“What you saw yesterday was just an end result of a lot of hard work.

“[But] he was ahead of schedule. It still wasn't realistic to get from that (8th at the 2021 Trials) to the Australian team, even within one year. I think he was maybe looking at more of a two-year plan to have his first stint on the Australian team.

“He’s within two years of now going from almost nothing to making the Australian swim team. It's just unheard of.”

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There’s still plenty of improvement left in Simpson.

During Wednesday’s brilliant heat swim, commentators analysed his turn and suggested he could gain plenty of time there. Hawke says Simpson must keep stepping out of his comfort zone to realise his full potential.

“It's just a matter of raising the bar in training – take it to a certain level, then when you get comfortable at that level and then you raise the bar again,” Hawke said.

“Anytime you go head-to-head with Kyle Chalmers and he just touches you out, you know you’ve done pretty well.

“Cody‘s been training at the level that he raced at yesterday, which a lot of people might think is unrealistic; but when you see the training times, it’s an indicator to say he’s on 51 pace. Now the next move forward would be to analyse the video and ask, ‘Where can I get better?’

“When you get to this elite level now, where you're talking about being potentially one of the best swimmers in the world, it becomes more difficult to take those big chunks off.”

Simpson has a chance to get himself onto the Australian team for multiple events. In the heats for the 50m butterfly on Thursday, he recorded a 23.79, a new PB and the fifth-fastest time ahead of the final.

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Hawke believes his prodigy also has a few other tricks up his sleeve.

“He’s got the 100 freestyle. Keep an eye on him there because he’s going to surprise a few people too.”

Not that Cody Simpson, the swimmer, hasn’t surprised enough people already.