Aussie swimming champion remembers her brush with the Queen
Our Aussie swimmers have smashed the competition out of the water at this year’s Commonwealth Games.
Tonight is the last night of swimming and Alan Jones is joined by two of Australia’s most extraordinary female swimmers to reflect on our success so far.
Tracey Wickham, who was just 13 when she represented her country at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, will be presenting the gold medal to tonight’s 400-metre freestyle winner.
She can’t help but recall the special guest who honoured her with gold back in 1982.
“I was very fortunate to have Her Majesty the Queen!
“She said, ‘congratulations Tracey it was a fine swim’. I remember grabbing my two hands around her white-gloved hand and just squeezed it so hard.”
Olympic Gold medalist Giaan Rooney also joined Alan, bursting with pride at our swimmers’ efforts so far.
“I think probably the surprise has been Bronte. She was world champion back in 2015. That was her rise.
“She’s struggled with injury a lot since then.
“Last night was a shock to many, even to Bronte herself.”
Giaan also recalls that infamous incident in 2001 which saw her and her three teammates disqualified for jumping in the pool after winning the 4×200 freestyle relay.
“It was a hard moment at the time. It’s funny now, it wasn’t funny then!” she says.
Click PLAY below to hear Alan’s chat with Giaan and Tracey