New Zealand swimmer Lewis Clareburt training at the Sir Owen G. Glenn National Aquatic Centre in Rosedale. Video / Jason Oxenham
Sometime between claiming Commonwealth Games double gold and winning a world championship crown, Lewis Clareburt lost the desire to be the best.
The 25-year-old is now a day away from the biggest night of his life: the 400m individual medley final at Paris La Defense Arena, where he will race for New Zealand’s first Olympic swimming medal in 28 years.
Clareburt boasts the world’s second-fastest time in 2024, an achievement to buoy hopes he can follow Danyon Loader and climb a podium traditionally too steep for Kiwis.
But during much of the Olympic cycle, while outsiders were forecasting his chances of ending this country’s long drought in the pool, Clareburt found his own ambitions dampened.
“The last couple of years have been tough,” he says. “I was probably at a point where I was trying to decide … I’m at the age where I’m getting a little bit older, and I’ve been in the sport for a while, and I was trying to find my motivation be the best. I lost a bit of that.”
The rediscovery process began in circumstances that could easily sink an athlete. It resulted in a better swimmer: passion reignited, Olympic pursuit renewed.
“It’s so nice to feel that,” Clareburt says, “and to go into Paris knowing I can race fast again.”
Lewis Clareburt is ready to end New Zealand's long Olympics swimming medal drought in Paris. Photo / Jason Oxenham
The controversy
Born in Wellington, educated at Scots College, a support base ingrained and a beloved coach tied to the city, Clareburt never envisaged leaving the capital for Auckland.
Yet few could’ve foreseen a Commonwealth champion swimmer struggling so often for somewhere to swim.
Returning from Birmingham with two gold medals, a hero’s welcome was neither requested nor required, but consistently available lane space might have been nice.
Public facilities operated by Wellington City Council, however, failed to foster an environment conducive to the marginal gains Clareburt would need to make before Paris.
The disruptions prompted the intervention of Swimming NZ and High Performance Sport NZ; truce was brokered and a contract signed. But breaches continued to impede Clareburt’s progress — and progression was imperative.
The Kiwi had been far too good for the Commonwealth in 2022, taking 400 IM gold by more than a second. But sharing the Olympic pool will be American rivals established and emerging, along with a French phenom who seized the last and longest-held of Michael Phelps’ world records.
To reach the podium, Clareburt had to reach a level unattainable in Wellington: perfection. Staying afloat was difficult enough when mired in the kind of bureaucracy a high-performance athlete would reasonably expect to be beneath them.
A creeping malaise, in hindsight, was almost inevitable.
“The pool issues were a factor, for sure,” Clareburt says. “But there was a mixture of things. There might’ve been a few distractions around my pathway, but I feel like coming to Auckland and having that change has put me on the path again.
“I’ve found that motivation, and I have the environment now that actually pushes me to want to be the best.”
Searching for that environment far from home was a bold choice, one not without sacrifice. Friends and family and familiarity were left behind, in addition to another fixture in his life.
Coach Gary Hollywood had been integral in Clareburt’s ascendance from promising teen to prodigious talent. Their bond, built over myriad early mornings, was tough to break.
The coach confirmed as much last October. “Words cannot express how sad I feel about Lewis feeling he has to leave Wellington now just nine months out from the Olympics,” Hollywood wrote on Facebook. “Things could have been so different if we’d had access to a more positive training environment.”
Clareburt couldn’t help but reflect with similar wistfulness — notwithstanding his newfound contentment.
“I do miss Wellington,” he says. “I miss my family and all my friends down there; I had such a good little community I was based around. And I do miss Gary. He’s a funny guy. He’s a guy that most people would look at and be like, ‘How are you a swim coach?’ I do miss seeing him every day.
“I’m lucky that now I’m up in Auckland, I’ve got a really good environment and a good community that I’ve found myself in. It has made it a lot easier.”