By Bonnie Hancock
The hoodie goes up. The headphones go in. The grin disappears.
Before the hardest sessions at Bond University’s pool, Olympian Ben Armbruster quietly removes himself from the noise.
Around him, teammates joke, music blares and a soccer ball zips between bare feet in an increasingly boisterous warm-up. But Armbruster, usually one of the biggest personalities in the Bull Sharks squad, looks less like a swimmer preparing for training and more like a fighter making the lonely walk before a title bout.
That’s because the Gold Coast-based sprinter is preparing for one of the toughest assignments in Australian swimming.
When he dives in at the next week’s Commonwealth Games trials in Sydney, Armbruster will be chasing selection in 100m and 50m butterfly and the 50m freestyle, events so stacked that coach Chris Mooney says making the Dolphins team can be harder than winning a medal.
“The events he’s going after are deep events,” Mooney said.
“In some of these races, it’s tougher to get on the team than on the podium.”
Armbruster’s opposition includes some of the biggest names in world swimming, among them triple Olympian Kyle Chalmers and Australian record holder Matt Temple.
But if toughness counts for anything, Mooney believes the Paris Olympian is ready.
He points to his debut Olympic performance at Paris as a prime example.
“He didn’t win a medal, but he swam a PB and only a couple of swimmers managed that,” Mooney said.
“To produce his best performance in the biggest race of his life, I think it says a lot about him.”
Over the past six weeks, he has watched Armbruster retreat further into himself before the squad’s notoriously brutal main sets.
“The headphones go in, the hoodie comes up and he’s taking time to psych himself up and think about his process,” Mooney said.
“Thinking, ‘what I do today is going to be the catalyst to get my hand on the wall first’.”
One of Bond’s most feared training sessions appears deceptively simple: six 50-metre efforts completed on a five-minute cycle.
On paper, it sounds manageable.
In reality, when swum at Armbruster’s breakneck speed, it becomes a test of endurance and willpower.
The lactic acid builds quickly. Nausea follows. By the final repetitions, swimmers are fighting the urge to vomit as their bodies strain against the limit.
For Armbruster, enduring discomfort has never been optional.
Raised in Stanthorpe, he learned resilience early.
Granite Belt winters regularly made training in the town’s outdoor pool impossible, forcing the young swimmer into daily drives of almost an hour to Warwick’s indoor aquatic centre just to keep progressing.
Five years after arriving under Mooney’s guidance, the coach believes those layers of sacrifice are beginning to add up.
“It’s about all the bits and pieces he’s done over the last six years,” Mooney said.
“It’s his time now, and that realisation is starting to shine through.”
First published in the Gold Coast Bulletin.