My journey at the Olympics was a rollercoaster. I ran around with my wind-up camera, I had an autograph book I filled with signatures. I was starstruck.

My first event, on the 20th of July 1996, was the 200m freestyle. I didn’t expect much from the race. I just scraped into the final with a personal best time. When I hit the wall in the final, I turned around to the scoreboard and saw the number three next to my name. I’d won a bronze medal at the Olympics. It was the best feeling I’d ever felt in my whole career.

It wasn’t a gold. It wasn’t a world record. It was a bronze.

Fast forward six days and it was time for the 1500m freestyle. For as long as I could remember, that had been my race. My event. It was my perfect opportunity.

Kieran Perkins qualified for the final in lane eight as the slowest qualifier. I was in lane four, the fastest. But I knew from the moment that he qualified in lane eight, I wasn’t going to win.

I wasn’t mentally strong enough. I didn’t have the confidence or the self-belief.

My whole identity was being a swimmer, yet I stood up on the blocks and was petrified. I was scared of what would happen if I didn’t win. And I didn’t win.

When I saw the number two next to my name, I felt the worst I ever had in my career. I felt like I had failed; I felt like I’d let my friends and family down. My parents moved all the way from Adelaide to the Gold Coast for my swimming and I felt I needed to win that gold medal.

I was the first swimmer in 92 years to win a medal in the 200m, 400m and 1500m freestyle events at the same Olympics. But it wasn’t enough.

I had to ask Bond if I could be reinstated after a lengthy period of absence. I’m so grateful that they let me do it.

Returning to campus as a mature-aged student, who didn’t know who I was and what I wanted to do, a retired swimmer at 27, was scary. But I went back into that environment and I immediately felt like I was part of something again.

My Bond experience helped shape me into who I am today. I was wrestling with a lot of personal fears and failures of where I was as an athlete, but the University helped me to become more of a whole person. They helped me to embrace disappointment, embrace what I felt was failure. They taught me to realise it’s okay to have regrets.

One of the most important things I learnt was the importance of networking and relationships. Here I was thinking I was alone in what I was feeling and going through, but I was surrounded by so many people who had shared experiences and wanted to get the same thing out of it.

The relationships I have with the peers I went to Bond with are very tight. We rode the rollercoaster together, the highs and lows of everything that life threw at us.

And more than anything, at Bond I realised that supporting others is what I wanted to do.

Today I’m the Head of Olympian Services of the Australian Olympic Committee. In my role I look after the career support, transitional support and mental health and wellbeing of Australia’s Olympians. I am able to help ensure they are provided with everything they need to be successful in life.

Being an Olympian is a small, exclusive club. Only 4,554 Australians have gone to the Olympic Games. I want to ensure that those Olympians don’t fall on the hard times that many have. To me, that’s really important. I learnt those values from the way I was treated at Bond.

At the Paris Olympics in 2024 I stayed in the Olympic Village for six weeks and was essentially a concierge for our Australian Olympic team, helping them with whatever they needed during the competition.

It’s the most incredible experience to be surrounded by young men and women, and the coaches and their support crew. Being part of their journey and life was really rewarding.