"You can't compare where we are now to where we were in 2012," Aussie swimmer Cate Campbell told reporters on the eve of the 2016 Rio Olympics.
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"I think it is unfair and disrespectful to the athletes on this year's team to constantly be bringing up something that happened in 2012 when most of them were not part of it."
And with that, every newspaper, broadcaster and sports commentator proceeded to compare the success of our current Olympic swimming team to previous ones.
There’s no doubt that our swimmers have done us proud, bringing home a total of 10 medals in the pool, and yet, there’s this feeling that they could have been a whole lot better.
Take the Campbell sisters – before every event Cate and sister Bronte raced, people like Giaan Rooney would tell us that she expects them to finish first and second.
Neither of them will come home with individual medals.
Cate came out yesterday and described her 100m freestyle loss as, “possibly the greatest choke in Olympic history.”
The weight of expectation from the media, the armchair experts, former athletes and the Olympians themselves (our swimmers have talked up their own chances in the past) is not only being felt by our swimmers but other Australian athletes competing in Rio.
The Boomers took it to Team USA in their pool round and a dejected Andrew Bogut could not have been more disappointed with the result.
Then there’s the other side of the coin – what happens when there's no expectation on an athlete or team.
I am a mad, one-eyed Cronulla Sharks supporter and let me tell you, I did not see 2016 being such a successful year for my Sharkies.
In fact, I’ve never gotten to the beginning of the NRL season and thought to myself, “this might be our year.”
This season has been the most successful in the club’s history with 15 straight wins, which is a club record and the second longest winning streak in NRL history.
I don’t know what the difference is this year but Cronulla are playing like a team with nothing to lose because, simply put, they have nothing to lose.
I hope our Olympians who are yet to compete will not let the weight of expectation affect their performances and that Cronulla continue to defy everyone’s expectation.
Kelsey Sutor
