The world’s fastest swimmer, Cam McEvoy, says he hasn’t ruled out the tantalising prospect of linking up with Australia’s 4x100m freestyle relay team at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics in a bid to become the first men’s Dolphins group to win gold since Ian Thorpe’s famous squad at Sydney 2000.
It comes as McEvoy declared Australia were a “good shot” of sweeping the freestyle gold medals at the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and revealed to this masthead he will skip the Pan Pacific Championships that follow in California.
McEvoy, a world champion and Olympic gold medallist, broke the men’s 50m freestyle world record in March in a time of 20.88 seconds.
Now a specialist in the one-lap dash, there have been calls for McEvoy, still the Australian record holder in the 100m freestyle, to put his hand up as a relay swimmer alongside Kyle Chalmers.
McEvoy says it’s not on his radar this year, given the specific training required for the 50m freestyle, but admitted it had crossed his mind and he had thought about how he could make adaptations to his training.
It’s an event in which the United States had won gold at every Olympics until Thorpe famously mowed down Gary Hall Jr at Sydney 2000. Thorpe followed a world record swim from Australia’s lead-off man Michael Klim, who then played an air guitar as payback to the American sprint king who declared in the lead-up his team would “smash Australia like guitars”.
Australia claimed silver behind the USA at the last Olympics in Paris in 2024, but the prospect of beating the Americans in Los Angeles might be enough to tempt McEvoy into what would shape as one of the biggest events of the Games.
The only issue is the men’s 50m freestyle (day five) is now slightly closer to the 4x100m freestyle relay (day one) on the Olympic swimming program. If McEvoy did both, it could jeopardise his favoured individual event.
“It’s something I’m curious about,” McEvoy said at Wednesday’s design reveal of Australia’s R.M. Williams ceremonial wear for the Commonwealth Games opening and closing ceremonies.
“My one goal is just to prioritise and protect the 50 freestyle for LA. I want to have that title defence centre of my mind.
“I am very interested in how it would go if I did it. If I can throw a little bit of 100 metre stuff in [to my training] in the time being, that’d be great. As long as it works around the 50.
“I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about it. I’m also going to be four years older in LA compared to Paris. There’s a lot to take into account. I also have no data in terms of how a 100 metre [distance] would go based on my current model. I’ll have a think about it.”
McEvoy is all-in on the Commonwealth Games, which begin on July 23, having never won an individual gold medal from two previous campaigns in Glasgow (2014) and the Gold Coast (2018).
He won three silver medals in the 50m, 100m and 200m freestyle in 2014.
Asked whether he was more focused on winning gold or lowering his world record in Scotland, McEvoy said: “This is the one I haven’t won. I’d like to add that to the resume. But in that process, I’d like to throw down a pretty good time. It is known to be a pretty quick pool over in Glasgow as well. That’s quite enticing to me.”
Australia’s swimmers have been synonymous with success at the Commonwealth Games, winning 25 gold medals to England’s eight in Birmingham four years ago and topping every swimming medal tally since 1978.
With the likes of McEvoy, Kyle Chalmers, Sam Short, Meg Harris, Mollie O’Callaghan and Lani Pallister on the team, it has raised the prospect of Australia sweeping all the men’s and women’s freestyle events in Glasgow.
The men’s 200m freestyle looms as the most difficult, but with Canada’s Summer McIntosh not competing – she is prioritising the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships – McEvoy said it wasn’t out of the equation.
“It’s not going to be a walk in the park … but I certainly think we’ve got a good shot,” McEvoy said. “I’ll have a really good time sitting on pool deck watching them all try.”
Unlike most of Australia’s swimmers, McEvoy has decided to sit out the Pan Pacs in Irvine in August – an event that pits the Dolphins against non-European nations such as the USA and Canada.
“At this point in time, I’ve got the world record and I want to get the gold for Commies. I just don’t want to be away from my family for an extended period of time,” McEvoy said.
“Pan Pacs adds another three weeks to the trip. [Wife] Maddi and [son] Hartley are staying in Australia for this tour and we’ll go overseas for world shortcourse later in the year.”
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Tom Decent is the chief sports writer for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.