Max McCusker

I was always talented in the water, right?

I always had a natural affinity to water.

And it's a place of peace, right?

When you put your head under the water, there's no one's talking to you.

It's just you and your thoughts or you just pushing yourself.

So there's that part I always thought.

But my dream was always like when you're a little kid, it's a win the Olympic gold medal.

As you get older, you start understanding how rare that is.

So it kind of shifted towards, you know, just making the Olympic Games.

I missed the Tokyo 2021 Games by a couple of hundredths of a second, maybe.

Pretty much straight after Paris Olympics, I retired due to like mainly financial reasons, but just had no support or funding from the governing body.

So just decided that, you know what, I've made my childhood career dream and I had to go work in the corporate world for a bit.

Yeah, so it was actually an old teammate who reached out to me, Shane Ryan, and was like, there's a spot for a butterfly swimmer.

I've told them about you and I've told them that you might be interested.

I always thought there was more for me.

I always thought I was continuously improving.

And then, yeah, I kind of went from there, started speaking with the team and the coach.

And then before you know it, I was out on a plane to the training camp.

For sure.

I'd be lying if I said there wasn't.