20/09/2026
With eight Olympic appearances and seven gold medals between them, swimmers Cate and Bronte Campbell are celebrated in Australian sporting history as the ‘Sisters of Speed.’ Born in landlocked Malawi, they learned to swim in the shallows of Lake Malawi under the guidance of their mother, Jenny, a former synchronised swimmer. The experience prepared them for anything. Cate recalls that, at age eight, she and her siblings jumped from their father’s boat and heard the chilling ‘puff’ sound of a nearby rogue hippopotamus—one of Africa’s deadliest animals—which had killed two villagers.
In the pool, the sisters were equally territorial, commanding their lanes on the world’s biggest stages. Alongside four gold, one silver and three bronze Olympic medals, Cate holds the world record in the women’s 100m freestyle (short course) and broke the 100m freestyle long-course record in 2016. She also contributed to world-record performances by Australia’s women’s 4x100m freestyle and 4x100m medley relay teams. At the Tokyo 2020 Games, she and basketballer Patty Mills were honoured by being named Australia’s flagbearers.
In 2012, Bronte and Cate became the first Australian sisters to compete in the same swimming event at an Olympic Games, racing in the women’s 50m freestyle in London. Bronte later won three Olympic gold medals as part of Australia’s dominant women’s 4x100m freestyle relay team. Among her many other achievements, she became only the third woman in history to win both the 50m and 100m freestyle world titles, completing the feat in 2015.
