McSweyn Again | Track Star Back at Best

Protruded by only his gangly legs, Stewart McSweyn found himself curled into a ball on the grassy bank of a suburban track, gasping for every breath like his last. Entering the prime of his career, the man many regard as Australia’s greatest ever middle-distance talent suddenly looked a shell of his former self, and answers were sparse.

The record books will eternally indicate that 2022 was a good year for McSweyn. To date he has finished in the top-10 at the World Athletics Championships, complimented by a trio of results over 1500m (3:30.18), 3000m (7:31.93), and 5000m (12:56.50) that sit top-two in Australian history – performances that reveal nothing new about his ability yet an abundance about his character.

“If you just looked at that you would think everything flowed well, but everything in between was so up and down. I feel like I got up the mountain and then fell all the way back to the bottom,” McSweyn says.

“In some sense, I take more pride out of this season than any other. I have had a lot of things go wrong but I have been able to keep fighting and come out the other end strong running personal bests.”

After a bout of COVID-19 in January closely followed by a booster shot, the writing was on the wall. McSweyn would sweat profusely and accumulate lactic acid, the foe of any runner, at intensities that would normally see him lucky to blow out a candle.

The concern escalated when the King Island product failed the litmus test of a local 5000m race in March, veering off the track after 4000m with bulging eyes as though he had been strangled, resulting in his withdrawal from the World Athletics Indoor Championships after being diagnosed with pericarditis – inflammation around the heart.

“It was the unknown that scared me the most. In the back of my mind, I was wondering if I would ever get back to full health or my best at all. I physically couldn’t have finished that race. My body was about to shut down and I felt like I was going to collapse because I would start feeling dizzy,” McSweyn says. 

“It’s not nice to not finish a race but I was more worried about my health. I thought I might have done some serious damage and there was a chance I would never be able to run again.”

Scraping himself off the track, the resilient 27-year-old jetted to the international scene in May to attempt to rekindle his form, career, and identity ahead of the World Athletics Championships and Commonwealth Games – finding more questions than answers on the Diamond League circuit.

The distinctive beanpole renowned for grinding his competitors into the ground trailed his rivals by the length of the straight with times of 3:48.67 and 3:44.14 over 1500m, doing little to quash the rumours as word quickly spread about the front-running Australian’s woes, but not from those who mattered:

“I had to decide at that point if I was just going to call it a year and go home to get ready for next year, or have a crack at it and soldier on,” McSweyn says.

“This sport is result-based. People see the time and that I was 15-seconds off my best in a 1500m race, as if I hadn’t been training or was past my best. Whenever you have bad races, you have people telling you what you need to fix, but that’s when your support crew keeps you believing in the process.”

Prioritising his health with friends and family over an extended period while working closely with Athletics Australia’s Dr Paul Blackman, the persistent McSweyn had an inkling that his familiar powers were beginning to return – his body attempting to convince his mind that this time was different.

Testing and training numbers were encouraging, but he needed a definitive answer – one that could only be found by mustering the mental fortitude to stand on a start line prepared to fail once more. As the lap counter trickled down over 3000m, McSweyn went unfazed to deliver a scorching run of 7:31.93 on the eve of the World Championships. He was back.

“It gave me a lot of confidence, I felt like I was normal! The amount of support I received after that race was amazing. You don’t realise how many people follow your journey until something like that happens. I had people saying they almost cried because of how much it meant to them to see me get through that struggle,” McSweyn says.

The mere mortal may argue that McSweyn was more normal when he was sick than healthy, but normal for McSweyn translates to applying relentless pressure at the front of races on the global scene, which he was able to do at the World Athletics Championships when qualifying for the 1500m final – finishing in ninth place in a time of 3:33.24.

“In any sport, but especially running, you have to have a lot of self-belief that you can ride the wave. When you are down and out there is always going to be another opportunity to turn your form around,” McSweyn says.

Striding into top form for the championship season under unlikely circumstances, McSweyn’s valiant comeback could only be undone by another bout of bad luck, forced to withdraw from the Commonwealth Games with the flu - bedridden as his best medal-winning opportunity of the season sailed by.   

“You want to take any chance you can to represent your country, it’s why we run. It was disappointing for me, but six weeks earlier I was ready to go home. To be able to do at least one championship was such a relief,” McSweyn says.

Presented with yet another opportunity to raise the white flag, the Australian responded in typical fashion, returning to the Diamond League over 5000m to carve nine-seconds off his personal best en route to a 12:56.50 performance – a time just 0.74-seconds off Craig Mottram’s Australian record.

The result leaves McSweyn confident ahead of the Diamond League Final to be hosted in Zurich this week, where he will look to salvage further success from his turbulent season when taking to the 1500m:

“I should be right in the mix. Jakob [Ingebrigtsen] has only lost one race this year so he is probably a level ahead at the moment, but the goal is always to win. I will just give it my best and hopefully the result will take care of itself,” McSweyn says.

McSweyn is one of six Australians including Kelsey-Lee Barber, Nina Kennedy, Nicola Olyslagers, Matthew Denny, and Oliver Hoare who are set to compete in Zurich from September 7-8.

By Lachlan Moorhouse, Athletics Australia
Posted: 6/9/2022