By Tania Phillips
Braving long drives and cold mornings to keep training as a teen has paid dividends for Stanthorpe’s Ben Armbruster with the 22-year-old set to fly out this weekend bound for France and his Olympic dream.
Armbruster set the pool alight at Chandler in Brisbane over the past week with a slew of personal bests and second places against more fancied opponents at the Australian Olympic trials.
And then on Saturday night, in front of family, friends and Stanthorpe swimming coach Gail Smail – the woman who taught him to swim and encouraged him in his swimming journey – he was officially named in the Australian Dolphins team for the Paris Olympics due to start on 26 July.
Luckily, with the team named alphabetically the Stanthorpe contingent didn’t have long to wait with Ben announced second.
“Just the europhoria,” his excited mum Shannon Armbruster said of the feeling of watching her son as he was handed his symbolic ticket to the games.
“Watching that team announcement and seeing him come out, it’s indescribable you can’t put it into words, the emotions that are attached to watching your child become an Olympian – it’s amazing.
“We had friends and family there, Gail and Michael Smail were there too watching it made it even more special just to have her there. We watched him come out with his shirt on and he had his ticket it was awesome.
“We had a Dolphins breakfast in Brisbane on Sunday morning and we got the lowdown on all the information. Swimming Australia are extremely organised. Anna Meers is the chef demission for the tour and they have thought of absolutely everything so we’re extremely grateful for all the work they’ve put in for this because we had information before but on Sunday we found out so much more.
“I think Ben is on the second run of flights and he’ll leave on Saturday. He’s back into training this week believe it or not – like he said – jobs not done yet. He’s got to get to Paris and compete so they’re in for lots of hard work. He’s very excited.”
She said the family would like to go but it’s a matter of managing finances.
“Ben’s an unfunded athlete so it’s the bank of mum and dad literally. Anything he’s required previously that’s all on us paying for him -rent, food, car rego everything is on us – but you do what you do to get your kid where they want to be don’t you?. We make sacrifices but this has been the biggest sacrifice of our lives but look what it’s done, it’s taken all the pressure off him to reach that goal of being an Olympian so we’ll try and work things out and see how we go and hopefully we’ll get over there. “
Armbruster is set to swim in the 50m freestyle and 100m butterfly in Paris as well as featuring in relay teams. He booked his ticket to Paris with a sensational personal best swim on Wednesday in the 50m freestyle backing up on the Saturday night to make it two from two.
His 100m butterfly swim of 51.23 seconds saw him finish just behind seasoned campaigner Matthew Temple, 51.15 seconds.
“He took half a second off his time .44,” Shannon said.
“So he knew he had to drop down the time and he knew he had to stay as close to Matt Temple as possible. So he’s actually under the A cut for Australia so he will swim that as an individual event, he’s half a second under the world aquatic qualifying time. He will definitely swim it as an individual event with the 50 free. Unfortunately it clashes in the program again (as it did at the Australian titles in Southport earlier this year) to he’s going to have to be on his A game when he gets there.
“He’s ranked about 13th in the world at the moment in the 100m fly. In the top 10 Australian rankings for the 100m fly he’s now number four and in the 50m free, I think he’s eighth. You’ve also got the super suit era swimmers in there and they were swimming extremely fast with those suits then. They are all banned now, they are only in textiles now but we’re very excited for him and he’s only young and he’s only just started that elite journey so we are looking forward to what he can do.
“His coach Chris Mooney was just beside himself, it was really lovely.”
She said there was a video of his Bond teammates congratulating him on the Swimming Australia facebook page.
“That is something special, it makes you cry every single time you watch it.”
Armbruster went from hopeful to Olympian with his second behind seasoned 50m freestyle champion Cameron McEvoy.
Like his butterfly, his freestyle time of 21.84 was a personal best – 0.04 seconds under the qualifying time of 21.88.
Armbruster meant business right from the start signalling his intentions in the morning in the heat, where he swam a 21.91. It was a new PB and the first time the young Bond University student had ever swum under 22 seconds in competition.
After the race he was clearly excited to achieve his Olympic dream and honoured to be sharing the experience with Australia’s 50m king McEvoy.
“I can’t believe it,” he told Channel Nine in the pool deck interview.
“I don’t know what to say, I cannot wait. Going with this legend,” he added motioning to McEvoy. “I can’t wait to learn as much from him, be a sponge, soak everything up and have a crack.”
Despite Australia’s illustrious performances in the pool, an Australian man has never medalled in the 50 metre at the Olympics.
McEvoy told Channel Nine he hoped that they could change that statistic in Paris.
“I’ve been to three (Olympics) before, I’ve got three bronze, all in relays I’d like to get an individual medal, that would be cool, a cool stat to break,” he said.
The family was due to catch up with Armbruster this week down on the Gold Coast before the young swimmer heads to Paris. The team will acclimatise in France for the next few weeks before moving into the village just before the games begin.
