Citing misogyny, Aussie swimmer pulls out of Olympic trials

Veteran swimmer Mitch Larkin, who has been teammates with Groves, said the complaints “broke my heart a little bit.”

“I certainly want to find out and get to the bottom of it if she does have some issues,” Larkin said in Adelaide, South Australia, where the Olympic trials start Saturday. “We have got an athlete integrity officer and a well-being officer and she can certainly talk to them as well as sports psychs and really try and dig to the bottom of those issues.

“And if there is a culture issue, we would absolutely love to change it.”

Swimming is Australia’s highest-profile Olympic sport, regularly delivering the most medals for the country. So the trials are a big deal.

Musician and wannabe Olympian Simpson was a successful junior swimmer before moving to the U.S. in 2010 and making it on the music scene.

In a promotional video for a sponsor, he joked about having a vastly different lifestyle now that he was focused on swimming again, saying he used to go to bed at 5 a.m. when he was a performer and now he wakes up at that hour to practice.

The 24-year-old Simpson has featured this month in the Amazon original series “Head Above Water” with Ian Thorpe, Australia’s most decorated swimmer and now his mentor. Simpson is seeded 13th on times in the 100-meter butterfly and 70th in the 100 freestyle, and concedes he probably is a better prospect for the 2024 Olympics. Heats for the 100 free start Tuesday.