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As someone with a fierce love for my own sibling, I was incredibly excited to sit down for a new episode of The Australian Women’s Weekly Love Stories podcast with sisters – and Olympic legends – Bronte and Cate Campbell.
They were the first siblings to qualify to compete for Australia at the same event in the Olympic Games back in 2012. Each would compete in four Olympics in total, between them taking home an impressive 12 medals, seven of them gold.
Their love for the pool has been well documented, as has the role they played in spurring each other on to success. But, I wondered, what role did their other siblings play in shaping these two extraordinary women?
As we nestled into the couch to dig deep on all the times love has shaped them, Bronte and Cate spoke about the special relationship they have with their younger siblings, but especially their brother Hamish. Here are the highlights.
Who are Bronte and Cate Campbell’s siblings?
Born in Malawi in 1992 to Eric (an accountant) and Jenny (a nurse), Cate is the eldest Campbell sibling. Bronte was born two years later, before Abigail joined the growing family in 1996.
“I used to take her around like a little doll,” Bronte recalled of Abigail’s arrival.
Two years after that, their only brother, Hamish, was born. He arrived on Bronte’s fourth birthday.
His birth was a difficult one, they told me on the podcast, which led to Hamish sustaining oxygen deprivation, which resulted in cerebral palsy. He is nonverbal and requires constant care.
Youngest sister Jessica arrived three years later, after the family relocated to Australia in 2001.
Growing up with Hamish
Hamish’s disability, they both told me, may have reshaped their family dynamic in terms of organising how close he needed to be to hospitals and his care, but it wasn’t a negative by any means.
“I think it’s a real testament to our parents that we loved Hamish totally and completely for who he was, not for what he could and couldn’t do”, Cate told me. “There was never a discussion about all the things that he wouldn’t get to do in his life. Or a longing or a wistfulness around what life could have been if he hadn’t had the traumatic birth.
“We just grew up loving him for how he was,” Bronte added. “He’s a very joyful person in general. And he was always included. He didn’t have a choice; we just sort of dragged him along! When he was younger, we could carry him and just run around with him. And he didn’t have much say in it, to be honest. Hamish has been co-opted into being part of the girl group.”
As Bronte and Cate worked hard in the pool to chase their childhood dream, they told me they had a great reminder at home of perspective.
“We would come back from a bad training session, and you’d be angry or frustrated,” Cate recalled. “And Hamish would be sitting by the front door – which is where he’d sit when Mum was making dinner. You’d see him there and say, ‘Hey Hamish,’ and he’d give you a big smile and a chuckle. And you’re like, ‘Yeah, okay, my life isn’t so bad.’
“You’d ask him, ‘Do you want some water?’ You can tell when he wants something. And if he indicates that yes, he does want something, I’m like, ‘Well, how long has he been sitting there thirsty and he hasn’t been able to communicate something like that?’ It’s a very grounding perspective.”
In addition, the sisters said that early on, Hamish meant they were given a great lesson in recognising the importance and impact of diversity.
“It helped us recognise diversity and the way people contribute to society,” Cate explained. “Hamish brings so much joy to our lives and the lives of people around us. And it was great to be able to grow up in and around that.”
A new health challenge for Hamish
When Bronte and Cate made their history splash at the 2012 London Olympics, Hamish, their sisters and their parents were there to cheer them on from the stands. But after waving them off once the swimming events wrapped up on that first week, things took a terrible turn.
“Hamish got really, really sick immediately afterwards,” Cate revealed for the first time on the podcast.
Bronte and Cate were out celebrating the closing ceremony when they arrived back at the village to find a frantic message left by their mother.
“Mum was saying, ‘Hamish is in intensive care, and we don’t know if he’s going to make it,” Cate said now of that heart-stopping moment.
“I felt like we were sitting in the eye of the storm, because all of this whirlwind was happening around us, and everybody was happy and celebrating. And we just sat on the floor of our rooms and cried.”
They were then forced to make the long journey home, hoping against hope that the worst hadn’t taken place.
“It was just horrible,” Bronte told me. “Because this is a time when mobile roaming was not really a thing. So you’re just left in suspension for 24 hours. What’s going to happen at the other end when I land? Do I still have a brother?”
Coming off the plane to await fanfare felt surreal to the sisters. All they wanted was to go home.
“Bronte and I pretty much stepped off the plane and stepped into running the household,” Cate said of what came next. “Getting our younger siblings to school and trying to resume life as normal. So the comedown from that Games was very steep.”
“There wasn’t a lot of processing time,” Bronte nodded in agreement. “It was straight into survival mode for quite a long time for our family. Hamish has been quite sick since then. We were always able to manage his disability. It’s the sickness that has come with it that has been the harder bit to navigate since then.”
His health now, they shared, is a constant concern for their family. “He requires a lot of care,” Bronte said of what life has looked like in the aftermath. “He’s actually had quite a bit stint of being out of hospital, but he’s been in the hospital for a little bit, and he’s back out again now. It’s been a constant thing to navigate.
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