Australia and swimming: is it bigger over there?

The Coffee Shop
1

While looking at some videos of elite swimmers I came across this one of Robert Hurley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf5m_BvsfPw

About two thirds of the way through the video I noticed cheerleaders in the background. I’m not that familiar with swimming in the U.S. but I’ve never seen cheerleaders at a meet. This made me wonder: is swimming just bigger/more popular in Australia on a relative basis? Would it be the equivalent of golf or hockey here in the U.S?

2

Standard club or regional meets is basically just family that goes to watch, probably could say that about State champs as well.

It’s not until you get up to Nationals (particularly if it’s a selection year, ie Olympics, Comm Games) that you get the big crowds. Nationals, Worlds, Pan Pacs etc are all shown live on network TV as well. Elite swimming is a big sport here and every kid learns to swim through their school program.

We don’t have the college system here that you guys have. It’s just club, state, national.

The cheerleaders you saw would have just been a group of fans dressed the same. Nothing like football cheerleaders.

3

I swam club, state, nationals in Australia.
I also swam club, state, national, college in the U.S.

I never saw someone who was not a parent or swimmer watching a meet in the U.S.
There were not huge numbers of unafiliated spectators at Australian national meets either.
The stands could get pretty full though. I suspect friends, family and local non-qualified swimmers came to watch for entertainment.

Other differences:

  1. Australia has many many more pools that are accessible to the public.
  2. Australia has more competitive swimmers per capita. It does not necessarily have more summer league/recreational swimmers. There are lots of these in the u.s.
  3. Australia does not have college swimming. Most fast swimmers quit at 17 years of age. (Time to get a job or focus on studies).
  4. Masters sports of (all kinds) is much bigger in Australia.
4

One year, we actually had cheerleaders show up to our swim meets. Apparently, someone complained that only the ‘popular’ sports got cheered. The administration, in their infinite quest to please whiners, decided that there needed to be a cheer presence at all events, male and female, regardless of sport. Other people whined. The idea got scratched.

5

We used to get 2 or 3 come to our meets in high school sometimes (in the US). In their defense, there were usually multiple events going on (swimming, wrestling, basketball) on Friday evenings. I never saw any in college, though.