Cody Simpson (swimming) continued his remarkable transformation from pop star to elite swimmer in 2022, qualifying for his first Dolphins team at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games where he won gold and silver medals for heat swims in the 4x100m freestyle and 4x100m medley. He also contested the 50m butterfly and 100m butterfly, reaching the final in the latter.

Coming from a strong swimming pedigree – parents Brad Simpson and Angie Greenwood were both Australian champions – Cody was a talented swimmer in his youth and trained under Ken Nixon at the Miami Swim Club on the Gold Coast, winning two gold medals at the 2009 Queensland Age Championships. However, music beckoned and Simpson released his first single “iYiYi” in May 2010 aged 14. Over the next decade he released four albums, sang the lead in Anastasia on Broadway in 2018 and 2019 and won the first season of The Masked Singer Australia in the same year.

In 2019, Simpson decided to return to swimming, initially joining the University of Southern California Trojans in the USA under Australian dual Olympian and Commonwealth Games representative Brett Hawke before returning to the Gold Coast in early 2021 to train with Michael Bohl’s elite Griffith University squad.