I’m here to do one thing,

That’s what I’m paid for,

That’s what I’m trained for.

So why are we talking about things

Irrelevant and useless,

Draining the life from me?

We can all do better,

So stop with the sniping

And let me get the result that you want.

We have the Commonwealth Games going on in Birmingham at the moment and there has been a bit of a fight between the Australian press and the swimmers which I have found really interesting.

It is Kyle Chalmers, the Australian 100m freestyle champion, who put out a statement on Instagram asking the Australian media to just back off if they really want the team to perform to their best.

Now, I haven’t done too much research into what has happened but I think a lot of the attention that has been stirred up has come from the fact that Cody Simpson has joined their team. He is an ex-pop star who toured with Justin Beiber and dated Miley Cyrus and and one of the Hadid sisters.

I’m kind of torn about how I feel about the way press intrude on athletes, because Chalmers has a point – they are there to swim, and the press are riling them up and making that difficult.

On the other hand, these guys are professionals and I think that everybody in the world has a responsibility to manage how they react to others. These swimmers are trained to get on with the job no matter what is going on in the outside world, and I’m actually quite surprised that Chalmers has got so upset about it.

I’ve never had the press intruding on my personal life though, so I can’t really comment and say that I would handle it any differently. I do wholeheartedly believe that people should be respected though, and perhaps the press need to back off and just judge these guys on what they are paid to do.

Much Love

Rachel xx