MURDOCH Ross

General
DEFINING SWIM
He said in 2019 that he still felt defined by his gold medal in the 200m breaststroke at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland. He has described that medal as the "best and worst thing that ever happened" to him, and says he still hopes to break that personal best time. "Success for me looks like a personal best time I've been looking for since 2014. That swim at the minute still defines my career. I think the result will always define me, not only from a media point of view, from a spectator point of view, but from my own personal point of view - there can't be much to top that swim. But, in terms of the time, I'm not very happy I peaked at [age] 20. I still feel like I've got more to give. Of course, it would be amazing to win an Olympic gold medal and for that to be the thing I'm known for rather than Glasgow. Maybe that's not realistic, but nobody is fighting to lose." (eveningexpress.co.uk, 02 Jul 2019; thenational.scot, 01 Dec 2019; bbc.com, 14 Mar 2019)

PASSION REKINDLED
He contemplated retiring after he failed to qualify for the 100m breaststroke final at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. "There absolutely was a time when I didn't think I was going to come back. I thought, 'I don't want to go through that again. I really don't want to build myself up for four years and then have this thing that you thought was going to be the pinnacle of your sporting career be so underwhelming'. It wasn't until March last year [2017] that I found a love for swimming again. There was a day when I sat down with my coach and my psychologist and my nutritionist and I was like, 'Right, I'm just letting you know that I'm screwing the nut and I'm going to make it'. I like the structure of swimming, I like the discipline, I enjoy racing, I want to compete. Competitiveness is in my blood and I need to do it." After the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he again considered quitting. "A few weeks into lockdown I was thinking - can I really see myself hacking through this for another year? I really wasn't sure if I wanted to. I had an asterisk beside my name on the British Swimming funding because if I didn't make the Olympic team, I'd lose my funding and that's a tough place to be. It puts a lot of pressure on you, and did I really want to be the guy that was hanging on with the asterisk beside his name and didn't make it, or do I want to go out on my own terms?" (bbc.co.uk, 30 Mar 2018; heraldscotland.com, 06 Jan 2018; scotsman.com, 01 May 2021)

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
He could not afford a proper swimming suit until age 18, when he began receiving funding from Scottish Swimming. "The suits had been too expensive, so I would turn up for races in trunks I'd been wearing for months. They were baggy but I was still racing PBs. To be honest I didn't need anything else. I prided myself on being that guy who didn't need the racing trunks, the fancy suit or the money. I grew up in an ex-council house my granny bought before she died. That's the sort of upbringing I had. I wouldn't change it for the world." (thescottishsun.co.uk, 01 Apr 2018)