The swimmer who got to the Paris Olympics without training in the pool
By Helen Pitt
Former world record holder Clementine Stoney Maconachie, who swam for Australia at the Sydney 2000 Olympics in the 200-metre backstroke, didn’t expect to be heading to Paris this week.
Then again, the 42-year-old , who had spent much of her teens plying the pool in her NSW home town of Albury, also never expected her swimming career to end as abruptly as it did.
Not long after she broke the 200-metre backstroke world record at the Australian Short Course Championships in Perth in 2001, she was struck by a virus.
Olympian and sculptor Clementine Stoney Maconachie with her sculpture on display as part of the Olympic Games in Paris. Credit: Jack E Phillips
“I went from an elite athlete to not being able to walk, it was quite confronting,” Stoney Maconachie said.
Training for the Sydney Olympics, backstroker Clementine Stoney, used a drink bottle to fine tune her balance in the Olympic Pool.Credit: Rod Taylor
Before she had the chance to prove her mettle as the world’s best female 200-metre backstroker at the Pan Pacific Games in 2002, she had to give up swimming altogether because of post-viral syndrome. Until then, swimming had been her life’s purpose and passion. She has a black pool line tattooed on her left arm in honour of the hours she’d spent training.
“I’d wanted Olympic rings as a tattoo, but the compromise was a pool line. For two years I slept for 20 hours a day, then 18 hours a day, and slowly over time I returned to regular functioning,” she said.
When she was well enough she began working as a model and in retail as a window dresser for fashion brand Sass & Bide. It was doing this work she learnt a new love for sculpture, much like her love for swimming.
She married, and had three children – including a set of twins – and started her own freelance visual consultancy while making art in wood, steel and brass on the side.
Now six of those works have been selected to take part in Olympian Artists, an exhibition opening on July 25 at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris as part of the 2024 Olympics. She’s one of only six Olympians-turned artists selected by the International Olympic Committee to take part.
Former Olympic swimmer and world record-holder Clementine Stoney Maconachie with some of her sculptures in her Botany studio. Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
She joins Luc Abalo and Enzo Lefort from France, Canadian Brooklyn McDougall, Guy Concepción who competed for the Philippines and Annabel Eyres from Great Britain, whose art is inspired by sport and the Olympic values of excellence, respect, friendship and fair play.
Stoney Maconachie described her work as minimal and simple, based on movement and the line of the pool.
“I never tired of the black line in the pool, I still love swimming.” she said. She often swims at Botany Aquatic Centre, near her studio in an industrial estate.
Olympian turned artist Clementine Stoney Maconachie at work in her Botany studio.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
She’s snagged tickets to two nights of Olympic swimming events next week, where she’ll be cheering on the Australian team. And no, she won’t be swimming in the Seine.
“It’s such an honour to take part in this exhibition,” she said, “and a really nice way to end my Olympic journey, which always felt unfinished.”
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