Brad Cooper

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This article is about the Australian swimmer. For the Bahamas discus thrower see Brad Cooper (discus thrower), for the disgraced Sydney businessman see HIH Insurance

Men’s swimming
Olympic medal record
Gold	1972 Munich	400 m freestyle

Bradford ("Brad") Paul Cooper (born July 19, 1954 in Singapore) was an Australian freestyle and backstroke swimmer of the 1970s, who won a gold medal in the 400 m freestyle at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. He is the only Australian to have won an Olympic gold medal after finishing second, after the International Olympic Committee stripped American swimmer Rick DeMont for taking a banned asthma drug.

The second of three brothers, Cooper moved with his family to Rockhampton, Queensland at the age of three. His father was the proprietor of a water-ski centre, and arranged for him to have swimming lessons at the age of six. Cooper had a disrupted childhood education, as his family moved between Queensland and New South Wales to change swimming coaches, attending no less than five different primary schools and nine different high schools in the process. Amongst his many coaches in his early years was John Konrads, himself a prolific world-record breaking swimmer and Olympic gold medallist. In 1969, at the national junior championships, Cooper came second in both the 100 m and 200 m backstroke.

Cooper was then sent by his father to board and train in Sydney with Don Talbot. This paid dividends at the 1971 Australian Championships, when he won both the 100 m and 200 m backstroke, the latter in an Australian record time. He also came second in the 400 m freestyle behind fellow Talbot swimmer Graham Windeatt, surpassing the previous Australian record. This earned Cooper selection for a national team to tour Europe for competitive experience.

In January 1972, Cooper hit the headlines when he broke the 800 m freestyle world record. Within a month, at the Australian Championships in Brisbane, he won the 400 m and 1500 m freestyle events and the 100 m and 200 m backstroke, showing versatility over a large range of distances. This included a world record in the 400 m freestyle, while his 1500 m freestyle time was only 0.6s outside the world record. He was went to Munich as one of the favourites in both the 400 m and 1500 m freestyle events.

In the 400 m event, Cooper contested the race with DeMont and West Germany's Werner Lampe who attacked immediately. In the end Lampe faded, and DeMont touched just 0.01s ahead of Cooper. DeMont was awarded the gold medal. Both then easily qualified for the 1500 m freestyle final, but news came through afterwards that DeMont had been disqualified from the 400 m and the 1500 m final, due to a positive test for ephedrine after American officials haad forgotten to register his asthma drug Marax. The International Olympic Committee initially decided to leave the gold medal vacant, until a protest from the Australian delegation resulted in Cooper being awarded the gold medal.

The controversy appeared to affect Cooper in the 1500 m freestyle final. He finished seventh, twenty seconds slower than his time in the heats, and more than hald a minute slower than his personal best. His performance in the 200 m backstroke placed him fourth, after lowering his personal best by three seconds, although it was two seconds slower than the bronze medal winner. He also placed fifth in the 4x200 m freestyle relay with Windeatt, Michael Wenden and Robert Nay.

After the Olympics, Talbot left to become a coach in Canada, forcing Cooper to return to Brisbane to train with Harry Gallagher. In 1973, he was the Australian Champion in the 200 m, 400 m and 800 m freestyle, and the 100 m and 200 m backstroke. However, he continued to switch coaches throughout the year, also training with Allan Wood and Tony Fraser. He went on the compete at the 1973 World Aquatics Championships in Belgrade, where media interest surrounded his 400 m and 1500 m frestyle races against DeMont. In the 400 m, both broke the world record and broke the four minute barrier for the first time, with DeMont finishing ahead of Cooper. Cooper also finished behind DeMont in the 1500 m, but the race was won by Australian Stephen Holland, who broke his own world record. Cooper also won a silver medal as part of the 4x200 m freestyle relay. Cooper was then awarded a swimming scholarship to Miami University, but was unable to enrol as he had not finished his secondary education in Australia.

At the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, he was upset in the 100 m backstroke by fellow Australian Mark Tonelli and finished in third, but set a new Australian record in the 200 m backstroke to win gold. In the freestyle events, he managed a silver in the 400 m, three seconds outside his best, and finished last in the 1500 m freestyle, one minute slower than his best. He then won the 400 m freestyle and 200 m backstroke at the Australian Championships, and then retired, saying that "I was sick of the daily grind".

Cooper later worked in periods in the newspaper industry as a journalist, as well as becoming a swimming coach and running a swimming pool.