By Jim Morris

For years the bronze medal Brent Hayden earned at the London 2012 Olympic Games was buried in his sock drawer, a reminder of the physical and mental anguish that drove him to retire from swimming.

That medal now sits beside Hayden’s bed, an expression of the happiness swimming brings him.

“It’s a really unique feeling when there’s a part of you that you think is gone forever, and then you find it again,” he said.

Hayden announced in October 2019 he was ending a seven-year retirement and returning to swimming with the goal of competing at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which were then delayed a year due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. He capped his two-year journey by leading the men’s 4×100-metre freestyle relay to a Canadian record and a fraction of a second off the podium at the Tokyo Games. He also narrowly missed the 50-m freestyle final with a ninth-place performance, the top individual finish in the pool among Canadian men.

In honour of his achievements in the water and contributions outside the pool Hayden has been named Swimming Canada’s Male Swimmer of the Year.

“I actually wasn’t ever considering coming back to try to be the best swimmer in Canada,” said Hayden, who accomplished the feat training under Performance Coach Tom Johnson at the High Performance Centre – Vancouver. “To be able to accomplish that really means a lot. It just kind of further validates all the hard work I put in. It also validates the decision I made to come back, not just to try to make it back to the Olympics, but to kind of prove something to myself.

“It was not the perfect journey but I think the challenges and the obstacles have made what I did accomplish that much more valuable.”

This is the fourth time Hayden has been named Canada’s top male swimmer and certainly the first with a 14-year gap between awards. But he’s a different person from the one who last won in 2007.

“I just have a different outlook on everything,” he said. “This was all about just trying to find my love for the sport again that was taken away from me in (2012) with my struggles with mental health.

“The ultimate prize for me was to rediscover that part of myself that I’d lost so many years ago.”

Hayden retired from swimming soon after finishing third in the 100-m freestyle in London. At the time he dealt with agonizing back pain and crushing depression. Swimming simply wasn’t fun anymore.

When Hayden made the decision to come out of retirement he knew there would be challenges, but he didn’t expect a worldwide pandemic that would delay the Tokyo Games a year, close pools and cancel competitions.

Like the rest of the world, Hayden learned to adapt. He wore a wetsuit and swam in a lake near his home in New Westminster, B.C., or tethered himself to a fence and trained in his parents’ backyard pool in Mission.

“It just goes to show the importance of adaptability,” he said. “Just because things aren’t working out perfectly, you can still find ways to get around them. You just need to be able to take a step back and re-evaluate your strategies to move forward.”

Hayden cleared the final hurdle in his Olympic quest when he qualified for the Tokyo Games by winning the 50-m freestyle in 21.82 seconds at the Olympic Swimming Trials, presented by Bell.

Competing in his first trials in nine years, the 37-year-old became the oldest Canadian Olympic swimmer of all time and Canada’s first four-time Olympic swimmer.

In Tokyo Hayden reached the 50-m semifinals, finishing tied for ninth. His time of 21.82 seconds was .09 off his Canadian record set at the 2009 FINA World Championships.

In the relay, Hayden teamed with Josh Liendo, Yuri Kisil and Markus Thormeyer to swim a Canadian record time of three minutes, 10.82 seconds, just sixth tenths behind third-place Australia.

Hayden led off the relay in a time of 47.99 seconds, making him the oldest swimmer ever under 48 seconds in the 100 free.

“That relay was so special,” he said. “Nobody expected us to be in the final. And there we were, pushing all the way.”

It also was special for Hayden that the swimmer following him into the water was the 19-year-old Liendo.

“I feel like there’s a lot of symbolism in that relay exchange,” he said. “It was kind of like passing the torch to Josh.”

Hayden just missed winning a second Olympic medal but sees a bigger victory in helping to raise awareness around the issues of mental health.

“Coming back to the sport I’ve noticed more people talking about mental health,” he said. “I get people reaching out to me all the time thanking me for talking about it.

“That has been another whole aspect of this journey. If I can leave with anything it would be leaving the sports community in a better place than when I found it.”

Hayden hasn’t decided if he will go for the Paris 2024 Olympics, which are just two years away.

“I’m thinking about it,” he said. “I think I’ve still got some more left in me.

“I’m not saying yes or no, but I would love to. But I’ve put so much of my life on hold for the last two years. Some things just can’t keep waiting for me.”

No matter what he decides, Hayden is happy with the road he’s travelled.

“I’ve had an absolute blast along this journey, even with the challenges we’ve faced along the way,” he said. “The most important thing was I rediscovered that part of myself again.”