Maxwell's Story
Dual Olympian, Max Metzker, was an exceptional freestyle distance swimmer. He competed in the 400 metres and 1500 metres freestyle events at Montreal 1976 with a best placing of sixth in the longer event (Steven Holland finished third).
Four years later, at Moscow 1980, he was the Australian team’s joined flag-bearer, with Denise Robertson, at the opening ceremony. At those boycott-ravaged Olympics, Australia was one of sixteen teams that marched behind the Olympic flag.
In the Moscow pool, he won the bronze medal in the 1500 metres freestyle in a race in which the winner, Vladimir Salnikov from the USSR, broke the 15-minute barrier for the first time. Metzker’s medal in what is often called ‘Australia’s Olympic event’ was the last before Kieren Perkins’s world-record shattering win in 1992. Also in Moscow, Metzker made the finals in the 400 metres freestyle and swam in the heats of the 4 x 200 metres freestyle relay.
