Cody Simpson on the difference between music and swimming

Cody Simpson’s recently achieved his childhood dream of qualifying for the Olympic swimming trials.

And in a new interview, the former pop star opened up about the difference between his music career and his sporting ambitions.

‘As a musician, it’s one of those professions and skill sets that you can take with you and do at a high level for the majority of your life,’ the 23-year-old explained on the Inside with Brett Hawke podcast.

‘You can quite typically play music at a high level until you’re 80, and people do,’ he continued.

‘Obviously in elite sport that window is much smaller at which you can excel at a high level.’

Cody shot to fame in the music world in 2010 with his hit single iYiYi featuring rapper Flo-rida.

He recently made the cut by swimming the 100m butterfly in 54.9 seconds, beating the qualifying benchmark of 56.87 seconds.

The hunky star uploaded a photo of himself posing triumphantly by a pool and shared an impassioned essay about making his Olympic dreams come true.

‘I’d love to share this personal milestone and let you in on my current journey as an athlete that I’ve kept relatively low key until now,’ he wrote on the post.

‘I have had the chance to experience so much as a musician from touring in arenas around the world, releasing top 10 albums, playing a leading man on Broadway, publishing a work of poetry, travelling with and speaking at the United Nations on environmental and oceanic matters and much more,’ he continued.

‘For years I had been fuelled by the silent fire in my stomach of returning to my first love, the sport of swimming, with the idea that 2020 would be my year to have a crack at training again.

‘After only 5 months back in the water training with my incredible coach, I was able to take out a win and secure a spot at next years Australian Olympic trials in the 100 fly.’

Cody’s swimming coach Brett Hawke meanwhile praised Cody’s efforts on Instagram and wrote: ‘We’ve been training only … in a country club pool for five months during the pandemic.’

‘He did his first set of training dives in a real pool two weeks ago. He qualified for the Australian Olympic trials in his first attempt. Not bad for a pop star,’ he added.