Aussie Olympic swimming legend Cate Campbell announces ‘surprise’ engagement

Four-time Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer Cate Campbell has announced her engagement to longtime partner Adam Kerr.

The 33-year-old took to Instagram on Sunday night to break the news, describing the proposal as a ‘complete and wonderful surprise’.

“Last Saturday while watching the sun rise at our new local beach, Adam turned and said: “Cate, I have a question for you.” I thought maybe he was going to ask what kind of plants to put in our gardens, what kind of dog we should get, or what we should make for dinner. Instead, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Of course, I said ‘yes’…(and cried a lot),” she wrote.

“Simply the perfect way to start the next chapter of our lives.”

Fellow swimming champions Shayna Jack, Emma McKeon and Giaan Rooney were among those quick to pay tribute.

Campbell told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2023 Kerr didn’t know who she was when they met five years previously. The pair split when she moved to Sydney for her swimming career, but reconnected when she returned to Brisbane, the city her family settled in after moving from her native Malawi in 2001.

“He didn’t know who I was and he maintains he never Googled me – he wasn’t star struck, she said.

“We reconnected when I moved back to Brisbane and have been together ever since. He knows what sport means to me.”

Campbell, who with sister Bronte in 2012 became the first Australian siblings on an Olympic team in four decades, represented Australia at four Games, winning gold at three.

She was part of three consecutive 4x100m freestyle wins in London, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, and was also a member of Australia’s gold medal-winning medley relay team at the delayed Games in Japan in 2021.

A former 100m freestyle world record holder, Campbell still holds the short-course mark set at the Australian championships in 2017.