The promising athlete Jack marks her return to competitive swimming after serving a “hellish” suspension for doping. Excited to be back in the Olympic pool and compete again, the young swimmer is grateful for the opportunity to resume her career after such a controversial period.

Perhaps Ariarne Titmus, Kaylee McKeown, or Mollie O'Callaghan are the most coveted names on the powerful Australian swimming team. However, in this aquatic expedition, Jack’s journey “from hell” to get her head back above water is pure perseverance.

Indeed, her suspension may have somewhat diminished her standing within the talented Australian team. But there is something that cannot be taken from Jack: the “excitement” of competing again. The 25-year-old freestyle swimmer was banned from professional participation for four years despite proclaiming her innocence repeatedly and insisting that contamination was the channel through which the substance entered her body.

Jack's case draws several similarities to this year’s Chinese doping scandal, where 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for trimetazidine, a heart medication, before the Tokyo Games. To the surprise of many, these athletes avoided sanctions as the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) acceptedthe Asian authorities’ explanation of food contamination.

However, a recent independent report asserted that WADA showed no “favoritism” towards China, and the International Olympic Committee expressed its “full confidence” in the anti-doping body ahead of the Paris Games.

During the interview, Jack explained the numerous challenges she faced during her suspension, both personally and professionally. Discussing the negative impact on her mental and physical health and how she had to rebuild her strength and endurance for what she considers an injustice, she said: “I try to keep my opinions to myself for now,” she begins, “but I will definitely comment on it after the Olympics,” the swimmer concludes.

Luck has truly never seemed to be on Jack's side. It was on the eve of the Japan Games, postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, when the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that "on the balance of probabilities," Jack "did not intentionally ingest ligandrol."

This ruling reduced her ban from four to two years, but by then, it was already too late, and she felt she lost her dream of becoming an Olympic athlete. 

Three years later, she feels “relieved after so much pain.” The legal and emotional process she went through to “clear her name” was arduous. Moreover, she reveals that the experience affected her confidence in the anti-doping system.

Unfazed by the controversies, Jack joined the Australian 4x100m relay team once her ban expired for the 2023 World Championships. There, she broke her own world record, and her speed and performance have only improved since then, securing her spot in Paris.

So, “there’s no time for regrets,” as the popular saying goes, and Jack, from Sunnybank, has followed it to the letter. With her goals and aspirations clear, she aims to demonstrate and make her mark in her sport with the Olympics just around the corner.