Born: Crewe, England
27 July, 1962
Few Western Australians have made a greater impact on a sport than Neil Brooks. Powerfully built at 2m tall and weighing 95kg in his prime, he excelled in freestyle sprints and also gained notoriety as a controversial character out of the pool.
He won gold, silver and bronze medals, all in relays, at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics plus four gold medals and silver at the 1982 and 1986 Commonwealth Games.
Brooks was only four years old when his parents brought him to Australia and it was only after a near-drowning in the Swan River that he learnt to swim.
After first representing Australia the 1979 FINA Cup meeting in Tokyo, his big opportunity came at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Then 17, he was in trouble before the Games when he walked out of the team’s training camp.
He teamed with Mark Kerry, Mark Tonelli and Peter Evans to win the gold medal in the 4 x 100m medley relay, swimming the freestyle leg in a sizzling 49.86sec. An attack of Asthma cost him a place in the final on the 100m.
Brooks was embroiled in more controversy at a training camp before the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games when he clashed with an official for making a phone call after the team’s 9.30pm curfew. The incident did not affect his performance in the pool and he won gold in the 100m freestyle and both freestyle and medley relays, all in Games record times.
At the Brisbane Games Brooks, Greg Fasala, Michael Delaney and Graeme Brewer – their heads clean shaven – were dubbed the Mean Machine. The name originated from the Australian team’s chant “lean, mean, machine”.
At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Brooks added to his medal haul with a silver in the 4 x 100m freestyle relay and a bronze in the medley relay.
Two years later, at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games, he won gold in the 100m freestyle and another gold in the 4 x 100m freestyle relay, but ended his career on a sour not when given a six-month ban following a further clash with officialdom.