Isaac Cooper, the Australian backstroke ace, will take to the fray in Glasgow at the Commonwealth Games from Friday as a member of the Dolphin leadership group. What a difference four years between 18 and 22 make.

On the eve of action in Glasgow, Cooper has broken his silence on the reasons why he was sent home from training camp in France before what would have been a debut Commonwealth Games in Birmingham four years ago.

Now in Glasgow for that debut at the Tollcross International Pool on Friday, Cooper reveals in an interview with Tom Decent at The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, that he lost his place on the squad in 2022 after he shared sleep medication with a teammate and then - young, keen to fit in and unwilling to dob on the unnamed teammate he shared with, found himself having to explain to team doctors and staff why he had taken more than the prescribed dose of the drug.

The view that he had done so was reinforced by the fact that the medication he got from the team doctor had a strong impact on him. Cooper admitted to Decent that he had been seen wandering around the team hotel in a dazed state, something he had no memory of.

Cooper, now coached at St Andrews SC by Ash Delaney (Commonwealth gold and Olympic silver in the 4x100 medley among the treasures form his own Dolphin days) notes that he had two types of sleep medication with him, the one he brought from home, and then the one prescribed by the Australia team doctor, insists, however, that he never took more than the prescribed dose, and was simply covering for a teammate (who appears either not to have asked the team doctor if he too could be prescribed sleeping medication, or had run out, or had some other reason for wanting some of Cooper's medication).

Rohan Taylor, Australian head coach, maintains that sending Cooper home was the right decision, regardless of how difficult it was at the time.

At which point, it's more than reasonable to note the backdrop to Cooper's story and a drug that was not involved in the 2022 story:

1. Australians have long used sleep medication to overcome the effects of jet lag on the many journeys they make over distances often far greater than most others in the world to get to international competitions.
2. Back in 2013, the Australian men's 4x100m freestyle relay team, dubbed the "Stilnox Six," admitted to misusing the prescription sleeping pill Stilnox during a pre-Olympic training camp in Manchester ahead of the London 2012 Games, where the team of title contenders failed to make the podium. A "Bonding Session" was at the heart of it. Five members admitted taking the sedative during a late-night bonding session, which resulted in disruptive hallway pranks and door-knocking. The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) had explicitly banned the use of hypnotic drugs like Stilnox shortly before the Games over welfare concerns. In April 2013, Swimming Australia issued fines and deferred suspensions to the athletes, while the AOC later handed down yellow cards and three-year good behaviour bonds in August 2013. Cultural shift followed and in the fallout from what was described as a "toxic team culture", stricter controls on sleeping medications followed.

Back to 2026, and Cooper says that many of his teammates believed that sending him home in 2022 was an overreaction, and while agreeing that he deserved to face consequences, those should not have been so harsh.

The reasons then become very clear deep into his moving explanation told well by Decent, whose long feature you can read in full at The Age and other Fairfax publications Down Under:

After four years, this swim star is ready to speak about ‘the worst thing that ever happened to me’

Four years ago, Olympian Isaac Cooper was sent home from a Dolphins training camp in France for the “misuse of prescription medication”. Now he’s ready to break his silence.

The Sydney Morning HeraldTom Decent

Isaac's parents had already booked flights to England to watch their son compete. Such trips, as every parent will confirm, are expensive, and - non-refundable, The trip went ahead, the son was back home and consequences spilled into the private lives of the Cooper family.