Oh, to have the confidence of Cody Simpson, a young man perhaps best known as Miley Cyrus’s ex-boyfriend. On Sunday, the 23-year-old singer and connoisseur of “maritime and nautical culture” announced an exciting personal achievement. “I just qualified for my first Olympic trials” for swimming, Prince Neptune wrote in a lengthy caption, hat-tipping some of his recent accolades. Look out, there’s a very accomplished lad on the loose!
Simpson begins by saying that he would “love to share this personal milestone and let you in on my current journey as an athlete,” something he says he has “kept relatively low key until now,” although his Instagram grid would beg to differ. Apparently Simpson was just a “13 year old Australian champion” when opportunity “inevitably” obligated him to set aside his sports-star dreams in favor of a musical career. Many of us can relate, I am sure.
Don’t get Simpson wrong: He has enjoyed the intervening decade and everything that came with it. “I have had the chance to experience and learn so much as a musician from touring around the world, releasing albums, performing as a leading man on Broadway, publishing a work of poetry, traveling with and speaking at the United Nations on environmental and oceanic matters and much more,” he writes. And, indeed, Simpson is an “ocean advocate” for the U.N. Development Programme. He was on Dancing With the Stars. His ukulele jam “La Da Dee” was featured in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2. This year, he published a poetry collection, Prince Neptune (also his pen name), about being horny for and around the sea:
But because his ultimate goal is “to expand the limit and perceived notion of what’s possible for someone to achieve in a single lifetime,” Simpson has for “for years … been fuelled [sic] by the silent fire in my stomach of returning to the sport of swimming, with the idea that 2020 would be the year I’d try training again.” And “after only 5 months back in the water,” he is headed to Olympic trials for the 100 fly. Only five months and already so fast! Can you believe it?? Huge congrats to this humble, multitalented boy! Michael Phelps is very proud.
