[1] He was also a decorated politician and businessman, serving for ten years in the Victorian Legislative Council and as Lord Mayor of Melbourne and building a multimillion-dollar tyre business empire, Beaurepaires.

However, encouraged by his schoolteacher and South Melbourne barber Tommy Horlock, who later became his coach, Beaurepaire fought off the ailment and resumed training with the Albert Park State School Swimming Club.

On arrival in London with Horlock, he found that no arrangements had been made to pick them up, so they were forced to live with 16 pounds between them for a month, before officials became aware of their plight.

After a 15-mile (24 km) event in the River Thames prior to the Olympics he was numbed by the cold to such an extent that he collapsed and needed to be pulled from the water to avoid drowning.

[citation needed] Arriving at the Olympics, the competitors were confronted with a pool dug into the athletics track, with no filtration or chlorination, effectively being a muddy pond.

He reappeared prominently in 1910 when he won more than a dozen state and national titles, breaking the world 220 yd (200 m) freestyle record in the process.

[citation needed] In 1911, after his long return by sea to Australia, he suffered his first defeat in three years and was forced to abandon the 440 yd (400 m) freestyle event at the Australian Championships mid-race.

[citation needed] In February 1920, he won the Victorian championships, and soon after broke the 1000 m world record and qualified for the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp.

He combined with William Herald, Ivan Stedman and Henry Hay to claim the silver medal in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay, some 21 s behind the American squad.

[citation needed] His sister Lily also competed as part of the swimming and diving team, becoming the first brother-sister combination to represent Australia at the Summer Olympics.

In 1922, he was awarded the Royal Humane Society Gold Medal and £550, a significant sum in that era, after assisting another lifesaver, Jack Chalmers[3] in rescuing a shark attack victim at Coogee, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney.