This is an accepted version of this page Neil Brooks (born 27 July 1962) is an Australian former sprint freestyle swimmer best known for winning the 4 × 100 m medley relay at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow as part of the Quietly Confident Quartet.

He then qualified for the Australian team for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, defying political pressure to boycott the Games in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The peak of his swimming career came in the 4 × 100 m medley relay, when he caught and passed the Soviet Union's Sergey Kopliakov during the anchor leg to seal a narrow victory for Australia.

[1] Despite coaching the likes of Olympic medallists Kevin O'Halloran, Lyn McClements, David Dickson and Lynne Watson, Duff was virtually unknown outside Western Australia.

[1] Brooks attended Hale Primary School and trained at Beatty Park Pool, routinely dominating the State Age Championships.

"[1] In 1976, at the age of 13, Brooks competed at his first open Australian Championships, but did not gain any podium finishes and as such missed selection in the team for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.

In 1978, he came third in the 100 m freestyle and missed selection for the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada by 0.03 s.[1] He spent the rest of the year training and studying accounting at Leederville Technical College.

His performances earned him selection in the Australian team for the first time, competing in the FINA Swimming World Cup event in Tokyo in April 1979, aged 16 years and nine months.

He had the first of his many clashes with sporting administrators, first claiming that the officials did not want him to board with Tonelli's family and then stating that Sweetenham had only coached him two or three times, which he felt was insufficient.

The latter came second in the 100 m freestyle, outsprinted in the dying stages by Tonelli,[3] who reclaimed his national record in a time of 51.80 s.[4] As a result, Brooks was selected in both the individual event and the 4 × 100 m medley relay.

[3] However, another obstacle arose with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which resulted in a boycott of the Games by a large part of the Western World, led by the United States.

This time, Australia were regarded as a medal chance, but were not seen as the main threats;[8] Sweden, Great Britain and the Soviet Union were the most heavily fancied teams.

The British had Duncan Goodhew, the breaststroke gold medallist, while Sweden's butterflyer and backstroker had won their respective events and their freestyle swimmer would come second in the 100 m.[8] On paper, Australia's team paled in comparison.

[7][10] Adding to the pressure was the fact that Australia won no gold medals at the 1976 Olympics in any sport, and were yet to win in Moscow, so the public were still awaiting their first victory since Munich in 1972.

He asked his team-mates to commit to swimming their legs in a certain time; Kerry vowed to swim the backstroke in 57 s, Evans the breaststroke in 63 s flat, Tonelli the butterfly in 54 s and Brooks promised to anchor the team in 49.8 s, even though he had never gone faster than 51 s. Tonelli named the foursome as the Quietly Confident Quartet, and they exhibited a quiet confidence as they lined up for the race.

[16] In the individual event, which occurred after the relay, Brooks had come equal first in his heat with eventual bronze medallist Per Johansson from Sweden in a time of 52.11 s. This made him the seventh fastest qualifier for the semi-finals,[17] but he suffered a severe asthma attack and had to be hospitalised.

[20] Brooks has remained strongly critical of the attitude of swimming bureaucracy, claiming that "too many officials expect unquestioning obedience",[20] calling for the formation of a swimmers' committee.

[20] Brooks then won gold as part of the winning 4 × 100 m freestyle relay, anchoring the team of Fasala, Delany and Graeme Brewer to a victory by almost three seconds, putting in a split of 50.56 s. The shaven-headed quartet was dubbed the Mean Machine.

[20] He collected another gold in the medley relay, combining with David Orbell, Evans and Jon Sieben, this time completing his freestyle anchor leg in 50.44 s.[20] Canada had finished the race far ahead of the Australians, but were disqualified for an early changeover.

[20] During the heats, the Australian team of Brooks, Fasala, Delany and Stockwell showed their intention to deny the Americans the gold for the first time at Olympic level.

[21] In the final, Australian coach Terry Buck switched the swimming order, putting Fasala as the leadoff leg, while the Americans brought in Heath and Gaines.

Brooks completed his leg in 49.36 s, the fourth fastest in the race, 0.24 s faster than his American counterpart Heath, giving the Australians a slender 0.07 s lead at the halfway point.

Matt Biondi took 0.59 s from Delany and Gaines took another 0.13 s from Stockwell, as the United States won in a world record time of 3 m 19.03 s. Australia were 0.65 s behind with Sweden a further 2.99 s in arrears.

[19] In his memoirs, Talbot, a non-drinker, cited Brooks and his Mean Machine teammates as being one of the biggest proponents of a hard-drinking culture that had permeated the Australian swimming scene at the time.

[18] Talbot sees alcohol as the main reason behind the collapse of Australia's standing in the swimming world in the 1970s and the subsequent prolonged period of international uncompetitiveness in the 1980s.

He also hosted a Western Australian travel/holiday show called Wild West, and in the lead-up to the Sydney Olympics, co-hosted The Games with Tracey Holmes.

He once read the sports news segment while inebriated, and was then involved in a drunken argument with the Nine Network's Australian rules football pundit Sam Newman.

[28] In early 1999, in an interview with a magazine that had not been authorised by Seven, Brooks was asked what event he was looking forward to most at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, and replied "The after-Olympics piss-up".

[31] Journalist Peter FitzSimons criticised the lack of grammar checking and copyediting, citing a quote from Kieren Perkins, which was rendered thus in the publication: "I was over the moon.

Winning is something you strive to do but when I consider all the factors being married two children twenty seven years of age competing in my third Games and I broke fifteen minutes twice in two days it really was quite outstanding and whichever way you cut it Grant Hackett was just the next generation of swimmer [sic].