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Grant Hackett has many loyal fans. And then there’s Sanae Nakashiba. Ever since she sat in the stands and watched him swim the fastest 1500m in history at the world championships in her home town of Fukuoka in 2001, the young Japanese woman has been obsessed.
“I was so touched by his race and that is why I became his fan,” Nakashiba said, lifting beautifully manicured hands to her face to hide the blushes.
She follows Hackett around the world, working two jobs to fund her very expensive hobby, which she keeps a secret from the rest of her family.
She has been in Sydney this month to sit in the stands and watch her hero swim in a grand prix meet, an event so low-key that it attracted only 100 or so Sydneysiders and amounted to little more than a training swim for the dual Olympic champion.
The admission price was $5.00. Oh, and there was also the return airfare from Fukuoka and several nights in a Sydney hotel.
But to Nakashiba, a 27-year-old office administration worker, it was money well spent.
Her eyes shone with adoration as they followed his every stroke for 30 laps of the pool where he won his first Olympic gold medal eight years ago.
“I love everything about Grant Hackett,” she said through her interpreter friend Naho Miura, formerly from Osaka and now a Sydney resident.
“When he jumps in the water he is the only thing I can see. He grabs my heart.”
Nakashiba is grateful that he contests the longest race in the pool, which gives her around quarter of an hour of bliss. Sprints are over in less than a minute.
This is Nakashiba’s sixth trip to Australia on Hackett-watch. She was also in Sydney in March when he swam in the Olympic trials, and before that in the pre-Athens trials in 2004.
She’s watched him swim in Melbourne and in Montreal, in the 2005 world championships.
Last year she got lucky. Hackett swam in Chiba, Japan.
Next month she is off to Beijing to see him swim at the Olympics.
She is staying two nights in China and has a ticket to just one event – the 1500m freestyle swimming session. The cost? About $A5,000.
“It was very, very hard to get the ticket, but now I have it and it is very exciting,” she said, between giggles.
But what if he doesn’t win? “It can’t happen. I’m not thinking about it.”
Later she waited outside the pool for her chance of a photograph, getting more nervous by the minute.
Hackett emerged, and ever the gentleman, posed for a photograph and even accepted a quick hug.
Then he got into a taxi to fly home to Melbourne and wife Candice Alley. Sanae Nakashiba was already somewhere else. Heaven.