Water Polo: Newcastle's Richie Campbell, Nathan Power overcome adversity to make Tokyo at opposite ends of Olympic careers

Merewether 33-year-old Campbell, now en route to his fourth Olympics, resisted walking away from the sport, cast aside self doubt and prolonged his career by 12 months in order to give himself the chance to experience another Games campaign.

Power, 28 of New Lambton, having narrowly missed his Olympic debut in 2016 because of injury, dealt with a bout of coronavirus while playing professionally in Spain at the end of last year and recently farewelled his grandfather.

The Novocastrians were named in the Australian men's squad on Thursday.

"It's awesome to have two Newcastle boys in there," Campbell told the Newcastle Herald from Canberra after the announcement.

Campbell, who will retire following the Games, admits he "considered" calling it a day during 2020 once Tokyo was postponed but the current Sharks group convinced him to continue.

"From a team perspective it gelled us a lot more, we got to spend a lot more time together and adapt over the the COVID period," Campbell said.

"But for me personally it's definitely been harder. It has drawn out my career and I even questioned whether I'd get through the 12 months.

"Those guys kind of kept me in it. If I wasn't enjoying playing with that group and I didn't want to be there with the team, it would have made it easy to walk away.

"They are so good it's actually a bit upsetting knowing that I won't have them around anymore afterwards."

Aware this will be his last hurrah, Campbell says that provides a certain level of motivation having previously appeared at Beijing (2008), London (2012) and Rio (2016).

"It actually does. The team is older and more mature now, myself included, and we go into every game with confidence," Campbell said.

"We've got nothing to lose. We can throw everything at at our opposition and see what happens.

"I think that's what's different about this team compared to teams in the past, our ability to do that. I don't think anyone is scared of opponents we come up against.

"We're one unit at the moment. We've showed that the past couple of years and hopefully we can take that into the Games."

Power, who only landed in Australia last month after a season lining up for Barcelona across Europe, feels "very fortunate" because his own COVID-19 encounter was "relatively asymptomatic, but there was a day or two in there feeling quite drowsy and knocked about".

Following hotel quarantine he was able to spend some "pretty valuable" time at home before his grandfather, Wanderers rugby union stalwart Doug Power, died. The funeral was on Monday.

"He's someone who played a pivotal role for me in regards to a lot of things. Sport was one of them," Power said.

On being unveiled in the national side and finally making his Olympic debut, Power said "it's a special achievement in an athlete's career, but the focus is still on what we do while we're there and that's very much front of mind right now".

The Sharks have been drawn against Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro - three of the top four finishers from the Games five years ago - as well as 2019 World Championship silver medallists Spain and Kazakhstan.

Australia open their campaign on July 25.

The Sharks fly out next week bound for Hawaii, where they will play against the US in what marks Australia's first international hit out since January last year.

The extended squad held two training camps in Newcastle earlier this year.

Australia, coached by Elvis Fatovic, claimed silver at the World Cup in 2018 and and bronze at the FINA World League Final in 2019.

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