By Sam Blacker on SwimSwam
2026 Commonwealth Games
July 24 – 29, 2026 (pool swimming) Glasgow, Scotland Tollcross International Swimming Centre LCM (50m) Meet Central Entries Preview Index How to Watch Live Results Live Recaps Prelims: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 Finals: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4Archie Goodburn‘s story does not start in 2024. That was the year in which he was diagnosed with oligodendrogliomas, a form of brain cancer, in the leadup to the British Olympic Trials, but it was not the beginning. By that point he was already a Scottish record holder, a European medalist, and a Commonwealth Games semi-finalist.
The place to begin is a decade beforehand, in 2014. That was the year that Goodburn qualified for the British Summer Championships for the first time. Not exclusively in breaststroke, but also in the 200 IM and 100 fly, hitting a time of 1:06.02 in the latter at the North District Grand Prix in Aberdeen that May.
He also qualified in the 200 IM there, but did not make it through to the final in either event later that summer in Sheffield. He was 39th out of 51 in the 200 IM, and finished 36th, dead last, in the 100 fly. The 100 breast was where he saw his highest finish, placing 14th in 1:14.72.
That was still nearly a second and a half away from making the final. It was five seconds away from the top two finishers in the heats, and seven seconds slower than Cameron Matthews clocked to win the final.
At 13 years old then, he was not yet a prodigy. International swimming seemed very far away.
The Journey
In 2015 Goodburn was a British finalist. He finished 4th in the 200 IM, 5th in the 50 breast, and 4th in the 100 breast, all in personal best times. One year later he was a British medalist, dropping nearly four seconds in the 100 breast to finish 2nd in 1:06.02 and tying for 3rd in the 50 breast in 30.76.
But he was also a national champion, in the 200 fly, 200 IM, and 400 IM. He was a long way from the 50 breaststroker he would become.
Goodburn was selected for the GB team for the European Youth Olympic Festival in 2017, skipping the national championships to compete in Győr instead. He swam five events – 200 free, 400 free, 100 fly, 200 fly, and 200 IM – none of which were breaststroke. He made the 200 free and 200 IM, finishing 8th and 7th, respectively, but at 16 it was fly and free that were his strongest strokes.
The next year saw him become one of Britain’s best young swimmers. He scrapped the 400 IM and won national medals across free, fly, breast, and IM, dropping over three seconds in the 100 breast to clock 1:02.13 and from 29.92 to 28.04 in the 50 breast. He paired that with a 2:00.46 in the 200 fly and 1:52.69 speed in the 200 free – an elite all-rounder, who three weeks before had won bronze on the 4×200 free relay at the European Junior Championships, silver on the mixed medley relay, and finished 5th in the 50 breast.
It was 2019 when the focus shifted. Goodburn won European Junior silver and World Junior bronze in the 50 breast, dropping down to 27.83. He was already the 7th-fastest Scot in history, and the cacophony of events he had had to choose from quietened. The 50 breast and 100 breast, the latter of which he placed 5th in that summer in Kazan, were his focus going forward.
In 2022 he was a Commonwealth Games semi-finalist, placing 9th in the 50 breast in 27.72, 0.03 seconds off the final. A year later he was a Scottish record holder, blasting a new PB of 27.19 in the 50 breast to drop half a second.
He won bronze at the European U23 Championships that summer, and was part of the silver medal-winning men’s 4×50 medley relay at the European Short Course Championships in December. Heading towards the Paris Olympics, Goodburn was on the up.
The Other Side
Two years ago, Goodburn underwent an MRI scan after unexplained physical episodes he had experienced in training – numbness on his left side and an unsettling loss of strength at points – which he initially thought to be hemiplegic migraines. The call with the results came through while he was in the pool. Calling back, he was given the news that he had three brain tumours, specifically oligodendrogliomas.
Further tests revealed that the way they had spread had rendered them inoperable. The prognosis for a diagnosis such as his varies wildly, from two or three years up to more than 20. The reality he had to adjust to was that he may not see his 40s.
Last year, nearly 18 months after his diagnosis, he was able to start a treatment of Vorasidenib, a new drug which delays the inevitability of chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Those would both have seriously affected his training at the University of Edinburgh, as well as the Masters in Chemical Engineering he is currently studying there.
The Fight
But he had to battle to be given access to the drug. Vorasidenib was only approved for use on the NHS in March. It was just the second new treatment for adult brain tumours to be approved for over 20 years. Brain cancers like Goodburn’s are the biggest killer of those under 40 among all cancers for people in the UK, but research into drug development for them has received just 1% of Government-backed funding since 2002.
Just 40% of the £40 million towards brain cancer research promised by the UK Government in 2018 had actually been allocated five years later. That is the area towards which Goodburn has been directing attention, including supporting a petition to the UK Government to increase funding and improve access to high-impact treatments and genome sequencing, which often increase the chances of survival through personalised treatment programs.
Vorasidenib’s approval is one step on that journey. It has had a positive effect for many patients, and Goodburn’s petition was debated this June in Parliament.
But more is still required. Goodburn has become an advocate for improved funding and conducted a research project last academic year on “Nano DOX@ZIF-8 drug delivery for Brain Cancer”. The UK Government has started the process of assigning more funding and centralising brain cancer research, but the pace is slow. For many, too slow.
Goodburn has been back at full strength since starting treatment on Vorasidenib. He broke the Scottish record with a time of 27.12 in the 50 breast in February, and was just two tenths off that in Glasgow. A 7th-place finish wasn’t quite what he was hoping for in the pool, but with so much going on outside of it he is still grateful.
“With everything that’s going on with my health, it’s been difficult to think ‘why am I here? Am I here to advocate as a patient advocate, or am I here to just be a professional athlete?’ And it’s kind of turned into a bit of both.
“I wonder how I’m going to feel off the back of this. But I know that I’m going to have memories to last a lifetime.”
Archie Goodburn
But his personal goals are not the most important to him. He has become an advocate for real, actual change in the way cancers like his are treated because he is not alone in that diagnosis. Nearly 13,000 people are diagnosed with brain cancer in the UK each year. Just 12.9% of them survive more than five years – the average across all cancers is 56%.
“My dream was to make the final, but outside of the pool I dream of a future where brain cancer isn’t the biggest killer of those under 40, where the UK Government establish a national brain cancer lead to make that change, and I’d much prefer that change is made and that dream completed than any of my personal goals in the pool… because what families and young people are going through out there is really beyond the comprehension of many people out there and certainly far harder than anything I’ve ever had to do as a world-class sportsman”
Archie Goodburn
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The Tollcross centre may have never been louder than when Goodburn walked out to lane 1 in his 50 breast final. But even that may pale in comparison to the attention he is helping to bring towards cancers like his.
He has been straight back to it. Goodburn was on BBC Breakfast yesterday morning to call attention to the shortcomings in the recently-passed Rare Cancers Act, which covers 14 different types of cancers. It establishes two new positions – a clinical lead and a research lead – which are both part-time and whose combined working time only sums to 36 days a year. It does not yet, as Goodburn and others have called for, establish a full-time brain cancer lead.
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At the end of his first training session after his diagnosis, Goodburn says that he had an immense feeling of joy. He had been struck by uncertainty in the interim, unsure if the time he had spent in the pool – he posited almost 20,000 hours – had been the right way to spend what he now knew to be his limited time. Those doubts, valid ones, were unfounded. Back in the pool he was doing something he loved, and two years on he is still doing so. His advocacy work has played a part in that, and in the lives of so many others.
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