TURNED THE TIDE
HOW SWIMMERS GOT THEIR MOJO
LABELLED “toxic” after the 2012 London Olympics, then chokers after Rio 2016, the Australian swimming team is once again the pride of the country after winning an unprecedented nine gold medals in Tokyo.
But in a sport where the margin between winning often comes down to tiny fractions of a second, how the Dolphins turned everything around so quickly is just as remarkable as any of their wins in the pool because it was the end result of some brave decisions, gambles, the intervention of key people, including the Australian cricket coach Justin Langer, and a slice of luck.
The rebuilding of the Australian swimming team after the disappointments of London and Rio was well under way when the team performed admirably at the 2019 world championships, but things were not going smoothly out of the water.
Despite having the backing of mining magnate Gina Rinehart, the organisation was struggling for money and credibility after the fallout from Shayna Jack’s positive doping case put the spotlight on the administrators instead of the swimmers.
The swim team didn’t have a major sponsor, then Channel Seven announced it wasn’t going to broadcast the Olympic trials, forcing Swimming Australia to find a new partner while at the same time laying off staff.
They eventually signed a deal with
Amazon, and while the viewing figures were healthy, they were still well below what they would have got on free to air. Major changes were also happening inside the administration.
John Bertrand, the former America’s Cup winning skipper, stood down as president after seven years at the helm and was replaced by Kieren Perkins. Leigh Russell quit as chief executive and was replaced by Alex Baumann, the former Canadian gold medallist who had been working in high performance.
And Jacco Verhaeren, the Dutch master who had been recruited as the first foreign head coach to clean up the toxic culture after the 2012 London Olympics, announced he was returning to Europe with his family.
He was replaced by Rohan Taylor, who had coached Leisel Jones to Olympic gold in 2008. Having spent many years living in the United States, Taylor has a distinctive American accent but is also a big believer in the American collegiate swimming culture – where the emphasis is on teams rather than individuals.
Given only a 12-month contract, Taylor had no time to waste but figured the fastest way to success was building a better team culture so he made that his top priority.
It was a masterstroke, He immediately began holding fortnightly meetings with coaches, but not just the coaches of the swimmers
he expected to make the team for Tokyo. With an eye on Paris 2024, he invited every coach who he thought could benefit from tuning in, and restarted the youth programs that had slipped through the cracks.
He also invited coaches from other sports to join in on the Zoom calls to offer tips and advice about how they were managing their athletes
Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley was one of the first to address the group, along with Langer, who was a close contact of Swimming Australia media officer Kate Hutchison.
More than anyone else, Langer’s talk hit all the right notes. He had taken over as Australian cricket coach after the Sandpapergate ball tampering scandal so was not only instrumental in trying to win matches, but was also engaged in winning back the Australian public’s trust.
“He was awesome. You wanted to run through a brick wall after him,” Taylor said. “He’s so passionate about his team and his players and everything.
He was very good.”
The rebuilding process had already begun under Verhaeren when the Dolphins won five gold medals at the 2019 world championships in Gwangju, South Korea, but the team’s success was completely overshadowed by events outside of the pool.
The world titles were not broadcast in Australian television and the biggest headlines were Mack Horton’s refusal to join Sun Yang on the medal podium and the cover-up of Jack’s positive drugs test.
Four of the five gold medals had come in relays – with Ariarne Titmus the only individual winner – and while things were progressing well, the team was still a work in progress and in a race to be ready for Tokyo.
“I still think we would have had a good result, because the team was heading in the right direction,” Taylor said. “But to be honest, I don’t think we would have won as many medals as we did if the Games had gone ahead in 2020.
The benefits from those extra 12 months are clear. Of the nine gold medals the Dolphins won in Tokyo, just two came from relays. The rest were split between four swimmers: Emma McKeon, Ariarne Titmus, Kaylee McKeown and Zac StubbletyCook, who all benefited enormously from the delay,
Before the postponement, Australia’s most versatile swimmer McKeon, who won a record seven medals in Tokyo, had been basing her program around her 200m freestyle, which she had won a bronze medal in Rio.
She and her coach Michael Bohl had always figured the 200m was her best chance of winning an elusive individual gold medal but it wasn’t until December 2020 that they realised the sprints might be a better option.
So as recently as December 2020, they decided to “roll the dice” and focus all her attention on the shorter distances. Already a textbook swimmer, McKeon was instructed to spend less time in the water and more in the
gym to build her strength and it paid off when she won the 50m and 100m finals.
Titmus had a different problem. She had beaten American legend Katie Ledecky to win the 400m freestyle gold at the 2019 world championships but injured her shoulder at the end of 2020.
She missed almost three months of training but the timing was perfect and she made it back for Tokyo.
No-one knows how McKeown would have performed had the Games taken place in 2020. She was in great shape but her father’s health was rapidly deteriorating at the same time and he passed away in August.
Determined to honour her father, she was inspired in 2021 and came away with three gold medals.
Stubblety-Cook was Australia’s most unexpected winner. He was ranked fifth in the world in 2020 and still on a steep learning curve. He peaked in 2021, rising to number one.
An old school coach who is more at ease prowling the pool deck with a stopwatch in hand than sitting in management meetings, Taylor also made two other key decisions.
He encouraged everyone just to be themselves, which helps explain why Dean Boxall celebrated so wildly when Titmus won the 400m freestyle, and why McKeown dropped the Fbomb after her 200m backstroke win.
And he supported the coaches and the swimmers who decided to go against all their instincts and not be greedy by taking on too many events, when McKeon and Kyle Chalmers both dropped the 200m freestyle, and McKeown pulled out of the 200m individual medley when she was ranked No. 1 in the world.
“I wouldn’t say we got lucky because there’s no luck in winning Olympic gold medals but a lot of things went our way, that maybe haven’t in the past,” Taylor said.
“But this is just the beginning and we’re already working on Paris 2024. There’s still more work to be done.”