Australia performs incredibly well in competitive swimming. It's pretty safe to say that it's the country's favourite Olympic sport, with around 40% of its gold medals coming from swimming!
In the overall medal table for the Summer Olympic Games, Australia sits in tenth place, but in the medal table for swimming, it's comfortably in second place. It isn't set to lose that position any time soon.
For Australia to lose second place in Olympic swimming, Hungary would have to win over 40 gold medals at the next Olympic Games, or Germany would have to split so East Germany could come back and win over 30 medals! That said, even the medal tally for East and West Germany plus a unified Germany wouldn't match Australia's current gold medal haul!
So why is Australia so good at swimming, and who are the incredible swimmers who brought the country all these gold medals? Plenty of female swimmers have won gold medals, and at the top end of the ranking, the most successful Australian Olympic swimmers are women. Still, there are many male Olympic swimmers worth talking about.
After all, many of them are Olympic medal winners, so that's nothing to turn your nose up at!
John Hendricks (1935- )
John Hendricks and several others on this list belong to the generation of swimmers who brought home an impressive medal haul at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne.
He and many others you'll see in this article are to thank for the boom in Australian swimming that would come in later generations.
At the 1956 Games, Hendricks won gold in the 100m freestyle and the 4x200m freestyle alongside a few other great athletes we will discuss.
Swimming in the 1950s was quite different, so enjoy this video.
John Devitt (1937- )
John Devitt is another swimmer from the generation who inspired a nation of swimmers. During his Olympic career, he won two gold medals, one silver medal, and a bronze medal.
Competing at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, he was part of the team that included John Hendricks and Murray Rose from our list. The team also included Kevin O'Halloran, whose only Olympic medal came in this event.
On the other hand, Devitt also won an individual event in Rome in 1960: the 100m freestyle, the event in which he had won the silver medal back in Melbourne four years earlier. In that event, he was beaten by .4 of a second by John Hendricks, with Gary Chapman, another Australian, completing the podium.
In an Olympic race in 1960 in Rome, a dispute between judges and the timekeepers meant Devitt and Larson had the same time, but only Devitt was crowned champion.
After this embarrassing event, human judgment was removed from the event with automatic timekeeping was introduced in 1968.
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David Theile (1938- )
David Theile also competed at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne and won the gold medal in the 100m backstroke, a feat he repeated four years later at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome.
He's the only Australian to win subsequent 100m backstroke gold medals at the Olympic Games.
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Murray Rose (1939-2012)
Murray Rose is Australia's only male swimmer with 4 Olympic gold medals. Along with the other swimmers of his generation, his success could have been said to have jump-started Australia's exceptional performance in Olympic swimming.
Like many others, Rose participated in the 1956 Olympic Games held in Melbourne and inspired a nation.
Born in Birmingham, UK, in 1939, Rose and his family moved to Australia in 1940 as World War II broke out across Europe. The family settled in Sydney, where Rose started swimming.
He was only 17 when he participated in the Olympic Games in Melbourne, winning three gold medals in the 400m freestyle, 1500m freestyle, and 3x200m freestyle.
He also competed in the following Olympic Games in Rome, adding a fourth gold medal to his collection from the 400m freestyle. During the Rome games, he also won a silver medal in the 1500m freestyle and a bronze in the 4x200m freestyle.
Aside from his great success in swimming, he worked as a commentator, in marketing, sponsorships, and promotions and even appeared in a few films.
It should be noted that Hackett's competitive career overlapped a lot with Australia's most decorated Olympian, Ian Thorpe (who we'll get to in a moment), so who knows how much more Grant Hackett could have done had he not lost out to Thorpe .2 of a second in Athens.
At an international competitive level, Hackett only ever beat Thorpe once in his career, in the 400m freestyle at the 1997 Pan Pacific Championships.
We'll never know how successful he could have been in a different era, but it is worth considering.
Michael Wenden (1949- )
Michael Wenden is the only Australian Olympic swimmer from this era to make our list. He brought home two of Australia's three gold medals at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.
Though Australia finished second in swimming at these games, the US dominated with 21 gold and 52 medals, dwarfing Australia's haul of 3 gold and 8 medals overall.
Nonetheless, Wenden deserves a special mention for being a two-time Olympic Gold medallist and winning individual gold medals in swimming at a time when another country had such a strong group of swimmers at the games.
His performances, for which he won gold medals, were both world records at the time and during an era fairly quiet for Australian swimming.
Kieren Perkins (1973- )
Kieren Perkins is a two-time gold medal-winning Olympic swimmer who competed at three separate Olympic Games.
Born in 1973 in Brisbane, Perkins's international career began at the Commonwealth Games in 1990, but his Olympic career began in Barcelona in 1992. At these games, he won the 1500m freestyle, the only swimming gold medal won by Australia in Barcelona.
In Atlanta in 1996, he won another gold medal in the 1500m freestyle, defending his title.
He also competed in the home games in 2000 and took home the silver in the 1500m freestyle, losing out to Grant Hackett, a fellow Australian swimmer who you'll hear more about later.
Michael Klim (1977- )
Michael Klim competed for Australia at the Olympic games in 1996, 2000, and 2004, winning two gold medals, three silver medals, and a bronze medal.
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His two silver medals came in the home games in Sydney in the 4x100m freestyle and 4x200m freestyle events.
He was also incredibly successful in long- and short-course World Championships, the Goodwill Games, the Pan Pacific Championships, and the Commonwealth Games.
He retired from competitive swimming in 2007 and came out of retirement in 2011 in a bid to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Unfortunately, Klim didn't qualify for the team and subsequently retired again.
Todd Pearson (1977- )
Todd Pearson is a two-time gold medallist at the Olympic Games in the 4x100m freestyle and the 4x200m freestyle. He competed at the 2000 Games in Sydney and the 2004 Games in Athens.
Remember that he was also swimming during an era that featured some other greats we'll discuss later.
Grant Hackett (1980- )
Grant Hackett is the last Australian Olympic swimmer to win three gold medals. A distance specialist, two of Hackett's gold Olympic medals came in the 1500m freestyle and a 4x200m freestyle.
He competed in three separate Olympic Games, including the home games in Sydney in 2000, his most successful Olympic Games, with two gold medals. That said, he did bring home a gold and two silvers in Athens in 2004 and a silver and a bronze in Beijing in 2008.
He's held world records in long and short courses at various distances, including the 1500m freestyle, arguably his preferred event.
Watch him set a World Record at the 2005 FINA World Championships in Montréal.
Ian Thorpe (1982- )
Australia's most successful Olympic swimmer is Ian Thorpe, with 5 gold medals, 3 silver medals, and 1 bronze. He and Emma McKeon have 5 gold medals, but since Thorpe is retired, he could lose his space at the top if McKeon wins another gold medal in Paris 2024.
Either way, he is Australia's most successful Olympian in any sport. Australia's top six most successful Olympians are all swimmers, and only one of the top 10 isn't a swimmer.
Born in 1982, Thorpe competed in the Olympics in 2000 and 2004 in Sydney and Athens respectively. He was the most successful athlete in Sydney, his hometown, where he won 3 gold medals and 2 silver medals. In Greece in 2004, he won a further 2 gold medals, a silver medal, and a bronze medal.
His main events were freestyle, backstroke, and the individual medley, and he technically started swimming quite late. From a sporting family, albeit without any swimmers, Thorpe was sporty and relatively good at cricket.
To become a swimmer, Ian Thorpe had to overcome an allergy to chlorine. He was seven before he did his first competitive swim, but this didn't stop him from becoming the youngest male to represent Australia in swimming at 14.
In addition to his incredible medal haul at the Olympics, he performed excellently at the Commonwealth Games, the Pan Pacific Championships, and the World Championships.
Swimmers to Look out for at the Olympic Games in Paris 2024
With the Olympic Games coming up, there's one event highlighted on each swimmer's calendar: the Australian trials in Brisbane from June 10 to 15,
From this event, Australia will choose the athletes to go to Paris on July 23.
So, who are the athletes to watch out for? The Australian Open Swimming Championships took place in April, and some hopefuls performed very well.
Kyle Chalmers
Kyle Chalmers has held multiple world records for the 100m freestyle, including the current 100m short course format he set on 29 October 2021 in Kazan, Russia. He also holds the 4 x 100m medley short and long course records.
Enjoy Kyle Chalmer's world record swim here.
He won the Olympic gold medal in the 100m freestyle in 2016 and the silver in Tokyo in 2020.
In the Australian Open Swimming Championships 2024, one of the last events before Olympic selection, Chalmers also won the gold medal for the 100m freestyle.
Sam Short
So far, Sam Short has represented Australia at the World Championships and Commonwealth Games.
He won the gold medal for the 400m freestyle at the World Championships (LC) in 2023 in Fukuoka. He also won the silver medal for the 800m freestyle and the bronze medal for the 1500m freestyle. The previous year in Budapest, he won the silver medal for the 4x200m freestyle.
At the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, he won the 1500m freestyle gold medal and the 400m freestyle silver medal.
You can enjoy the highlights from the 400m final here.
He placed second in the men's 400m freestyle and 800m freestyle at the Australian Open Swimming Championships in April 2024.
Elijah Winnington
Elijah Winnington won the bronze medal in the 2020 Tokyo Games in the 4x200m freestyle event. He also won gold medals in the 2022 World Championships (LC) in Budapest for the 400m freestyle.
Watch Winnington's 400m freestyle victory here.
He's also been impressive at the recent Commonwealth Games. He won the gold medal for the 4 x 200m freestyle event at the 2018 Gold Coast Games and then three gold medals at the 2022 Birmingham Games.
At the Australian Open Swimming Championships in April 2024, he won the men's 800m freestyle and 400m freestyle and came second in the men's 200m freestyle.
Cameron McEvoy
Cameron McEvoy is looking to medal in his third consecutive Olympic Games. He has three bronze medals from the 2016 and 2020 games for 4 x 100m freestyle and 4 x 100m medley.
At the recent Australian Open Swimming Championships, he came third in the men's 50m butterfly and first in the men's 50m freestyle.
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