Just as they did in Fukuoka and Manchester this year, Australia’s swimmers have scooped the pool at this year’s Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) Sport Performance Awards in Melbourne overnight.
The Australian Dolphins Swim Team, under head coach Rohan Taylor won the High-Performance Team of the Year after their dynamic gold medal assault at this year’s World Championships in Fukuoka.
And it was a case of girl-power as star Dolphins Kaylee McKeown, Mollie O’Callaghan and Para discovery Alexa Leary led the way as Swimming Australia won six awards.
World-beating backstroking machine McKeown won the Female Able-Athlete of the Year Award; world record breaking freestyler O’Callaghan the Performance of the Year for breaking the longest standing world mark in the 200m freestyle and on debut Paralympic world champion Leary the Emerging Athlete Of The Year.
O’Callaghan said: “It’s a huge honour to receive this award … I would like to thank Dean Boxall my coach, the AIS and all the other nominees … I just didn’t expect this.”
The girls were joined by Taylor who was named Coach of the Year and long-standing Performance Solutions guru Jess Corones the well-deserved Leadership Award.
It was a case of Fukuoka revisited in 2023 for an Australian team that turned the clock back to 2001, entering unchartered waters 22 years after the Ian Thorpe led campaign swamped the Americans.
This time the Dolphins won 13 gold, 25 medals and setting five world records – a team led by established Olympic champions from Tokyo, combined with an exciting group of emerging stars and rookies who stepped up, inspired by their experienced teammates.
Proving that Tokyo 2021 was no flash in the pan with an even better collection of medals as the Aussies build towards the next World’s in Doha in February – a warm up like no other for “the big Olympic dance” in Paris next July.
Six individual world champions – winning nine titles between them in a week to celebrate for the Dolphins who now look forward to an epic Olympic campaign emulating the feats of the 1956 Olympic team and the Fukuoka Class of 2001.
Combine their individual brilliance with a brand of relay excellence that netted eight medals from eight relays – four gold, two silver and two bronze – three of those relays in world record times.
Taylor, the man at the helm of Australia’s latest golden group, and his band of coaches plotting and planning their way towards 2024 at breakneck speed.
So many stories emerging from the lanes of Fukuoka, with McKeown becoming the first female to win a world championship treble – taking the 50, 100 and 200m backstroke crowns and the World Aquatics Female Swimmer of the Meet.
The emergence of “Mollie” O winning five gold – including the 200m freestyle in her first world record in a 1-2 shoot out with Ariarne Titmus and the successful defence of her 100m freestyle crown.
A month before the start of the meet, O’Callaghan’s World Championships were thrown into disarray with a dislocated knee.
It didn’t stop her smashing one of the oldest world records in the books to win a classic Aussie duel in the 200m freestyle – clocking 1:52.85 (26.93; 55.94; 1:24.74) – destroying the 2009 mark set by Italy’s Federica Pellegrini, 14 years ago.
The Aussies golden glow continued in the Marine Messe Fukuoka with 19-year-old O’Callaghan staging a classic stroke-for-stroke battle with Dolphins teammate – dual Olympic champion and 400m freestyle winner here, St Peters Western, Queensland club mate Ariarne Titmus, who was only 0.16 behind in her own personal best time of 1:53.01.
FULL LIST OF AWARD WINNERS
High Performance Program of the Year: The Dolphins, Swimming Australia
Female Able-Athlete of the Year: Kaylee McKeown, Swimming Australia
Performance of the Year: Mollie O’Callaghan, Swimming Australia
Emerging Athlete of the Year: Alexa Leary, Swimming Australia
Coach of the Year: Rohan Taylor, Swimming Australia
Award for Leadership: Jessica Corones, Swimming Australia
Female Para-Athlete of the Year: Lauren Parker, AusTriathlon/AusCycling
Male Able-Athlete of the Year: Matt Wearn, Australian Sailing
Male Para-Athlete of the Year: James Turner, Athletics Australia
Community Engagement Award: Amy Parmenter, Netball Australia
Volunteer of the Year: Elysa Oliveri, Cricket Australia
Win Well Award: Archery Australia
Team of the Year: BC3 Pairs, Boccia Australia
McKeown, O’Callaghan and Leary will all be in action at next week’s Hancock Prospecting Queensland Championships, December 9-15 at the Brisbane Aquatic Centre.
Photo Credit: Wade Brennan
