Famous Australian Swimmers

Dawn Fraser is an Australian freestyle champion swimmer. She won the Olympic individual event the women's 100-meter freestyle three times in her career. She also won six Commonwealth Games gold medals. Much respected for her athletic abilities, she was also known for her controversial behavior. She became a swimming coach after her retirement. She is also a former politician.

Three-time Olympic gold medalist Shane Gould was 15 when she participated in the Munich Olympics. She stunned everyone with her early retirement at 16 and stayed away from the limelight for 25 years, eventually re-emerging after raising her four kids on an Australian farm and then breaking records at the 2000 Sydney Games.

Ian Thorpe is an Australian retired swimmer who won five Olympic gold medals. He predominantly competed in freestyle but was also skilled at backstroke and the individual medley. He emerged as the most successful athlete at the 2000 Summer Olympics, with three gold and two silver medals. He is openly gay and often talks about the challenges of being homosexual. 

Olympic bronze-winning Australian swimmer Justin Norris is known for his mastery in the butterfly and individual medley categories and for his catchphrase, “I’m stoked.” He won three golds at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. He is the father of Sabre Norris and her siblings from the YouTube channel The Norris Nuts.

Named an elite commando at age 24, Damien Thomlinson joined the Australian forces in Afghanistan and ended up losing his legs in an explosion orchestrated by the Taliban. Now a skilled para snowboarder and swimmer, he has also penned a best-selling memoir and been part of the movie Hacksaw Ridge.

Apart from being an Olympic gold medalist, Australian swimmer John Davies was also a UCLA graduate and later became a federal judge in the US. The breaststroke specialist became Australia’s first swimming gold medal winner since Clare Dennis, at Helsinki in 1952. He was also named to the International Swimming Hall of Fame.