2024 Swammy Awards: Oceanian Coach of the Year – Dean Boxall

See all of our 2024 Swammy Awards here.

For the fourth straight year, Dean Boxall is the Swammy Award winner for Oceanian Coach of the Year, having landed a startling number of swimmers on the Australian Olympic team in 2024.

Boxall’s elite group training out of the Brisbane-based St. Peter’s Western Swim Club performed when it mattered most in 2024, as he qualified 10 swimmers for the Australian Olympic team and those swimmers combined to win 18 medals in Paris.

At the Australian Olympic Trials in June, Ariarne Titmus, Boxall’s star swimmer who won double gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, set a new world record in the women’s 200 freestyle, clocking 1:52.23, while another one of his athletes, Mollie O’Callaghan, who held the previous world record of 1:52.85, touched 2nd in 1:52.48, marking the two fastest swims in history.

Titmus also won the 400 free in 3:55.44, just six one-hundredths shy of the world record she set in 2023, and added a third victory in the 800 free, while O’Callaghan won the 100 free, and Boxall-trained swimmers Shayna Jack (women’s 50 free) and Elijah Winnington (men’s 400, 800 free) also collected wins.

In addition to those four, six more of Boxall’s swimmers made the grade and punched their tickets to Paris. Among those were six first-timers, and a wide range of ages, from 17-year-old Jaclyn Barclay to 28-year-old Brianna Throssell.

Boxall’s Swimmers On Australian Olympic Team

• Ariarne Titmus
• Mollie O’Callaghan
• Shayna Jack
• Brianna Throssell
• Jamie Perkins
• Jaclyn Barclay
• Jenna Forrester
• Elijah Winnington
• Kai Taylor
• Jack Cartwright

In Paris, eight of Boxall’s swimmers won medals, led by O’Callaghan, who claimed five to tie for second among all athletes at the Olympics.

Racing head-to-head with Titmus in the final of the women’s 200 free, O’Callaghan won gold in an Olympic Record time of 1:53.27, with Titmus earning silver in 1:53.81 as Boxall’s swimmers went 1-2.

Although O’Callaghan fell just shy of a medal in the 100 free, where she was among the gold medal favorites but ended up 4th by .01, she also won gold in the women’s 4×100 free relay, the women’s 4×200 free relay, plus a silver in the women’s 4×100 medley relay and a bronze in the mixed 4×100 medley relay, giving her five medals.

Titmus led all of Boxall’s swimmers in terms of individual medals, winning repeat gold in the women’s 400 free and a second consecutive silver in the 800 free in Paris, setting a new Oceanian and Australian Record in the latter, clocking 8:12.06. The now 24-year-old also anchored the Aussie women to gold in the 4×200 free relay.

The other individual medalist among Boxall’s stable of swimmers in Paris was Winnington, who earned silver in the men’s 400 free three years after he was left off the podium in Tokyo as the pre-race favorite.

Jack, Throssell, Jamie Perkins, Jack Cartwright and Kai Taylor all won relay medals, with Jack notably earning two gold medals in the team events to go along with a pair of individual finals in the women’s 50 free (8th) and 100 free (5th).

Olympic Medals Won By Boxall’s Swimmers

• Ariarne Titmus (4) – W 400 FR gold, W 4×200 FR gold, W 200 FR silver, W 800 FR silver
• Mollie O’Callaghan (5) – W 200 FR gold, W 4×100 FR gold, W 4×200 FR gold, W 4×100 MR silver, Mixed 4×100 MR bronze
• Shayna Jack (2) – W 4×100 FR gold, W 4×200 FR gold
• Brianna Throssell (1) – W 4×200 FR gold
• Jamie Perkins (1) – W 4×200 FR gold
• Elijah Winnington (2) – M 400 FR silver, M 4×200 FR bronze
• Kai Taylor (2) – M 4×100 FR silver, M 4×200 FR bronze
• Jack Cartwright (1) – M 4×100 FR silver

Most of Boxall’s swimmers opted to take a break coming out of the Olympics, so we didn’t see them in action at the Aussie Short Course Championships or on the World Cup, but Winnington opted to take the opportunity to compete at Short Course Worlds in December.

The 24-year-old overcame some post-Olympic mental struggles to win a SC world title in the men’s 400 free, and added a silver medal as a member of the Aussie men’s 4×200 free relay.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

• Michael Bohl – Bohl coached our Female Oceanian Swimmer of the Year, Kaylee McKeown, to a phenomenal year that included five Olympic medals including a second consecutive sweep of the women’s backstroke events. McKeown set new Olympic Records en route to gold in the women’s 100 and 200 back in Paris, set new Oceanian Records in the women’s 200 IM and 400 IM earlier in the year, and finished things off by breaking the world record in the women’s 100 back (SCM) in September. Bohl, who coaches out of Griffith University, also put Emma McKeon, Lani Pallister and Brendon Smith on the Australian Olympic team, with McKeon claiming three relay medals to become Australia’s most decorated Olympian ever, and Pallister earning a relay gold for the first Olympic medal of her career. Pallister followed up by winning four medals at Short Course Worlds in December, including individual gold in the women’s 800 free.
• Tim Lane – Lane was the mastermind behind the revitalization of Cameron McEvoy‘s career over the last two years, as the Australian freestyler dialed in his focus on the 50 freestyle and saw that decision pay dividends. Lane helped guide McEvoy to gold in the men’s 50 free at the 2023 Worlds in Fukuoka, and then in 2024, he was the silver medalist at the Worlds in Doha before climbing to the top of the Olympic mountain in Paris, winning gold in a time of 21.25. From mid-February through to the Olympic final on August 1, McEvoy went 21-point in the 50 free 14 times.

Past Winners:

• 2023: Dean Boxall
• 2022: Dean Boxall
• 2021: Dean Boxall
• 2020: Chris Mooney
• 2019: Dean Boxall
• 2018: Dean Boxall
• 2017: Simon Cusack
• 2016: Peter Bishop
• 2015: Simon Cusack