Australian freestyle talent Milla Jansen has made the training move from Bond University in Queensland to the western suburbs of Brisbane to work with the elite St. Peters Western team under the leadership of esteemed coach Dean Boxall.
Jansen is a two-time World Champion as a member of two Australian free relays in Singapore last summer. She swam the penultimate leg of Australia’s 4×100 free relay, splitting 52.89 to help her relay topple the US Relay by nearly half a second in 3:30.60. She also earned a gold as a member of the 4×200 free relay in prelims, where she swam the 2nd leg in 1:59.51 and helping the Australians finish 2nd in prelims in 7:51.76 before a blistering 7:39.35 to jump the Americans (7:40.35) in the finals for gold.
Jansen joins the SPW group that boasts loads of Australia’s best swimmers including the likes of Lani Pallister, Mollie O’Callaghan, Jenna Forrester, Shayna Jack, Elijah Winnington, and Kai Taylor, among many others.
She took to Instagram to announce her move to SPW, posing with one of her new training partners in Pallister, captioning the photo “Next chapter 🤍@stpeterswestern”
The potential training with both Pallister and O’Callaghan is especially intriguing, seeing how both saw legendary swims and time drops in 2025. Pallister swam a scintillating 7:54.00 in the 800 free at the World Cup in Toronto (SCM) in October, smashing Katie Ledecky’s former world record of 7:57.42. Her move to Brisbane to train with SPW paid off in big ways, including her breaking 4:00 in the 400 free (LCM), which she did at the 2025 Australian Trials last June when she touched in 3:59.72, later taking silver in Singapore in the race of the year, beating out Summer McIntosh to finish runner up to Katie Ledecky in 8:05.98.
O’Callaghan’s major 2025 moment also came during the World Cup, initially breaking the short course 200 free world record in Westmont, becoming the first sub 1:50 swimmer in history in 1:49.77, and then besting that again in Toronto, further dipping below 1:50 in 1:49.36. In the span of just four weeks, she had climbed to the #3 swimmer in history in the event in 1:50.77, before breaking two World Records in a week span.
Jansen brings in 24.10/52.26/1:54.98 short course and 24.76/53.78/1:58.06 long course speed to Boxall’s elite group. She brings plenty of international experience as well, including multiple appearances at the Junior Pan Pacific Championship and an individual final at the World Short Course Championships, where she finished 8th in the 200 free in 2024.
She recently clocked that long course 200 free best at the 2026 New South Wales State Open Championships, clocking the only sub 2:00 time in 1:58.06, taking nearly two tenths off of her former best of 1:58.26 from her 2024 Junior Pan Pacific Championships performance.
I hope she will become Yolane Kukla and what she was supposed to achieve at her young age before burnout (which I hope Jansen doesn’t follow)
Very quick 50 fly from Jumanah Fahmy, at SA Age Champs the other day. Almost broke the 13 years age record (27.13) with 27.27. For some reason she wasn’t entered in the 100.
She’ll probably do well! 🤞
Correct stroke for the squad. SPW very much a freestyle squad, less representation in the form strokes.
Also great results in middle distance…200m upwards.
A big exception is the phenomenon of MoC who can smash out a world-class 50m/100m backstroke for fun 🙂.
Jamie Jack is a sprinter there but apparently writes his own programs. Some sprinters in the past have left SPW (e.g Meg or Mitch Larkin)
Mitch wasn’t a sprinter and thrived on high volume and Meg’s back doing 200 volume again.
Jansen is gonna improve a lot is SPW same like Lani
Jansen just set a small 200 free PB yesterday at NSW Open (1:58.0) despite being well off her 50/100 bests. Reckon her and Dean will cook up something special, but not sure if it’ll be in time to save the relay this year… or she might pull a Pallister and drop a load of time after just a few months with him
if you presume the top 2 aussies will be around as fast as the top 2 americans (for arguments sake lets say moc/meg vs torri/kate) the next 2 aussies (some combo of shayna/milla/olivia) will just need to be as fast as/faster than the next 2 americans (some combo of simone/erisman/gretch) which will prob take a 52 mid/high flat start. that doesnt seem entirely out of the cards esp since shayna wasnt training seriously last season and olivia/milla were both injured or sick for large parts of last season.
i still think the americans are favored bc they funny enough have more depth but theyre not entirely slam dunk favorites. altho i think what will hurt the aussies most will be… Read more »
If MOC, Meg and Shayna are near their best then we only need a serviceable 4th leg to be favourites (and theoretically Milla or Olivia could drop a flat 52 mid-high but Olivia’s illness stalled her a bit). Unfortunately, Shayna was completely MIA last year and MOC was half a second off her best. Add to that that they have a taper meet 12 days before Pan PACs AND PPs are in the US, US are solid favourites at this point IMO. But it’s not over til it’s over!
I do think the Americans will beat us this year but I hope that will also be motivation to get back at them at LA!
Huske/Douglass/Walsh really look like they’re in peak form right now and seem untouchable. Then add in Erisman who seemingly came out of nowhere (to me at least) and it looks so hard to beat on paper. We shall see!
Erisman’s been on the radar for a while.
ok fair enough, I only really started following swimming seriously since Paris and first heard of her at World Juniors
Hey, welcome to the party 🙂
Basically the same situation as me!
Dropping 5 seconds in a 50, 10 seconds in a 100, and 24 seconds in a 200 in one year. Ah, to be an age grouper
Where did u find this
I like it
not sure Australias best time will be Pan Pacs. I think the lure of the Comm Games brings out a better relay performance. I think US wins Pan Pacs.
No Lani?
She’s clearly our #2 right now, is she not?
In any case, the US girls will def. be very tough to beat this year.
I don’t think lani is the #2 100 freestyler..
No doubt they’re gonna be hitting them 200 sets hard in the lead up to trials. Pray for Milla 😆
Casey probably should’ve skipped the scenic tour and just gone straight to SPW given the 200 is her best event.
Is there talk of her moving as well? Or you’re just hoping?
We have quite a few girls in that transitional period in the 100/200 free and we could really use a few breakouts this year!
Just hoping. Where is she anyway? Hasn’t raced since December.
This training group is insane. I think dekkers has moved too?
Dekkers moved towards the end of 2024.