Italian Simona Quadarella Will Take a 2 Month Training Camp with Dean Boxall in Australia

Italian distance star Simona Quadarella is planning to travel to Australia for a targeted two-month training with Australian coach Dean Boxall, one of the world’s most successful coaches over the last decade.

Her home training base will remain in Rome under coach Gianluca Belfiore, and the trip to Australia (during the Italian winter) is a targeted training experience designed to help her rediscover motivation, rhythm, and new technical stimuli.

The news emerged during the Rai Sport Italian broadcast of the prelims session on Tuesday of the European Short Course Swimming Championships in Lublin, Poland. There, she qualified 2nd in 4:00.25 behind Germany’s Isabel Gose.

But the news of Quadarella going to train with the world’s best group for women’s freestyle was the big news coming out of the session.

Quadarella reportedly had previously explored doing a camp in the U.S. at the University of Florida under Anthony Nesty, where Katie Ledecky trains, but after that didn’t work out, Boxall’s group in Australia became the next target.

This fills a gap in the training group at St. Peters Western in Brisbane after the retirement of one of Quadarella’s rivals Ariarne Titmus.

Some of the greatest modern female freestyle swimmers train – or have trained- in his group:

• Lani Pallister – Olympic gold in Paris in the 4×200 freestyle, 5 short course world titles, 2 long course world titles, short course world record holder in the 800 free
• Mollie O’Callaghan – superstar of the 100 and 200 free, 5 Olympic gold medals
• Ariarne Titmus – icon of global middle-distance freestyle, developed within the SPW system, 4-time Olympic champion and world record holder

He also previously coached Olympic medalist Meg Harris, though she switched to Peter Bishop after the Tokyo 2020 Olympics for the run-up to her big 2024/2025 performances; Olympic backstroke medalist Mitch Larkin; and Olympic middle-distance freestyle medalist Elijah Winnington at various points of their careers.

Dean Boxall‘s swimmers won 12 medals (4 gold, 5 silver, 3 bronze) at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Quadarella, 26, has long been one of the best women’s distance swimmers in the world. She won the 2019 World Championship in the 1500 free when illness struck Ledecky from the race, and took Olympic bronze in the 800 free in 2020.

In spite of all those successes, as she stares down a logjam in the women’s distance freestyle races, 2025 still felt like a level-up for her. She pushed Ledecky as hard as Ledecky is ever pushed in this race, ultimately finishing 2nd in a new European Record of 15:31.79.

That took nine seconds off her previous best time, which was the 15:40 she swam for that 2019 Ledecky-less World Championship at just 20 years old. She also dropped almost two seconds in her 800 free.

If this training move sounds familiar, it’s because St. Peters Western is the same training group that welcomed Italian Olympians Thomas Ceccon and Alberto Razzetti in early 2025.

The Quadarella File

• Olympic bronze medalist in the 800 free (Tokyo 2020)
• European record holder in the 800 free at 8:12.81 (2025)
• European record holder in the 1500 free at 15:31.79 (2025)
• World champion in the 1500 free (Gwangju 2019)
• World silver medalist in the 1500 free (Budapest 2022)
• World bronze medalist in the 800 free (Budapest 2022)
• Short course world champion in the 1500 free (Doha 2024)
• European champion in the 400/800/1500 free (Glasgow 2018)
• European champion in the 800/1500 free (Rome 2022)