Olympic gold medalist Zac Stubblety-Cook and partner Ella Ramsay have abruptly left head coach Mel Marshall and their Gold Coast training base less than two months out from the Australian Swimming Trials.
Marshall and Stubblety-Cook have been at odds for some time, primarily due to “clashing philosophies” about how Griffith University Swim Club should run, according to The Sydney Morning Herald, and things recently reached a point of no return.
A source close to the team told SwimSwam that the contentious relationship between the two star swimmers and Marshall goes beyond a clash in philosophy, with allegations of Ramsay bullying other swimmers and claims that Ramsay and Stubblety-Cook created “a really awful training environment.”
Marshall and Stubblety-Cook reportedly had a meeting after last week’s Australian Open Championships, and by Wednesday, he and Ramsay had moved on.
The Sydney Morning Herald described the situation as a “delicate” one that Swimming Australia is trying to manage heading into the Trials in Sydney in early June.
Stubblety-Cook and Ramsay have moved to the Nunawading Swimming Club on an interim basis, with financial assistance provided by the Queensland Academy of Sport, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
The Nunawading Swimming Club is led by coaching director and High Performance Squad Coach Jol Finck, and includes up-and-coming female talents Isabella Boyd, Semra Olowoniyi and Lily Koch.
“Griffith University Swim Club is currently implementing a realignment ahead of the green and gold runway into LA 2028 and Brisbane 2032,” Swimming Australia said in a statement, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
“This realignment has seen Zac Stubblety-Cook and Ella Ramsay depart Swimming Australia’s Griffith University’s high-performance hub and they are now training at Nunawading’s performance program.”
Marshall, the longtime coach of Olympic champion and world record holder Adam Peaty in Great Britain, was recruited to take over as the leader of the Griffith high performance program in July 2024. A few months later, Stubblety-Cook left Brisbane in order to align with Marshall at Griffith.
Since Marshall’s arrival, five-time Olympic gold medalist Kaylee McKeown and seven-time world champion Lani Pallister have both moved on after previously training at Griffith under coach Michael Bohl.
Now, the loss of Stubblety-Cook and Ramsay means four Olympic medalists have left in less than two years.
Stubblety-Cook, 27, established himself as the world’s best 200 breaststroker in the early 2020s, winning Olympic gold in Tokyo in 2021 and becoming the first man under the 2:06 barrier at the 2022 Australian Championships, breaking the world record in 2:05.95.
He went on to win gold in the 200 breast at both the 2022 World Championships and Commonwealth Games, and then, most recently, has claimed silver at the 2023 World Championships behind China’s Qin Haiyang, and at the Paris Olympics behind France’s Leon Marchand.
Qin broke Stubblety-Cook’s world record at the 2023 Worlds, clocking 2:05.48, while Marchand took down Stubblety-Cook’s Olympic Record in Paris in a time of 2:05.85. They are the only two other men who have broken 2:06.
Stubblety-Cook was named to the 2025 Australian World Championship team, but withdrew from the competition due to a back injury.
Ramsay, 21, won a silver medal at the 2024 Olympics after swimming a prelim leg on the Aussie women’s 4×100 medley relay, and at last summer’s World Championships, she won a silver on the same relay after swimming the breast leg in the final.
Individually, Ramsay placed 5th in the women’s 400 IM at the Paris Olympics, and she also qualified for the final of the 200 IM but was a last-minute scratch due to illness, which led to there being an empty lane in the final. She also took 12th in the 200 breast.
At the 2025 World Championships, Ramsay was 9th in the 200 breast, 11th in the 200 IM and 21st in the 100 breast.
Michael Bohl….
As a teenager in the late ’90s/early ’00s I trained at a performance center in Europe with some truly great swimmers under a big name coach. The biggest star of them all, was also the one who tortured every young swimmer on the team.
She destroyed that team and as a result, everyone left.
That’s the flip side if you don’t reprimand bullying. You’re left with one good swimmer and everyone else quit by the time they turn 16 or so, because they can’t stand the environment any longer.
I can’t speak for everyone, but from what I heard back then why people left, it was all for the same reason. Truly, I didn’t even want to… Read more »
Unfortunate to hear about the bullying allegations. But Marshall took one of Australia’s best squads and within a year its lost every star and not a single swimmer there is excelling.
Is she a good coach? Or was Peaty going to succeed anywhere and she got lucky?
I always thought she was a great coach for Adam but that doesn’t make one a good coach for any squad
Was he not here recently? Be interesting to hear his thoughts.
I also wonder if she was bought over specifically for ZSC has she put up with his behaviour and his GF then because of it and was that the direction given to her by Swim Aus? Maybe now they’re gone she’ll run it the way she wants? Although wasn’t there some kind of altercation with Greenbank a few years ago? I still think Pallister was the heir apparent to Bohl there. And ideally at some point TFH.
If there’s bullying allegations though I hope Swim Aus takes that seriously because that needs to be dealt with. We have young swimmers coming through on the Aus team who don’t… Read more »
For Pallister to move to Boxall seemed like a natural thing, given the events she specialises in. Not sure about McKeown, but her comments about being happier since her move now seem telling. Somebody of her incredible sporting calibre will know when things don’t seem ‘right’ with the environment, and the support she needs to keep going just isn’t there.
Kaylee moved home to be with family for non swimming reasons after her coach left the program.
There’s no issue with Pallister or McKeown leaving in isolation.
There is an issue with it being 4 athletes.
I agree with all of that. Yes.
Ughhh if there are bullying allegations not sure I want them down there busting the great environment for Petric and Clareburt.
Once again, could you point out that Ramsay fell ill suddenly in 2024 in Paris. It was not her fault that the reserve swimmer was not ready to race. So it was not her fault there was an empty lane.
What difference does it make to the narrative ? That wasn’t the focus of this article was it ?
I know…but there is always this undercurrent of “oh she’s the one who left a lane empty in an Olympic final on purpose”. I’ve had to point it out before. I have no idea if she bullied anyone but she doesn’t need false information spread about her.
Who are the bullying allegations against? Marshall or Ramsay?
Ramsay
The ones that have been shared at us have been levied at the swimmers.
Nobody has communicated any bullying accusations toward the coaching staff to us or that we’ve seen. I’m sure that ZSC and Ella would have their own perspectives on the matter.
So one possible scenario would be that they kicked her out, he decided to go with her, they gave them financial aid to leave, found them a temporary club and all parties agreed to stick to an official reason for their departure being “clashing philosophies”.
Sad if true…
Or they were both booted. How many left the squad due to alleged toxic behavior before Swimming Australia stepped in?
Has Thomas Fraser Holmes scored some good swimmers thanks to StubletyCook and Ramsay?
Perhaps the personality clash was the main reason for the training divorce (I suppose we may never know), but I would be much more interested in how the training philosophies diverged. Marshall obviously did something spectacular with Peaty, but that was in the 100. In recent times the 100 and 200 breast seem to be nearly disjoint events, with only (?) QHY able to podium in both, so not sure what she had to offer was ideal for ZSC.