03 Mar 2010

In 1981, Graeme Caroll became one of the first scholarship holders to join the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) Swimming program — training under Dennis Pursley and Bill Sweetenham. Prior to joining the AIS, Graeme was a national champion in swimming, water polo and surf lifesaving.

Inspired by Pursley and Sweetenham, Graeme had a lifelong ambition to become a high performance swimming coach.  

He left the AIS in 1982 to take up a coaching role: running learn-to-swim classes at the Galston Aquatic Centre in Sydney — the same centre Graeme’s old coach, 1956 Olympian Gary Winram, also worked.

At Galston, Graeme drew on his AIS experience to create a unique approach to coaching that combined swim training with gym instruction and aerobics classes. During this time, Graeme also coached junior talent squads (based both at Galston and the Hornsby Aquatic Centre).

In 1988, Graeme coached 15 of the top 20 Uncle Toby’s Iron Man competitors, including Guy Leech. He then took a coaching position at the Warringah Aquatic Centre in Sydney, where he remained for the next 20 years.

In the course of his coaching career Graeme has worked with some of Australia’s best swimmers and athletes selected for national, Olympic, Paralympic, world championship and Pan Pacific Swimming Championship teams, including four time open water world champion Shelley Taylor-Smith, Olympic medallist Brooke Hanson OAM, and former AIS swimmer Anna Windsor.

Graeme has also coached great Australian athletes in other water sports, including water polo players Debbie Watson — the only woman to win Olympic Games, world championship and World Cup water polo gold medals — and Ray Mayers, and world champion surfers Layne Beachley and Tom Carroll.

In May 2009, Graeme Carroll returned to the AIS — to coach the new AIS/Paralympic High Performance Swim program.