By James Sutherland on SwimSwam
See all of our 2025 Swammy Awards here.
Despite his star swimmer opting not to compete throughout 2025 before announcing her retirement in October, Dean Boxall earns his fifth straight Swammy for Oceanian Coach of the Year after leading two of Australia’s most successful athletes to standout years.
Ariarne Titmus, who Boxall coached to two gold and four total medals at the 2024 Olympics, called it a career two months ago after sitting out of the 2025 World Championships, but despite her absence, Boxall’s swimmers from St. Peter’s Western still delivered on the global stage this year.
The headliner was Mollie O’Callaghan, who stepped up and reclaimed the world title in the women’s 200 freestyle, clocking 1:53.48 in the final to top the field by over a second and rank #1 in the world for 2025 by the same margin (1.04 seconds over Li Bingjie).
O’Callaghan also earned silver in the 100 free, posting a time of 52.67 in the final to finish 12 one-hundredth back of gold medalist Marrit Steenbergen, and added three medals on relays, winning gold on the Australian women’s 4×100 free (52.79 lead-off) and 4×200 free relays (1:53.44 anchor) and adding a silver on the 4×100 medley relay (52.23 anchor).
One of the swimmers who only joined Boxall in 2025, Lani Pallister, had one of the most surprising performances of the World Championships when she snared silver in the women’s 800 free in what was touted as a clash of the titans between Katie Ledecky and Summer McIntosh.
Pallister unleashed a blistering time of 8:05.98 in the 800 free final, winning a close silver to Ledecky (8:05.62) while knocking nearly five seconds off her Oceanian and Australian Record of 8:10.84 set less than two months earlier at the Aussie Trials. Already having come into the meet ranked #3 in history, Pallister’s swim marked the sixth-fastest performance ever, only trailing four Ledecky swims and the 8:05.07 produced by McIntosh earlier in the year.
In addition to her 8:10.84 swim in the 800 free, Pallister also set personal best times in the 200 free (1:54.89), 400 free (3:59.72) and 1500 free (15:39.14) at the Australian Trials in June, and then managed to improve all but the 1500 at Worlds.
Pallister won bronze in the 1500 in a time of 15:41.18, placed 4th in the 400 free in a new best of 3:58.87, and led off the Australian women’s 4×200 free relay to gold in 1:54.77.
Along with O’Callaghan and Pallister, nine other St. Peter’s Western swimmers qualified for the Australian World Championship roster, four of whom won medals and two who broke onto the senior international team for the first time.
Jenna Forrester – Forrester tied for silver in the women’s 400 IM in a time of 4:33.26, the second-fastest swim of her career and quickest since 2023. Jamie Perkins – Perkins won gold after splitting 1:55.13 on the Aussie women’s 4×200 free relay, and also placed 6th in the 400 free (4:03.20) and 7th in the 200 free (1:56.55). She set a best time of 1:55.44 in the 200 free at the Aussie Trials, placing 3rd, before Pallister dropped the individual event to give Perkins a second individual berth in Singapore. Ella Ramsay – Ramsay earned a silver medal after splitting 1:06.49 on the breast leg for the Aussie women’s 4×100 medley relay. Individually, she placed 9th in the 200 breast (2:24.24), 11th in the 200 IM (2:11.22) and 21st in the 100 breast (1:07.23). Hannah Fredericks – Fredericks placed 11th in the women’s 100 back (59.73), 15th in the 200 back (2:10.03) and 18th in the 50 back (28.03) at her debut World Championships. Kai Taylor – Taylor won gold on the men’s 4×100 free relay (47.04 split) and bronze on the men’s 4×200 free relay (1:44.64 split). Brendon Smith – Smith was a finalist in the men’s 400 IM, clocking 4:13.28 in the final to place 8th after going slightly quicker in the heats (4:13.08). Ben Goedemans – A World Championship rookie, Goedemans placed 7th in the men’s 800 free final (7:50.72) after going 7:48.66 in the prelims. He set a best of 7:46.16 at the Australian Trials. Elijah Winnington – In his lone swim of the championships, Winnington placed 10th in the men’s 400 free in 3:46.37, missing a second swim by half a second. He set a season-best of 3:43.99 at the Aussie Trials, which ranked 7th in the world for 2025. William Petric – Petric placed 12th in the men’s 200 IM (1:58.21) and 16th in the 400 IM (4:16.91) in Singapore.During the World Cup series in October, O’Callaghan and Pallister put on dominant performances, both establishing new world records in short course meters.
O’Callaghan became the first woman sub-1:50 in the 200 free at the second stop in Westmont, clocking 1:49.77 to erase Siobhan Haughey‘s world record of 1:50.31, and then at the series finale in Toronto, O’Callaghan went ever lower, clocking 1:49.36 to become the fastest woman ever by 95 one-hundredths of a second.
Having also won the event at the opening leg in Carmel (1:50.77), O’Callaghan earned the Triple Crown bonus in the 200 free for the World Cup, and also placed 2nd in the 100 free at all three legs (setting a PB of 50.82 in Toronto to rank #8 all-time) and finished in the top-three across the board in the 50 back (clocking 25.42 in Toronto to rank #5 all-time). She ultimately placed 6th overall in the series.
Pallister took down the first individual world record of her career at the World Cup in Toronto, clocking 7:54.00 in the women’s 800 free to shatter Ledecky’s world record of 7:57.42 by nearly three and a half seconds.
Pallister did not lose a distance event throughout the World Cup, sweeping the 400 free at all three stops, culminating with a 3:51.87 Oceanian Record in Toronto that ranks her #3 all-time, and she also won the 800 free in Carmel (8:02.02) and the 1500 free the lone time it was contested in Westmont, clocking 15:13.83 for the second-fastest swim ever. That gave her a pair of Triple Crowns at the World Cup and earned her 4th overall in the series standings.
Several other Boxall-trained swimmers competed at the three World Cup stops in October, with Ramsay in the women’s 400 IM in Carmel (4:30.25) and Smith in the men’s 1500 free in Toronto (14:45.84) earning one bronze medal apiece.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Michael Sage (AUS) – Sage, who took over as the head coach of the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) Spartans in late December 2024, inherited star swimmer Kaylee McKeown in April, and guided her to arguably the best year of any Australian swimmer in 2025. McKeown continued her undefeated run in the women’s 100 and 200 back at major championship meets by sweeping the world titles in those events in Singapore, clocking 57.16 in the final of the 100 back to break the Commonwealth and Championship Record with the second-fastest swim in history. In the 200 back, McKeown won gold in a time of 2:03.33, a new Championship Record and the third-fastest swim ever. She also won silver on the Aussie women’s 4×100 medley relay. Sage also coached Alexandria Perkins to a standout performance at Worlds, winning silver in the women’s 50 fly and tying Holly Barratt‘s Oceanian Record in 25.31. Perkins also earned bronze in the 100 fly (56.33), setting a new best time of 56.19 in the semis, and added a silver alongside McKeown on the women’s medley relay. Sage qualified a third swimmer on the World Championship team, Abbey Connor, who was the runner-up in the women’s 200 fly (2:07.14) at Trials, but she withdrew from Worlds shortly before the competition. Closing out the year at the World Cup (SCM), McKeown won Triple Crowns in the women’s 50 and 200 back, setting back-to-back world records in the latter in Westmont (1:57.87) and Toronto (1:57.33). She also set a new Oceanian Record in the 50 back (25.35) and a new Commonwealth mark in the 100 back (54.49) in Toronto. Perkins also set a new Commonwealth Record in the women’s 50 fly (24.60) and an Oceanian Record in the 100 fly (54.93) at the World Cup, going on to finish 7th overall in the series, while McKeown ended up 3rd overall. Damien Jones (AUS) – Jones, the head coach with the Rackley Swim Team, led Meg Harris to a phenomenal year in the pool, winning the first individual world title of her career in the women’s 50 free at the 2025 World Championships in Singapore. Harris delivered a time of 24.02 in the final to win gold by a comfortable margin (0.24), marking the second-fastest swim of her career after she broke 24 at the Paris Olympics en route to silver (23.97). In the 100 free, Harris led the prelims at the Australian Trials in 53.01, but opted to scratch the final to focus on the 50. Though the 50 was her lone individual event in Singapore, she dropped a blistering 51.87 split as the Aussie women rolled to the victory in the 4×100 free relay. Jones also coached Sam Short to a World Championship silver medal in the men’s 400 free (3:42.37), missing gold by just two one-hundredths of a second (and going faster than the gold medal-winning time in the prelims in 3:42.07), and he also placed 4th in the 1500 free (14:43.08). Short was poised to fight for a medal in the 800 free, having qualified 2nd out of the prelims, but was forced to withdraw from the final due to illness. Lily Price was the third Rackley swimmer making the Worlds team, and she went on to place 6th in the women’s 50 fly (25.61) and 11th in the 100 fly (57.58), setting best times in both. Short was in action at the World Cup in October, winning the men’s 400 free (3:36.27) in Westmont and the 1500 free in both Carmel (14:30.00) and Toronto (14:35.33). Most recently, Harris was on fire at the Queensland Championships in December, setting a personal best of 1:55.97 in the 200 free to become just the fifth woman to go sub-24/sub-53/sub-1:56 in the 50/100/200 free, and she also narrowly missed her PB of 52.52 in the 100 free in 52.56 and clocked 24.48 in the 50 free. She finishes 2025 ranked 3rd in the world in both the 50 and 100 free while sitting 16th in the 200 free.Past Winners:
2024: Dean Boxall 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 CusackRead the full story on SwimSwam: 2025 Swammy Awards: Oceanian Coach of the Year – Dean Boxall
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