Ursula Carlile, Australia’s First Female Olympic Swimming Coach, Dies at 86

Legendary Australian swimming coach Ursula Carlile died on October 15. She was 86 years old.

Carlile became the first (and still only) woman to lead the Australian swimming team as head coach at the 1974 Commonwealth Games. She repeated that role a year later at the 1975 World Championships.

She earned those positions as the coach of  at the 1972 Olympic Games as the coach of Shane Gould, where she made history with 3 gold medals and 3 World Records and became the first swimmer, male or female, to win five individual medals at a single Olympic Games. Carlile served as an assistant coach on that year’s team, making her the first woman to coach an Australian Olympic team.

Carlile was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2022, almost 50 years after her husband Forbes Carlile was inducted. That made them the only husband and wife coaching team in the hall of fame.

Forbes died in 2016.

The interview below was published by the swimming school that bears her name upon news of her death.

“Ursula is a remarkable woman, with Forbes she pioneered some of the most important innovations in world swimming,” said Carlile director and former Australian champion Richard Cahalan.

“Things like the pace clock, circle swimming and heart rates, they were always looking for an edge.”

The Carliles founded Carlile Swimming, which provides both swim lessons and a competitive swimming program and is the home club of one of Australia’s top junior swimmers, Olivia Wunsch.

From Carlile Swimming:

Ursula’s career also included stints with the Dutch Olympic team in 1964 and an honorary role as coach of China. A step that put her on a collision course with swimming’s officials.

This was an era when most of the western world hadn’t recognised the Chinese government.

“Ursula took the fall for that. She stood up to the officials against threats of being banned. One tough, principled lady,’ Mr Cahalan said.

In what was a unique and remarkable coaching partnership it’s fair to say Ursula had the business brains.

“It was really Ursula who understood how important learn to swim teaching could be in terms of a business. A business which would then support elite swimming,” Mr Cahalan said.

Ursula adding “Forbes never really cared about money, we had an amazing life travelling the world coaching, he always felt that somehow the money would be there and inevitably it was.”