New Aussie Head Coach Rohan Taylor Talks Transition & Targets

Less than a week after having been announced as the new head coach of the Australian national swimming team, Rohan Taylor spoke with SwimSwam regarding the quest that now lay before him with just over a year to go to the next Summer Olympic Games.

Taylor is charged with leading the Aussie team, which boasts such elite talent as Olympians Kyle Chalmers, Cate and Bronte Campbell, Emma McKeon, Mitch Larkin, only to name a small few, at a time when the swimmers down under are on the rise once again.

Australia snagged 10 total swimming medals at the 2016 Olympic Games, a result which ranked the nation #2 behind the United States in Rio. At last year’s World Championships, the Aussie squad claimed 10 medals to rank the powerhouse country runner-up once again to the stars n’ stripes.

Additionally, before the coronavirus pandemic brought the 2020 aquatic racing season to a rapid and unexpected close, Australia had already infiltrated the men’s and women’s world rankings across virtually every event. Larkin, Zac Stubblety-Cook, Grant Irvine, Chalmers, the Cambell sisters, McKeon, Kiah Melverton, Brianna Throssell and Kaylee McKeown had punched times that situated them among the top 5 worldwide in their respective events heading into the since-canceled Olympic Trials.

With the clear intention of carrying on this momentum, Taylor is taking over the reins from departing Dutchman Jacco Verhaeren. Verhaeren had been at the helm of the national team since 2013 and was among those credited with rehabbing the Aussie swimming culture after a tumultuous 2012 Olympics, which included the ‘Stilnox scandal’ and disappointing results overall in London.

In our original report, we detailed how Verhaeren had chosen not to extend his contract with Swimming Australia, which was due to be completed in November 2020 after the Tokyo Olympics. With the Games now postponed to 2021, Verhaeren will leave his post, returning to Europe, at the end of September.

As for Taylor, the man is moving into the Australian national head coach role after having served as State Head Coach for swimming in Victoria and Tasmania. Before that, the storied coach led Nunawading Swimming Club and helped guide Leisel Jones to Olympic gold at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Belinda Hocking and Ash Delaney were also under Taylor’s tutelage at one time.

Although Taylor said he’ll miss living in Melbourne where he was born and will also lament the ‘great people with great passion’ for swimming with whom he worked every day, he is looking forward to infusing past experiences into his new post.

“The role in Victoria and Tasmania that I held for the past 3 years has helped me develop my ability to provide support to coaches and athletes in their own environment so they can best prepare for peak competition.

“This has been all about building relationships and trust with coaches and athletes so I am I a position to provide advice and guidance when required,” Taylor told SwimSwam this week.

Elaborating on this sentiment, Taylor also shared that in recent years, “the ability to add value either via my own experience or surrounding them [athletes] with additional expertise to support their individual needs has been the biggest growth for me.

“The ability to see so many different styles of coaching and programs gives me some good insight on how we need to be individual in our support of each program.”

Taylor will still have involvement with the Sates, as well as the Performance staff through his national role. With some of the coaches have athletes on target to potentially qualify for the Olympic team, he’ll continue to have contact with them regularly.

“Collaboration, Commitment, Communication, Consistency,” is the motto Taylor uses to describe his coaching philosophy, one which will serve as his compass pointing him to the plan for Tokyo.

“Having been on the Olympic Team Leadership group planning this campaign I do not see any changes from the inside needed as I have been heavily involved in the planning with Jacco,” Taylor said when asked if he’d be upheaving anything from the ‘Jacco era’ heading into next year.

“The changes in our planning going into 2021 will come externally due to the Covid19 situation. Whatever changes are needed the team is still working together to ensure we are adaptable to what is required, allowing our coaches and athletes to be best prepared.”

That doesn’t mean the status quo will be maintained entirely, however. Taylor says he would like to see how more exciting competitions outside of the Aussie State and National Championships can develop domestically.

In-season racing is key for continual improvement and he says “it is up to our leadership to explore those areas for what is next.”