Off The Blocks Swimming Podcast

Fresh off an outstanding performance at the 2026 Australian Swimming Trials, Australian representative Jenna Forrester joins us on the Off The Blocks Swimming Podcast.

After securing selection for both the 2026 Commonwealth Games and Pan Pacific Championships, Jenna reflects on a breakthrough week of racing, including her Australian title in the 200m Individual Medley, and shares the hard work, resilience and mindset that have helped shape her journey to the top.

In this episode, we chat about life at St Peter's Western, training in one of Australia's premier high-performance environments, preparing for major international competition, balancing multiple events, and the lessons she's learned along the way. Jenna also offers valuable advice for the next generation of swimmers chasing their own dreams of wearing the green and gold.

This is an honest and inspiring conversation with one of Australian swimming's most exciting rising stars as she prepares for the biggest competitions of her career.

🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

WE ARE BACK

 

In this new episode we speak with world leading coaching mind Wayne Goldsmith about all things sport and coaching in 2026

From team culture, to what coaches could be doing better when working with junior athletes this chat is a must for all coaches out there

 

Don't miss this amazing episode

WE ARE BACK

 

To kick off our return to the podcast, our first guest is Head and Performance Coach of Carlile Chris Nesbit

In this podcast we discuss the recent back to back win on the Australian Age point score for the Carlile club, as well as the amazing coaching team Chris has around him.

We go back and learn about Chris's start in coaching, and what led him become one of the most respected coaches in the world.

So many great insights, you won't want to miss this

We were just going to ride off into the sunset but out of respect to all of our loyal listeners who asked, who demanded for one more podcast, Shannon is back for one podcast only to say goodbye and thank you.

In this podcast we discuss the decision to finish up our weekly show. We hear from special guests who have been a big part of the podcast along the way.

Shannon gives us his thoughts on the Japan Open, NSW State Champs, and Australia v The World

We go through our top 10 most downloaded episodes, favourite guests, as well as give our own top 3 favourite episodes we recorded.

All that and a whole lot more, for one last time. You won't want to miss this

Hello Everyone and welcome to the very special series of Off The Blocks Swimming Podcast from the United States of America.

Each week we will bring you episodes, either with myself and travel mate Dapto Swim Club Head Coach Phil MciLwraith, or interviews with some of America's best and experienced coaches and athletes including Herbie Behm, Vern Gambetta and many more.

In this episode we chat with former USA College Star and Team USA Member Maxime Rooney

 

Hello Everyone and welcome to the very special series of Off The Blocks Swimming Podcast from the United States of America.

Each week we will bring you episodes, either with myself and travel mate Dapto Swim Club Head Coach Phil MciLwraith, or interviews with some of America's best and experienced coaches and athletes including Herbie Behm, Vern Gambetta and many more.

In this episode we chat with USA Coaching legend and a man who has coach at Indianna, North Carolina, Nova Aquatics at Irvine, and as well with the Chinese National team working with athletes like Zhang Yufei, live from the 2025 ASCA World Clinic Mr Ron Turner.

Ron shares with us his coaching philosophies from his long and very successful career. We talk about the amazing athletes his worked with including Shi Jinglin and Zhang Yufei from China, what he learned through his career and how to identify talent.  Working in China, being creative with your programming and a whole lot more.

Great chat with a top coach, don't miss it

Hello Everyone and welcome to the very special series of Off The Blocks Swimming Podcast from the United States of America.

Each week we will bring you episodes, either with myself and travel mate Dapto Swim Club Head Coach Phil MciLwraith, or interviews with some of America's best and experienced coaches and athletes including Herbie Behm, Vern Gambetta and many more.

In this episode Phil and i discuss our visit to LMU, Alpha Aquatics and Head Coach Scott Hubbard. As well we give our Top 5 Male USA Swimmers of all time.

Santa Monica Pier, Bike Riding and a whole lot more

Hello Everyone and welcome to the very special series of Off The Blocks Swimming Podcast from the United States of America.

Each week we will bring you episodes, either with myself and travel mate Dapto Swim Club Head Coach Phil MciLwraith, or interviews with some of America's best and experienced coaches and athletes including Herbie Behm, Vern Gambetta and many more.

In this episode we chat with Arizona State Head Coach Herbie Behm live from the 2025 ASCA World Clinic. Herbie shares with us his coaching philosophies and how he structures his season. We talk about coaching legends Bob Bowman and Dave Salo, what he learned from working with Leon Marchand. The challenges of being a head coach, being creative with your programming and a whole lot more.

Hello Everyone and welcome to the very special series of Off The Blocks Swimming Podcast from the United States of America.

Each week we will bring you episodes, either with myself and travel mate Dapto Swim Club Head Coach Phil MciLwraith, or interviews with some of America's best and experienced coaches and athletes including Herbie Behm, Vern Gambetta and many more.

In this episode Phil and i discuss our visit to Irvine for the Fitter and Faster camps with College swim pro Maxime Rooney as the lead coach. As well we give our Top 5 Female USA Swimmers of all time.

In and Out Burger, Tipping and a whole lot more

 

The Off the Blocks USA Series is proudly brought to you by NSW SCTA

 

Off The Blocks USA Series is proudly brought to you by the Harold Holt Swim Centre's historic "Take The Plunge Swim Classic" being held at Melbourne's Harold Holt Swim Centre on Sunday 30th November 2025

Off The Blocks is back for another week, and in this podcast we chat with an Olympic medallist who has gone onto to carve out a very successful coaching career so far with his team at St Andrews Swim Club, Ash Delaney.

In this chat, Ash and I discuss his recent success at Trials getting Ben Hence and Isaac Cooper making the Australian teams for World Champs. 

We get into the great success the club had at National Age Champs this year in Brisbane with St Andrew's finishing in the top 10 for the first time, and getting 2 athletes on the Junior Aus team heading to Romania in August.

We discuss his own swimming career, some great stories and how being an elite athlete himself has helped shape him as a coach.

Favourite sets, non negotiables, working with Kirsten from SwimNastics, Kyle Chalmers and a whole lot more.

 

Don't miss this great chat 

Two of the very best in the business in Bobby Hurley and Meagen Nay sit down with me to go through all of the action from the 2025 Australian Swimming Trials for World Champs in Singapore starting July 27.

In this podcast we look at the Aussie team selected including alot of the swimmers making their debuts over in Singapore. We talk about the amazing week Lani Pallister had in the pool and how she has the potential for even more improvements leading into LA.

Sienna Toohey's amazing week, at 16 years of age making her first team and the phenomenal work her coach Wayne Gould has done behind the scenes in Albury.

Kaylee McKeown's controversial DQ and reinstatement in the 50 Back

Kyle Chalmers and Cam McEvoy continuing to impress 

Sam Short back on track, Katie Ledecky proving why she is the GOAT. And Summer McIntosh smashes 3 world records and puts the world on notice.

All that and a whole lot more

In this NEW EPISODE of Off The Blocks we chat with Carlile Swim Club Head Age Group Coach Michaela Pattinson on the heels of their historic Australian Age point score victory in Brisbane.

We discuss the work that has gone into the Carlile program since joining in 2021. Her views on developing junior athletes and some of the keys to their success at Nationals.

Michaela gives us a great insight into her journey as a coach from Townsville, to Brisbane and then down to Sydney and all of the amazing mentors she has worked with along the way.

We discuss the incredible success she has had placing Olivia Wunsch on the Australian Olympic team and the ride those two have been on to Paris 2024. We get into learning great lessons during the staging camp, as well as her experience in the stands at the Olympics.

We talk about being a female coach on deck and what comes with that, especially following the announcement of her pregnancy and how she will be balancing coaching and being a mum in the future.

 

All that and a whole lot more, don't miss a great opportunity to learn from one of the best coaches on deck in Australia.

Shannon and I look back at the last 2 weeks in Brisbane at Australian Age and Open Champs

We recap all the action from Brisbane, London and Sweden. Its been a fast week in the swimming world

This week on the podcast Shannon and I discuss the massive news in the swimming world at the moment with form 50m events being added to the LA 2028 Olympic program.

Good or Bad? we discuss the pros and cons

Also we talk about King Kyle Chalmers blistering swims over in Norway last week

It's nationals time again, and Shannon gives his tips as we are a week or so away from the years biggest meet in Brisbane.

 

This week on the podcast Shannon and I discuss last weekends 2025 NSW State Open Champs in Sydney. How Shannon's team went, as well as how the racing was across the weekend.

With Brisbane 2032 Olympics plans rolled out this week we discuss the winners and potential losers in all of the funding and infrastructure coming. How swimming has a lot to be excited about.

We do a blind draft of Olympic Sports, quote of the week, set of the week and of course the always popular song of the week.  

This week Shannon and I sit down with Author, Coach Mentor and Inspiring guest speaker Wayne Goldsmith. Wayne is the founder of MoreGold Peak Performance Consulting and has been involved in the swimming industry now for 35 years learning from some of the legendary coaches of Australia.

Shannon and Wayne discuss stories of Gennadi Touretski and Alex Popov,  Bill Sweetenham, the art of coaching and the importance of progressing as a coach and moving with the times.

We discuss the alarming stats that came out this week around School carnivals here in Australia at the moment with 50% of year 6 students not knowing how to swim, as well as coaching as a profession and do we have a problem attracting you aspiring coaches to our sport and industry.

All that and a whole lot more, Wayne picks song of the week and you don't want to miss it.

Our swimming stats guru David Clark is back this week as we go through the top 10 Aussie swimmers of all time based of David's extensive data and statistics.

From 10 down to 1 we go through some of the biggest names in Australian sporting history, as David gives us some great stories and facts about each of our Aussie legends.

We see what AI thinks of our list, David gives us some stories from his time in Paris for last years Olympic Games, as well as song of the week and plenty more.

Back again for another week of the podcast and this week we are talking City vs Country Teams. Would it work as a concept? And we discuss the contribution country clubs and programs have made to the Australian team over many years.

We read out a listeners email, and discuss the importance of knowing you've worked hard and can be proud of yourself.

We talk cyclones, retired swimmers, song of the week and a whole lot more

They said we wouldn't make it, but we are here this week as The Shannon Rollason Podcast records it's 100th episode.

To mark the special occasion we have enlisted the help of podcast favourite and one of Australia's best coaches Justin Rothwell to help us go through the Top 10 Greatest swimmers of ALL time as per an article that Shannon stumbled across recently. The list is up to November 2023, so excluding some of our current superstars.

From 10 to 1, we go through the very best, and have some healthy discussions around how the list could look a little differently if we put ours together.

Set of the week is back and of course song of the week. Great episode to bring up 100

Thanks to all of our listeners for sticking with us and making 100 episodes possible

This week on the podcast we go back 25 years to 2000 and compare the coaching, the athletes and so much more to the now in 2025.

What has changed?

What has stayed the same?

We look at interesting trivia from the year 2000, as well as set of the week and your favourite, song of the week.

 

All that and a whole lot more

This week on the podcast we are joined by special guest, Olympian from Sydney 2000 and CEO of NSW Swimming Kirsten Thomson.

In this podcast we discuss Kirsten's amazing swimming career and her Olympic experience, as well as challenges she faced in the pool along the way.

We discuss her transition out of the pool and her decision to become CEO of NSW Swimming.

We talk about what she's proud of so far, what we can all do better, keeping coaches in the sport and a whole lot more.

Kirsten also takes the wheel for Set of the week, Quote of the week and Song of the week, it's a great chat with an amazing leader in our sport. Don't miss it

This week on the podcast Shannon and I apologies to our loyal listeners for not getting all of our facts right on the topics we discuss, as we are inundated with correction messages from the previous weeks podcast.

Shannon learns what Chat GPT and DM stands for, as well as his Beef of the week and no its not just with his cockatoos outside ruining his tree lol

Set of the week is back, we read out one of our listeners DMs with an interesting story to go with it and Chat GPT gives us the top 5 toughest races to do on a swimming program.

Song of the week and plenty of laughs