Nine pool sessions a week, an altitude tent, 13 years of training – and now two bronze medals. Here’s how South Australian Molly Walker made Commonwealth Games history this week.
Adelaide’s Molly Walker went to Glasgow to soak up the experience. She’s leaving with two bronze medals.
The 20-year-old South Australian touched third in the 1500m freestyle on Sunday night in the first Commonwealth Games final ever swum in the event. Her 16:01.37 took more than 12 seconds off her personal best and she finished 2.40 seconds behind New Zealand’s Erika Fairweather. It makes Molly one of the first three women to medal in the 1500m at a Games.
This morning she did it again, taking bronze in the 800m in 8:25.93, less than a second off Fairweather in second. Fellow Aussie Lani Pallister won both races.
The swim that made the team
Molly earned her spot on the team at June’s trials, touching second in the 800m behind Pallister in 8:26.01 – a PB good enough to put her on her first senior Australian team, as one of 14 debutants in the green and gold.
“I was just in pure shock – and a little bit of relief once I hit that wall and saw the time,” she says of that trials swim. “I think I’m still soaking it all up and taking it in.”
In Glasgow, at her first senior international meet, she swam it faster, on the biggest stage she’s raced on. Getting there took nine pool sessions a week, an altitude tent and 13 years of showing up.
Baby in the water
Molly has been swimming almost as long as she’s been alive. She started competing at seven, made her first state meet at nine, and moved to South Australia around the same age, where she got stuck into “proper club swimming”.
The moment it all turned serious came early. “When I made my first national time, that was the realisation for me,” she says. “I was like, oh, this could be a lot of fun – something I can pursue and have real dreams and goals with.”
Nationals came at 13. By 17 she was racing at the Olympic trials, lining up against Australia’s best with nothing to lose.
“The Olympic trials for me were fully just for experience,” she says. “I was still very young, and it was one of my first times racing against the big dogs in a final. To walk away with PBs and good times and all that experience was really exciting.”
She left with something harder to measure, too – the nerve that comes from racing under the lights and the cameras. “I gained a little bit of confidence.”
The one per cent game
These days Molly trains inside the South Australian Sports Institute’s (SASI) swimming program, in a squad she’s clearly fond of.
“Being part of the SASI hub is really exciting – it’s such a cool culture and environment,” she says. “There’s a little group of us compared to some other squads, but we’re really close-knit, and that makes it so exciting to come to training every day.”
It’s also where the science lives. Molly and her squad train under coaches Craig Stewart and Kate Sparkes, backed by physiologists, biomechanists, physios and a strength and conditioning coach who builds her gym program around what her body needs in the water.
“SASI is a massive help. We get to go down to their Mile End building and use the equipment – the gym, the altitude chamber, the hot and cold recovery pools, the sauna. All these guys help us get that one per cent better out of the training we do.”
Nine sessions, one nap
Chasing that one per cent lift takes up a lot of her hours. Molly is in the pool nine to 10 times a week, with gym on top.
“On a Monday, I get in the pool at 6:45am, get out at 9, then head to the gym,” she says. “Then I go home, fuel up, have a nap, and come back in the afternoon from 2:30 til 5 to swim again.”
A session is rarely just laps. “We use lots of different equipment for different parts of the stroke,” she says – kickboards, snorkels, a pull buoy between the legs, bands, paddles, fins, “and sometimes a parachute, to give us a bit of drag in the water”.
Then there’s the thin air. Molly trained at altitude earlier this year and slept in an altitude tent in the run-up to trials – a setup that mimics mountain conditions to push the body into making more red blood cells.
“The first time in the tent it was very unknown, so it was a little bit daunting at first,” she says. “But it was super fun. You spend as much time as possible at that high level, then come down and train at sea level here.”
What’s left of the day goes on recovery. Molly’s downtime is refreshingly ordinary. “I love a good book, and I’m into crocheting at the moment, so I’ll spend a bit of time learning new patterns.”
Eyes on LA
Her swimming heroes are fellow Australians Ariarne Titmus and Lani Pallister, who she’s now finished behind twice in a week.
“Seeing the things they’ve been able to do for Australia, in and out of the pool, is really cool,” she says.
Next up is Pan Pacs in California later in the year. And beyond that, there’s LA 2028.
“The dream for me is always to make the Olympic team. I’ve dreamt about it since I was a little kid. And that’s still my dream.”
Find out more about the South Australian Sports Institute and the athletes it backs.
