Tokyo Olympian, former world record holder, World Champion and Commonwealth Games medallist, Matt’s career has taken him from junior squads to the very top of international swimming. In this interview, he reflects on the early years that shaped his career, the long-term coach partnership that underpinned his success, the heartbreaks and breakthroughs along the way, and why coaching the next generation has become the most rewarding chapter yet.

What sports were you playing when you were younger?

I did a range of different sports, but the main one was swimming because my dad built a pool in our backyard and my parents wanted me to learn how to swim. I also played soccer from when I was five until I started playing AFL when I was eight. I played water polo and cricket as well. I played a range of different sports but ultimately went into full-time swimming. It was good to have different options to find what worked for me and what I enjoyed most. I was lucky to have parents who were so supportive and worked out a timetable so I could do as many sports as I wanted.

What was your childhood like in the Blue Mountains and what role did your surroundings play in shaping your love for sport and swimming?

I grew up in the Blue Mountains and lived there until I was 18. The community in the Blue Mountains and Penrith is very sports focused and sports loving. I feel really lucky to have grown up in an area where everyone was active and there were a lot of sporting opportunities. My friendship group in high school was very supportive of what I was doing and we were all sporty, so we wanted to play soccer every lunchtime and run around. Growing up in a sporty community helped me grow into the athlete I am today.

You spoke about the moment in your early teens when you decided you wanted to pursue swimming professionally. Can you tell us more about that moment?

I was 13 or 14 at one of the school swimming carnivals and I had a massive personal best in my 200 medley. I wasn’t expecting anything. It was a school carnival at Glenbrook off these dodgy concrete blocks and I did a six-second personal best. I thought it was a crazy time and that I would be winning national age medals with that time. That moment was where it really clicked that I could actually do something in the sport. I thought if I kept improving in each race then I could make a career out of swimming.

You started working with coach Adam Cable when you were 14. What made that partnership work so well over so many years?

I met Adam when I was around 13 and I was still at Springwood. At the time, Adam was a really young coach. He was about 26, which is quite young to take on a high-performance squad. He was still learning and so was I. We bounced ideas off each other and there was no set plan or path. We experimented a lot with what we did. Some things worked and some things didn’t, so we would scrap them and try something different.

Having a young coach who was closer in age to me helped a lot. I was a 14-year-old going into a high-performance program where most people were in their mid 20s, so I was about 10 years younger than the next oldest person. Having a coach I could relate to made me feel more relaxed. We grew from there and learned new things each year, what worked for me and what didn’t work for me. We also took bits and pieces from other coaches, which was another benefit of having a younger coach who was open to that. We built it year by year and eventually it became this finished product where I was going to world championships and Olympic Games. Then we had our process in place from there.

What do you think it was about Adam’s coaching style that brought out your best?

Adam was really strong with 200 metre swimmers in particular and also with 400 metre swimmers. So, we did a lot of race simulation work, and it was really good to get that race simulation so when I got to race day, it felt like I had done it a thousand times before.

Before that, we built a big aerobic base. I did a lot of freestyle, which is pretty rare for a breaststroker because breaststrokers generally are not known to do anything other than breaststroke. We did a lot of aerobic freestyle, especially in the early parts of the season, and I built a base much bigger than I would have if I was just doing breaststroke. I had that base and then I could put the pace on it afterwards and put the race together. I think the fitness side of it into race simulation is what worked best for us. The repetition helped as well.

Who were the mentors or peers you learned the most from early in your career?

I was quite young when I made my first team. I would have been 16 and then 18 for my first world championships. Jake Packard was someone I leaned on. He was one of the breaststrokers on the Australian team and he works with PlayBook as well. He didn’t give me any words of wisdom, but he was always there to support me and be that friendly figure in the team. We raced the same event, so he didn’t have to be nice to me, but he was. What I learned from him was to have fun with it, especially racing. He was always happy and upbeat. He reminded me to enjoy the journey because it’s a short period in your life. That really helped me.

What friendships shaped your experience in the sport?

I’ve travelled all over the world with swimmers like Kyle Chalmers, Abbey Harkin and Brad Woodward. We were all born in 1998 and went through the experience together. We built really strong relationships and even now, I still keep in contact with many of them and have been to a few of their weddings. Some of them are still swimming and some of them aren’t.

Everyone has gone on their own path, but we still stay in contact. Those are lifelong friendships, and I am so grateful swimming gave me that. 

A lot of young swimmers start in multiple strokes or events. You actually began in individual medley (IM) can you tell us about your transition into specialising in breaststroke?

I did medley from the beginning. I think it’s a really good way for kids to find what works for them. It is also good training because you mix up the strokes. If one stroke isn’t feeling quite right, you can do a different one. It gives you options.

I did medley as an age grouper and won a few national age medals. I went through the ranks doing that until about nine months out from the Rio Olympic trials. Adam and I had a sit down and said, what is our best opportunity to make this team. My strength in medley was breaststroke and I could do a good 200 metre breaststroke and there wasn’t really anyone challenging the qualifying time in that event, so we said, let’s put our heads down and aim for the 200 breaststroke and see if we can make the team.

It was a big ask because I was 17 at the time and I needed to drop around three seconds. I got close and did end up winning those Olympic trials but missed the team by 0.2 seconds. After that, I never really looked back at medley. I did a bit again in 2019 which helped with fitness and building a base. If my breaststroke wasn’t feeling great, I would do some medley. It was good to chop and change. But from that point on, I mainly focused on breaststroke.

Over your career, you dealt with selections, pressure and injury. How did you develop resilience?

Missing the Rio Olympic team by 0.2 was a big one. I was 17 at the time and probably ignorant to how hard it was to drop three seconds in 200 metre breaststroke. I thought I could just do it and make the team. When I got so close and missed, it hit me hard. It took me a few months to turn the script from being a luckless kid to using the loss fuel to get onto the next team.

I’ve also had a lot of injuries and had to maintain my body. I had been swimming at a high-performance level since I was 13 or 14, so eventually it takes a toll. When I was younger, I used the comebacks as fuel. I would tell myself I could come back again. And that built a lot of my resilience. Now, I feel like situations in everyday life don’t affect me as much because sport shaped me to handle setbacks and bounce back.

Can you take us back to that world record race and what it felt like seeing your name next to it?

The first 150 metres was a blur. The original plan was to shut it down and get into the wall first. Then I heard the crowd and thought the guy in the next lane was catching me, so I just kept going. I finished really well and knew it was a good swim, but I didn’t expect a world record. Seeing that on the board was insane, especially because it was an equal world record.

After that, everyone wanted to talk. Usually, you speak to one or two people but I had to stop at everyone. I eventually had to be pulled out because it was taking too long, and I needed to warm down. Walking back to the warm-down pool with everyone congratulating me was unreal. I was 20 at the time and the whole experience was surreal.

Visualisation has been a big part of your preparation. How did you use it?

Usually about a month out, I would start visualising. Adam would read out a script and I would race the race in my mind. He would start a stopwatch and I would visualise the entire 200 metres. I could feel the water on my back, every turn, and every stroke. It made me feel like I had already raced before race day. Before that world record swim, I kept visualising the exact time I wanted to hit. It is crazy what the mind can do. It helped calm my nerves and prepare me mentally.

What do you enjoy most about working with the next generation of swimmers?

I love how enthusiastic they are to learn. They all have big goals, and they absorb everything. Even if they take one thing out of ten things I say, that’s enough. Being able to influence their journey and pass on what I’ve learned makes me really proud. You never know who the next big thing might be.