It is 6am on a crisp Friday morning at Broadmeadows aquatic centre in Melbourne’s north-west, and members of the Western Melbourne Propulsion Swim Club are doing laps under the watchful eye of their coach. It is a scene repeated every morning at pools across Australia. But at Broadmeadows, something is different.
The composition of many of Australia’s favourite sports have come to reflect the multicultural makeup of this country, even if racism and discrimination persist. The latest Socceroos squad, for example, features players with heritage from 15 countries, from Bosnia to Burundi, and while basketball, athletics and the AFL have long sought to engage with African-Australian communities.
But swimming – despite its popularity and leading coverage every four years at the Olympics – has trailed behind in providing pathways for Australians from culturally diverse backgrounds. Historically there have been very few high-profile Australian swimmers from migrant communities, even as a number of Asian-Australian swimmers have excelled in recent years – Chinese-Australian William Yang, Korean-Australian Se-Bom Lee and Brunei-born Joshua Yong all competed in Paris.
There are no easy answers to swimming’s diversity challenge, and the underlying causes are manifold: accessibility, cost, a lack of role models, discrimination, cultural expectations, the sport’s varied global status. But in Melbourne, the Propulsion club’s efforts to drive change are beginning to bear fruit.
“We have a two-pronged approach: it’s high performance but community focused,” says Luka Zubcic, who has led the club for the past seven seasons and recently stepped down as president. “Having people from a wealth of backgrounds, a wealth of experiences, bringing all of the different viewpoints and motivations that they have – it really goes to the community-focused piece.”
For Zubcic, 28, the inaccessibility of the sport for many potential swim hopefuls is something he knows all too well. Growing up in the north-western suburbs, Zubcic trained locally until he reached a level where he needed to change clubs. That necessitated a lengthy commute; he later joined Propulsion as a swimmer, after growing tired of the hours in transit. “The traditional model was that you would commute into inner Melbourne, to the other side of town,” he says. “But that commute takes a toll.”
Propulsion attracts swimmers from a number of local government areas: Hume, Melton, Brimbank, Maribyrnong, Merri-bek and Moonee Valley – areas with a high proportion of first- and second-generation Australians. “It’s special to be able to offer that in these swimmers’ back yard,” Zubcic says.
Accessibility matters in swimming more than most sports – you can’t practise technique in the back yard. Access to 50-metre pools is limited, and competition for lanes can be fierce. Zubcic bemoans that his club does not “own our own water” – unlike some swim clubs.
Jonathan Qariaqus is one beneficiary of Propulsion’s location. The 18-year-old, who swims breaststroke and backstroke, was born in Australia to parents from Iraq. Qariaqus has recently started university, commuting an hour to campus, and says it would not be possible to keep up his swimming if the pool was not nearby. “It’s not too far, it’s not a hassle,” he says.
Swimming is not popular among his fellow Iraqi Australians. “I know from Iraq, there weren’t many pools – so we’re more into soccer,” he says. “When people from Iraq come here, and you say swimming, they think it’s a joke.” And these community perceptions carry weight. “Maybe they don’t view professional swimming as something you should aim for,” Qariaqus says.
This is one cause of the lack of diversity in elite swimming, Zubcic says, while for white Australians, swimming is seen as “an acceptable avenue to pursue”. For communities that may not have the same social affinity with the pool, the intense time commitment at a young age can be a major barrier.
“If you want to be very good, it’s a huge commitment – to the extent that it takes away from other things in your life,” Zubcic says. “Foremost in my mind is something like school. Depending on the community you’re involved in, your education can be sacrosanct.”
Propulsion has tried to keep swimmers attached to the program, even if they decrease their training load, in the hope they resume once schooling pressures end. “We help them through those transitional years,” Zubcic says. “That takes patience – it might be there are a few years where they are only coming in a handful of times a week, but when they’re ready, we’re ready to take them on that next step.”
Another swimmer in the Broadmeadows pool is 14-year-old Zara Gamboa. The Filipino Australian is on a high, having recently won a medal at the age short course national championships. Watching on is her father, Marc Gamboa. “Some of the barriers happen as early as [junior] swimming,” he says. “If you don’t give them the opportunity from the start, they won’t reach the top.”
Gamboa sees those barriers in the Filipino-Australian community. “I know some families who have quit [the sport] because they want their kids to be a doctor,” he says, laughing. “Zara will pursue what she wants.”
Cost is another significant factor. Major swim programs are often attached to private schools, while standalone clubs can be expensive for parents. Traditionally, the expense involved has meant swimmers came from middle-class backgrounds. “You have to have a program that is economically viable,” Zubcic says. “But [it can’t be] cost-prohibitive.”
At Broadmeadows, Qariaqus hopes to lead by example, following other members of the club including Johann Stickland, who represented Samoa at the 2024 Olympics, and rising Australian-Egyptian star Ahmed Elgammal. Asked what his future holds, Qariaqus gives a familiar answer: “I’ll see where I can take it. The Olympics – maybe one day!”
For Zubcic, the benefits of their approach are clear in and out of the water. Propulsion is one of the fastest growing clubs in Melbourne – when Zubcic joined seven years ago, it had just 50 swimmers – today it has more than 250.
In time, programs like this might ensure that the national team, the Dolphins, more fully reflect the cultural diversity of modern Australia. “I do think about how diverse our club is, Zara Gamboa says, “compared to say the Australian team.” If Zara reaches the top level, she is eligible to represent the Philippines, New Zealand or Australia. But her father says it will be an easy answer for his daughter: “This is our home.”
