They’ve shared lanes since they were teenagers. Pushed each other in training, traded wins and setbacks – and held on to the same dream.
Now Bond University’s Jesse Coleman and Flynn Southam will wear the green and gold together at the World Championships in Singapore as teammates on the Dolphins squad.
For Coleman, it’s a breakthrough years in the making.
He missed the team for the Paris Olympics. Posted a qualifying time for last year’s World Short Course Championships, but was overlooked on a selector's call. Always close but not quite there while good mates like Southam and Ben Armbruster were called up for Dolphins duty.
So he did the only thing he could – trained hard, focused on improving every aspect of his craft – and lowered his personal best time when it mattered most.
The 20-year-old is now officially a Dolphin, earning his senior team debut in the 100m butterfly at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore.
And if relief was the first emotion that washed over him, the next was hunger.
“Yeah, it's a mix of emotions,” Coleman said.
“It’s a bit of relief but at the same time I’m super excited. Chris (Mooney) would say the job’s not done – so that’s what we’re doing now, just looking forward and getting stuck into training.”
Coleman’s selection marks the latest success for the Bond University High Performance Swimming Program, which has placed a program-record four student-athletes on the Dolphins squad – Jesse, Flynn Southam, Milla Jansen and Hannah Casey – along with coach Chris Mooney.
For Coleman, it’s the breakthrough moment that rewards a lifetime in the sport and six years in the program under Mooney’s watchful eye.
And it arrives off the back of a PB in the 100m fly at trials – and a mental reset after the pain of missing Paris.
“It was hard at first,” he admitted.
“But once I had a bit of time to look back on it and see how I performed, I realised there was a lot to learn from it. It definitely made me hungry to keep pushing and get on that team.”
His improvement hasn’t been a fluke, just the compounding gains of consistency, technical polish and sessions with purpose.
“I guess it's just always having something to work on in training, just always having a goal behind each session,” he said. “Whether it's the efficiency or the speed.”
Olympian and training partner Flynn Southam knows just how long this one has been coming.
“Jesse and I have been good mates for a while, and we've spoken about qualifying in the 200 free and the 100 butterfly on the same day at trials this year for the past six or seven months,” Flynn said.
“So it's been super awesome to do that together.”
Southam, who claimed silver in Australia’s 4x100m freestyle relay in Paris and backed it up with a bronze in the 4x200m, is now gunning for an individual medal in the 100m and 200m freestyle.
Having the man he has trained alongside since he was a kid now a Dolphins teammate is a shared dream realised.
“We've been training since we were little kids and it just goes to show how well the program is structured to develop swimmers like myself, Jesse and Milla (Jansen), who were just average age group swimmers, and turn them into elite swimmers ready to dominate the world stage,” he said.
For both swimmers the Hancock Prospecting Swimming Excellence Scholarship has been a big part of the journey.
“The support we get to be able to study but also chase our dreams in the pool is amazing,” Coleman said.