Three years ago Max Giuliani came close to walking away from the pool and picking up a tool.
The teenager from Tassie almost shelved his Olympic dream to stay home and become a tradie before deciding to give it one last shot and relocate to the Gold Coast.
It was lucky he did. Now Giuliani's name is mentioned in the same sentence as swimming royalty Ian Thorpe after Giuliani swam the second fastest time for a 200m freestyle in Australian history.
However, Giuliani hasn’t forgotten those tradie roots and the Hancock Prospecting Scholarship student has decided to commence a Diploma of the Built Environment this semester at Bond.
“I always wanted to be a tradie but then my swimming took off. Being a tradesman and an athlete is quite difficult, so I figured this is the second-best thing,” he said.
Giuliani made the move to the Gold Coast three years ago to follow his coach Richard Scarce to Miami Swim Club.
“I always swam from a young age. I moved up to the Gold Coast when I was 19 to swim with Rich,” Giuliani said.
“I had to choose between staying in Tassie as a tradesman and maybe looking back in three years and regretting not pursuing swimming, or move to Queensland.
“I decided to move to the Gold Coast and put all my eggs in one basket for 12 months just to see how I would go.
“The first few months on the Gold Coast were terrible, I hated it. But then I started to swim well and I haven’t looked back.”
He swam so well that at the Queensland Championships in December 2023 Giuliani stopped the clock in the 200m freestyle with a time of 1:44.79, the second fastest time in Australian history, just behind Ian Thorpe’s 1:44.06.
“It’s pretty cool to have your name up there with one of the greats, but I'm not done yet, I’d really like to get my name at number one,” he said.
Within the span of his first 12-month stint training on the Gold Coast, Giuliani shaved an impressive six seconds off his 200m freestyle.
“I grabbed the opportunities with both hands, and I am where I am today,” he said.
His performance at the Australian Olympic Trials last year at Chandler Aquatic Centre saw him finish first in his main event, securing him a ticket to Paris.
It was a stark difference from four years prior when Giuliani didn’t even make the finals at the Tokyo Olympics trials for the same event.
“Last year was an interesting year, there's quite a lot of unknown pressure you put on yourself in an Olympic year that you don't really recognise until you step back and look at what you’ve done, and then you realise,” he said.
Giuliani took home bronze in the 4X200m freestyle relay at the 2024 Paris Olympics alongside his teammates Thomas Neil and Bondies Elijah Winnington and Flynn Southam.
“The team we had for the 4X200m freestyle relay was quite young and I think we have a few more cycles in us, so I'm excited to see what comes from that,” he said.
Giuliani will grace the pool deck this weekend at the UniSport Nationals swim meet as the Bull Sharks look to take out their fourth consecutive overall win.
Although he may be a fresh face on the team, he’s already been welcomed with open arms.
“UniSport should be fun. I’ll be in some relays with my teammate Ben Armbruster who was my roommate in Paris,” he said.