Erin Gallagher has been around the block as often as she’s been on it, helping to build women’s swimming in South Africa into a powerhouse.
The 24-year-old demonstrated that the sport is not the sole domain of the youngsters, clocking her fastest 100m butterfly time in four years at the recent SA National Championships in Gqeberha.
At a ratio of two to one the women outperformed the men when it came to posting A-qualifying times for the world championships in Fukuoka, Japan, in July. Eight women achieved the marks in 13 events compared to four men in seven.
That’s a huge turnaround from the male-dominated era of less than a decade ago when no women qualified for the 2015 world championships and 2016 Rio Olympics, including then teens Gallagher and Tatjana Schoenmaker.
Gallagher has had a hand in that turnaround, but it wasn’t easy, requiring grit and steel to overcome a series of setbacks that included serious knee and shoulder injuries and then contracting Covid-19 during her build-up for the Tokyo Olympics, where she underperformed.
“I've had multiple moments where I've thought of giving up swimming and there’s always been this very small, tiny, tiny whisper that just kept telling me to not give up.
“I don’t know if it’s just insanity or what ... But I’m very grateful for the lessons learnt.”
Part of Gallagher’s resurgence was forging a new direction out of the pool after the Games, leaving her parental home in Durban for the University of Pretoria to study BSc in geography and environmental science and train alongside Schoenmaker and Kaylene Corbett under coach Rocco Meiring.
“I was unhappy with where I was ... all I was doing was waking up, going to swimming, coming home, you know, watching series, going back to swimming. I was in a monotonous pattern of life,” said Gallagher, a 50m butterfly silver medallist at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
“When I moved, Rocco could tell that I was at a very low point in my swimming. And he said to me ‘don't expect anything for the next 18 months’. So for the last 18 months we've really just been working on getting myself back into swimming and finding my love for it again and my passion for it.”
That passion was there for everyone to see after her Gqeberha torpedo; she jumped up and down on the pool deck while hugging Corbett, Schoenmaker and Emma Chelius, the oldest of the women qualifiers at 26.
What made Gallagher’s 57.84 sec in the 100m butterfly last weekend even more impressive was that it was inside the more difficult qualifying mark for the Paris Olympics next year.
She was one of only four women to achieve that in the Newton Park pool, alongside 25-year-old Schoenmaker, 20-year-old Rebecca Meder and teen Lara van Niekerk. Schoolboy Pieter Coetzé and veteran Chad le Clos were the only men.
Now Gallagher is looking to lower her 57.67 national record in the 100m butterfly as she sets her sights on the Olympics.
“I would absolutely love to be able to make the final in Paris and see what happens.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.