Iona Anderson

Teenage rising sensation Iona Anderson announced herself on the world stage at the world swimming championships in Doha in February 2024, winning two surprise silver medals. 

Iona, who grew up in Perth’s northern suburbs, powered to second place in the 100m backstroke final behind America’s Claire Curzan, who is also a teenager. The West Australian set a new personal best, touching in 59.12 seconds. 

Three days later, Iona produced a dazzling late surge to miss gold in the 50m backstroke by finish just two-hundredths of a second. Again she was beaten by Curzan, who clung on to win in 27.43, with Iona finishing in 27.45.  

And as if that wasn’t enough, she was also part of the Australian team that won gold in the 4x100m medley relay. 

In the absence of superstar Kaylee McKeown, who opted to skip the Doha World Championships, Iona claimed her place among an emerging new wave of backstroke stars. 

As a youngster, Iona threw herself into gymnastics, but when she was 13, swim coaches noticed her potential in the pool and convinced her to swap the bounce pads for the touch pads.  

 “I first got involved with swimming at a young age, initially through a learn to swim program,” says Iona. “When I was younger, swimming was not my main focus, my primary sport was gymnastics up until the end of 2017.” 

Having made the switch, Iona began serious training at Breakers Swim Club in Perth. 

“At the beginning of my swimming career, I began to make improvements,” she says. “The strength that I had originally built up for gymnastics came into good use, but I had to work on my technique as I had a very basic, unrefined stroke. 

“At my first session in a competitive swimming squad, I was asked to pick a stroke other than freestyle to be my form stroke. I weighed up my options and chose backstroke, as butterfly was too hard and I didn’t like breaststroke with much passion. 

“I also get the benefit of breathing whenever I want throughout backstroke, unless I’m doing endless kicks under water.” 

In 2019, she won two gold medals at the Swimming Australia Age Group National Championships, in 100m and 200m backstroke. 

In 2021, at the age of just 15, Iona broke 14 West Australian state records across five age categories in just one swim. 

She clocked in an astounding 2:07:6 in the 200m backstroke at the Swimming WA State Open and Age Short Course Championships. 

It broke all WA records in the 15-year, 16-year, 17-year, 18-year and Open categories.  

Iona offered a preview of what she would achieve in Doha when she won gold in the 50m backstroke at the 2023 World Junior Championships in Netanya, Israel. 

In April 2024, Iona took on Australia’s top female backstrokers at the Australian Open Championships on the Gold Coast. 

With reigning world record holder McKeown dropping the 100m, Iona claimed silver behind Mollie O’Callaghan, clocking in at an impressive 59.53. 

She went on to win two bronze medals in the 50m and 200m backstroke events, improving her time by 1.36 seconds in the 200m.

Iona performed brilliantly at the 2024 Australian championships on the Gold Coast, winning silver in the 100m backstroke and bronze in the 50m backstroke and 200m backstroke.

At the Australian Olympic trials in Brisbane in June, Iona made her own little piece of history in the 100m backstroke.

Kaylee McKeown won the final with the second-fastest swim in history, Mollie O’Callaghan was second and became the fourth swimmer to dip under 58 seconds and Iona took down a national age record Kaylee had established as a teenager.

Iona swam a new PB of 58.43 to finish third, lowering Kaylee’s Australian age record for 18-year-old girls of 58.52.