Meg Harris

Triumphs have been coming thick and fast for Meg since the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Not only was Tokyo her Olympic debut, it was also her first appearance for the senior Dolphins squad. And at the age of 22 she not only finds herself with an Olympic title to her credit but also four long course world championship golds, two short course world titles and is a Commonwealth champion. What’s more, she has been awarded an Order of Australia Medal.

She claimed her first gold in Tokyo as a member of the Australian 4x100m freestyle quartet. Joining with three of the greats of Australian sprinting, Cate and Bronte Campbell and Emma McKeon, Meg unleashed a 53.09sec second leg to help the Dolphins not only claim gold in 3.29.69 but also the world record.

She also collected a bronze medal for her heats swim in the 4x200m freestyle relay.
After the Olympics, she moved to Adelaide where she linked up with noted Marion coach Peter Bishop. Her onslaught continued at the 2022 Budapest world championships where she linked up with other members of the rising generation of “green and gold” female sprint freestylers, Mollie O’Callaghan, Madi Wilson and Shayna Jack to power Australia to the 4x100m freestyle relay gold.

Then she and Mollie joined forces with Kyle Chalmers and Jack Cartwright to claim victory in the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay, again in world record time (3.19.38). Her own split was a sizzling 52.25sec.

Meanwhile, she collected the first solo medal of her international career when she claimed the bronze in the 50m freestyle “splash and dash,” while the mixed medley relay provided her fourth medal of the meet, a silver.

A short break later and then she was off to Birmingham for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. She secured the silver behind teammate Emma McKeon in the 50m freestyle and could again rely on the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay for another title.

And still she wasn’t finished with 2022, returning to Australia to win two gold and three silver at the world short course championships in Melbourne, all of them in relays.

The triumphs kept coming in 2023, when Meg was again part of the Australian team that won gold in the 4x100m freestyle relay in the world championships in Fukuoka, Japan, smashing their own world record in the final. Teaming up with Mollie O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack and Emma McKeon, Meg swam a 52.29 split as the team put together an astonishing 3:27.96, shattering the record set in Tokyo.

After her stint in South Australia, Queenslander Meg is now back in her home state, training with Rackley Swim Team in Brisbane under coach Damien Jones.

Coming into the Olympic year, Meg won the 50m freestyle title at the 2024 Australian championships on the Gold Coast and finished second in the 100m. In what has been described as the best-credentialed sprint field ever assembled in Australia, Meg finished third in the 100m freestyle final at the Olympic trials in Brisbane, behind Mollie O’Callaghan and Shayna Jack, booking her ticket to Paris as a relay swimmer.

Meg is partially deaf but, like Cindy-Lu Fitzpatrick before her, she continues to inspire young children to follow their dreams.