Zoe Poulis

Zoe Poulis calls it “floating in the sky” – the graceful, underwater dance moves she performs in a series of videos that have made her something of a social media star.

A member of the Australian artistic swimming team, Zoe has developed a sideline as a real-life mermaid, with more than 165,000 followers for her underwater flow videos on Instagram.

An image of her and teammate Pam Kurosawa, by Perth photographer Jasmine Skye, won the black and white category of the global 2024 Underwater Photographer of the Year competition.

Zoe stresses that artistic swimming and her underwater videos are “two completely different things”. For a start, in artistic swimming, athletes spend much of their time above the surface of the water – in her videos, Zoe is always below the surface.

She has been involved in the sport since she discovered her passion for artistic swimming at her local council pool. As a seven-year-old Zoe swam her first solo routine at an Australian Championship.

At 12 years of age she won the Australian Championships in both the U12 and U13-15 groups.

She was subsequently selected to the National Youth Team when she was 13, making her the youngest in the group, to compete at the Youth World Championships in Slovakia in Duet and Team events. She also competed there as Australia’s soloist.

Further committing a future in Artistic Swimming, at 16 she moved to Perth to join the National Team for centralised training.

At the 2023 World Aquatic Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, Zoe was part of the Australian team that qualified for the Paris Olympics with a top-10 finish in the Team Free.

Zoe, Margo Joseph-Kuo, Alessandra Ho, Rayna Buckle, Natalia Caloiera, Georgia Courage-Gardiner, Kiera Gazzard and Milena Waldman improved from 11th in the preliminaries to finish eighth in the final with a score of 221.6416.

They produced another top-10 finish at the 2024 world championships in Doha.

At a World Cup meet in Beijing in April, 2024, Zoe was part of the Australian team that clinched silver medals in team technical and team free and won bronze in team acrobat.

In a dazzling display of aquatic artistry and athleticism at the Paris 2024 Olympics, Australia's Artistic Swimming Team captivated audiences with their technical, free and acrobatic routines to place ninth overall on 728.4358 points.

The team’s technical routine, inspired by a jungle adventure and set to Hans Zimmer's "Volcano," was meticulously executed. Scoring 235.9071 points and no base marks.

The team’s free routine, themed around the world of "Avatar" and set to music from "Avatar: The Way of Water," showcased a powerful and imaginative display that scored 280.5521 overall.

Their vibrant acrobatic routine, celebrating cheerleading with Alvaro Rodriguez Alvarez's "Move Your Body," demonstrated both enthusiasm and precision to earn a score of 211.9766.