Part 1 of the Our Manly Series on Northern Beaches Olympians
Balgowlah Heights'
Elka Graham
In the lead up to the Beijing Olympics in August, The Drum will feature a series of stories on local athletes who are either representing the Northern Beaches (and of course, Australia) in China this year, or who have given their all in past Olympics.
As we approach the 8th of August Opening Ceremony in Beijing it is with amazement we consider the improbable number of Olympians and Paralympians who have hailed from the Northern Beaches and represented Australia between 1900 and 2004. One of these 87 remarkable athletes is swimmer Elka Graham.
Elka grew up in the sleepy suburb of Balgowlah Heights, a short walk from beautiful North Harbour Reserve. She was just four years old when she first started swimming. 'I remember going to watch my brother and sister swim and telling mum and dad that I wanted to swim too. But the coach Scott Hewitt said I was too young. So I jumped into the next lane and swam 14 laps. That’s when he said 'Get her in here'.'
Like all Aussie kids, she tried a variety of sports including netball, athletics, soccer, hockey… “… and I dabbled in tennis”. But the water was always her first love and she starred as a nipper for Manly Surf Club.
As Elka continued to grow (to her eventual height of 187cm!), swimming played an increasingly important part in her life. Glen Hollaway, Ian Dodd and Narelle Simpson all coached her at Manly’s Boy Charlton pool - it was Narelle who quickly realised Elka’s enormous potential and became both her mentor and friend once she started swimming competitively.
Elka made her international debut at 19 in the 2000 FINA World Short Course Championships in Athens. She finished 4th in the 4x100m medley relay. Later that year she made her Olympic debut at the Sydney 2000 Games, describing the moment like this: “In all my years of professional swimming, making the team for the Sydney Games was by far the most memorable. That moment when I walked along the pool deck and heard my name called out for an Olympic event was when I really felt I’d made it.” She finished an encouraging 6th in the 4x100m freestyle relay in Sydney then won Silver in the 4x200m freestyle relay.
After Sydney, Elka began focusing on the 200m freestyle as her pet individual event and finished 7th over that distance at the 2001 World Championships in Japan. That meet in Fukuoka became part of Australian sporting folklore when Elka lead off in the 4x200m relay in the scintillating time of 1minute 58.54seconds and the team won easily… but then celebrated by jumping into the pool before the last competitor had finished the race. As a result, Elka and her team mates were World Champions for just 3 minutes, before being disqualified.
Thankfully, Elka’s time for that first leg was allowed to stand, meaning the then teenager became the No.1 ranked 200m female swimmer in the world. (Had she swum that time in the final of the 200m individual event, she’d have easily won the Gold Medal.)
It was 2002 when Elka made the biggest move of her career, splitting with her long-time coach and good friend Narelle Simpson and linking with Australian men's swim coach Brian Sutton and Steve Alderman at Sydney University. That year she again finished 2nd in the 200m freestyle at the Pan Pacs, 2nd in the 4x200m freestyle relay and 4th in the 400m freestyle, following this up with further excellent results at the World Short Course Championships.
By 2003 it was obvious the switch to Sydney Uni. had paid off when Elka starred at the Australian Swimming Championships at the Sydney Aquatic Centre, claiming both the women's 200m and 400m freestyle title, (beating hot favourite Petria Thomas in the former).
"Switching coaches was a big confidence boost for me”, said Elka. “And that was something I needed. Training at Sydney Uni. was more professional, I was training with a brilliant squad of elite swimmers in a great environment and just loving it," she said. "Brian is a wonderful coach and at that point in may career, we suited each other perfectly."
In 2003, more placings came Elka’s way in the 200m and 400m freestyle at the Commonwealth Games and it seemed she was set to assume the mantle of Australia’s best female swimmer as the World Championships approached. But prior to that event in Barcelona, Elka was warned by doctors that she had a heart problem and should miss the Championships. However she received a second opinion clearing her to compete, as long as she was closely monitored. Unfortunately, during a presentation of yet another Silver Medal in Barcelona, Elka collapsed on the medal dais and was carried from the stage.
It was later revealed that Elka had a rapid drop in blood pressure after competing, caused by an irregular heartbeat and a low sodium problem. Including heats, semis and finals, Elka raced nine times in Barcelona and this heavy workload probably contributed to the episode. But Elka quickly recovered and set her sights on Athens in 2004, her positive mindset resulting in Gold Medals in the 200m, 400m and 800m at the World Cup just a month after her release from hospital… (she marginally missed world record times in each event!).
While the individual Olympic Gold Medal she so cherished failed to eventuate, Elka won a second Silver Medal in Athens as a member of the 4x200m Freestyle relay team. But something even better than Olympic Gold awaited Elka in Athens… it was here that she met Australian water polo rep., Thomas Whalan. In Thomas’s words: “I sat next to Elka in the computer room in the athlete’s village in Athens and we spoke briefly. (Actually, It didn’t go that well!).”
It can’t have been all bad because when the two Olympians were back in Sydney, they were elected to help organise the Athletes Parade after-party and “… that’s when we really got to know each other”, says Thomas. 
After spending the best part of a decade at the top of Australian swimming, Elka retired in 2006. She’s made a smooth transition into journalism and the media and is in great demand on the speaking circuit. She has appeared on all major free to air television stations as well as subscription TV’s Fox Sports and writes frequent articles for the Sun-Herald, New Idea and Marie Claire magazine.
Elka has also accepted modelling contracts to appear in many magazines, notably Marie Claire, Cleo, FHM and Alpha… and she conducts an amazing amount of charity work for causes including The Heart Foundation, National Breast Cancer, Amnesty International, Compassion Australia and the Nelune Foundation.
Earlier this year, Elka and Thomas announced their engagement… (Australia’s answer to Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf in terms of the perfect athletic gene pool!). Thomas was appointed Captain of the Australian water polo team in 2007 and plays for Savona in the Italian League for six months every year.
As he said this week: “The professional environment in Italy makes life for an athlete that much easier and allows you to treat your sport as your full-time job as opposed to just a hobby. Athletes are treated so much better (certainly no 5am training sessions for the Italians!) and we can obviously focus 100% on the sport. There are TV games every week and the newspapers follow the domestic and European leagues, so the profile of water polo in Italy is much higher than in Australia.”
Elka added: “It’s such a great feeling to have the people of Savona stop Thomas in the street and talk about how the team’s going and really take an interest; it brings real purpose to what he’s doing.” Elka now spends several months a year in Italy with Thomas.
The couple will head to Beijing in August, Thomas with the water polo squad and Elka to cheer him on, (along with the swimming team of course). “It will be a beautiful sight to see from the other side”, said Elka. “Even standing with the media where I’ll be working, I will still have those tingling nerves, knowing what it’s like to compete as an athlete. And it will be so special watching Thomas compete in his 3rd Olympics… after all it was the Olympics that brought us together just four years ago!”
After the Games, they’ll get married and head back to live in Italy for a while. “The lifestyle over there allows us to spend so much more time together and will certainly allow us to enjoy our first year as a married couple!” says Thomas. “I still plan to be playing for Australia until at least the Rome World Championships in 2009”.
Elka Graham is a dual Olympian, two-time Olympic Silver Medallist and has come home with medals from World Championships, Commonwealth Games, the World Cup (Gold!) and Pan Pacific championships.
She has clocked both Australian and Commonwealth records including the Australian 400m Freestyle short course record, which she held for over five years. And in 2001 she was officially ranked Number 1 in the world over her pet distance. Between 2001-2004 she was consistently in the Top 3 in the world for both the 200m and 400m Freestyle. She ended her swimming career with no less than 10 Australian Championship Gold Medals (both long and short course).
Not only that, she’s a knockout person and certainly someone of whom all Australians can be proud… especially those of us here on the Northern Beaches. Elka closed our interview by saying: “We are so lucky to live in this amazing part of Australia with its beautiful beaches, bushland and great sporting facilities. I’m sure that’s why so many high profile athletes have come from this area. Manly is a community where you see people striving for their best every day… but it’s also a community that loves to support its champions. That support is enormous. These are the reasons I will never forget my roots and the beautiful place I am blessed to call home.”
Our Manly columnist Dave Keogh has been a professional writer for some 30 years, contributing to publications including Modern Fishing and Outdoor. He honed a passion writing a regular column – Talking Tennis – for The Manly Daily. With a varied history including work as a music industry publicist, theatrical agent, band manager, poet, editor and tennis coach, he found his niche in advertising, and with loads of awards under his belt, Dave went into business on his own and now runs several very successful businesses, including an online community connecting sport-loving people – www.doubledrummer.com Most importantly, Dave loves sport, and is an avid supporter of The Manly Sea Eagles.