Elka Graham
Our Elka Manly Olympian
The Drum
By Dave Keogh
This story is not so much about a sport but a sports person - one of Manly’s favourite Olympians, Elka Graham. Since retiring from competitive swimming just a short time ago, Elka has evolved from her position as one of Australia's brightest international sports stars to carving a career in the media and as a public speaker. But first, let’s revisit her amazing record as an elite athlete…
Elka Graham spent the best part of a decade at the top of Australian swimming. A dual Olympian (both Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004), she won Olympic silver in the 4 x 200m Freestyle relay and has come home with medals from World Championships, Commonwealth Games, the World Cup (Gold!) and Pan Pacific championships.
Elka has recorded both Australian and Commonwealth records including the Australian 400m Freestyle short course record, which she held for over five years. In 2001 she recorded the world’s fastest swim for the 200m Freestyle and was officially ranked Number 1 in the world. Between 2001-2004 she was consistently in the Top 3 in the world for both the 200m and 400m Freestyle.
In 2003, Elka survived a month in hospital after being diagnosed with a worrying heart condition. Yet her positive mindset saw her win Gold in the 200m, 400m and 800m at the World Cup just a month after her release from hospital, marginally missing world record times.
Elka ended her swimming career with no less than 10 Australian Championship Gold medals (both long and short course).
Since leaving the pool, Elka has made a smooth transition into journalism and the media. She has appeared on all major free to air television stations (7, 9 and 10) as well as subscription TV’s Fox Sports and has been in great demand on the speaking circuit. Elka has also agreed to occasional modelling contracts and has appeared in many magazines, notably Marie Claire, Cleo, FHM and Alpha. She really enjoys modelling, especially when it can help a good cause, but the focus of her career moving forward will be the media. She has written articles for Marie Claire and currently writes regularly for the Sun-Herald and New Idea magazine.
Elka’s also recently made her online debut, launching her new web site –
www.elkagraham.com. The web site is a way for her to interact with fans and to facilitate more career opportunities.
Manly has produced more great athletes per capita than practically any suburb in Australia. We can be proud of all of them, but right now, Elka Graham… take a bow!
The writer of The Drum, Dave Keogh, has been a professional writer for some 30 years, contributing to publications as broad as 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…