Emily Seebohm

Career

At age 14, Seebohm won the 100 m backstroke at the 2007 Australian Championships, which served as the selection meet for the 2007 World Aquatics Championships. At those championships in Melbourne she earned a gold medal in the 4 × 100 m medley relay, placed fourth in the 100 m backstroke final, and 14th in the 50 m backstroke. She also took gold in both the 100 m backstroke and 4 × 100 m medley relay at the 2007 Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships.

On 6 March 2008 at the Brisbane Catholic Schoolgirls Championships, she broke the Commonwealth and Australian records in the 50 m backstroke with a time of 28.10 seconds, missing Li Yang's then world record of 28.09 by one hundredth of a second. At the 2008 Australian Championships on 22 March, she broke the world record in the 50 m backstroke in the semi-finals with a time of 27.95s, taking five hundredths of a second off Hayley McGregory's world record of 28.00 set 15 days earlier.

The next day Sophie Edington beat that record in the final with 27.67 seconds. Seebohm chose not to swim in that final because it was not an Olympic event, instead focusing on the 100 m backstroke semi-final, where she became the first Australian woman to break one minute with a 59.78, the fifth-fastest time ever. She lowered that to 59.58 in the final, winning the Australian championship and Olympic selection. At the 2008 Summer Olympics she placed ninth in the 100 m backstroke, missing the final, but swam in both the preliminaries and final of the 4 × 100 m medley relay, where Australia won gold.

At the 2009 World Aquatics Championships in Rome she earned bronze in the 100 m backstroke with 58.88, silver in the 4 × 100 m medley relay, placed seventh in the 50 m backstroke, and 15th in the 200 m individual medley. At the 2009 Australian Short Course Championships she broke the world record in the 100 m individual medley with 58.54.

Personal life

Seebohm began a relationship with fellow swimmer Mitch Larkin in 2015; they separated in July 2018. She then dated breakfast radio host David Lutteral from 2019 until their split in March 2021. In December 2022 she confirmed she was dating Ryan Gallagher, whom she met while filming The Challenge Australia.

They announced their engagement in March 2023, and their son was born in September 2023. Seebohm, who has endometriosis, serves as an ambassador for Endometriosis Australia. The Emily Seebohm Aquatic Centre in Bracken Ridge, Brisbane, was named after her and opened in February 2016.

Did You Know?

• Her father John Seebohm played over 300 games for the Glenelg Tigers in the SANFL.
• She attended St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, St Margaret's Anglican Girls School, and St John Fisher College.