Brianna Throssell on winning gold in Paris, her recent engagement and what’s next post Olympic retirement

Brianna Throssell is the epitome of a golden girl.

Fresh off the back of an enviable Euro summer, and three years of living in Queensland, the bronzed Olympian has arrived on home soil with gold glistening on her left ring finger and a more weighty gold number in. . . a sock.

But don’t let the sock fool you. Its contents represent Throssell’s long-time dedication, passion and sacrifice to her swimming career.

It’s a career that has seen her up at 5am most mornings, training for eight hours most days, and home in Perth for just three weeks over the past three years.

But as Throssell stood with three of her teammates, including close friend and former roommate Ariarne Titmus, on the podium at the Paris Olympics on August 1 after winning the 4x200m freestyle relay, her tireless work was all worth it.

“I would describe that as the highlight of my swimming career,” she tells STM.

Throssell was no stranger to the pressures, excitement and cutthroat competitiveness of the Olympics. It was her third rodeo, attending Rio in 2016 and winning gold and two bronze medals in Tokyo in 2021.

This one was different though, and it would be her last.

Across her career the 28-year-old had grown accustomed to swimming on the first day of an event, rather than day six in the instance of Paris. She says the wait was horrible.

“To watch everyone else race while you’re training and making sure you’re keeping yourself healthy, motivated and excited (is challenging) but you don’t want to start overthinking anything,” Throssell explains.

“For six days of racing it was tough, but I tried to do the best I could.”

Waking up on day six, she was excited. First though, she had to make it through her heat, and the 20-minute wait post-swim that morning was tortuous.

When her coach Dean Boxall (yes, that Boxall, who has become as well-known for his on-screen antics as some of the athletes themselves) told her she’d posted the second-fastest time after Lani Pallister, Throssell was over the moon.

After spending the rest of the day resting, the four women (Throssell, Titmus, Pallister and Mollie O’Callaghan) proudly took their places poolside, in front of the largest crowd Throssell had swum before.

Throssell knew she was up against some tough competition — including US swimming legend Katie Ledecky — but all her mind was focused on was getting her hand on the wall first for “Arni”.

Despite the roaring crowd erupting across the stadium, Throssell was completely in the zone.

“Before the race, even after I swum my leg, I didn’t once look up to the crowd,” she says.

“The stands just extend so far back, it was the biggest stadium that I’ve swum in, so I tried to subconsciously absorb the atmosphere but not be distracted by it.”

Whatever the women did that day worked. They won gold, and set an Olympic record time. It was Australia’s fifth gold medal in the pool that week.

“Pure elation,” says Throssell of the feeling of winning Paris gold.

As for the sock, it was easier to carry her medal across Europe inside it rather than the supplied big and heavy box. Plus, who’s going to suspect such a momentous piece would be concealed inside?

In the hours following the win Throssell made a comment that she didn’t expect to blow up across the media in the way it did.

“It is going to be my last race ever at the Olympics,” she announced.

The revelation caused quite the buzz. Throssell didn’t return to the Olympic Village until 2am that morning.

“I didn’t expect one small comment to be in the news,” she says. “I also assumed that people didn’t think I’d be going to (the 2028 Olympics in) LA, given my age.

“I still love the sport, and I’m so passionate about it, but I don’t think my mind and body will be there in 2028.

“The Commonwealth Games in 2026 is a really exciting opportunity. . . that will still be awesome, but I don’t think I have four more years in me.”

Despite her decision, Throssell has never felt a lack of desire to go to the pool. But two weeks off a year, hours of training each day combined with physio, Pilates, gym and running — not to mention living 4000km from her support network in Perth — has taken a toll.

She was able to find extra moments of joy during her morning walk to get a coffee, or realising her mum has done her washing or stocked her fridge during a visit.

Throssell believes this strong support network, and parents that never pushed her into swimming from a young age, is partly why she’s had longevity and maintained motivation in her sport.

While her medals and trophies were stacking up from a young age, it wasn’t until her impressive performance in the 2019 FINA World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, that she found a strong sense of confidence and self-belief in her skills.

“I just honestly did things I never thought I would,” Throssell says.

“It was the first world record I’d been a part of in the 4x200m (relay), I PB’d in most races, I was actually fortunate enough to be a part of the 4x100m freestyle races and swim the final with Kate (Campbell), Bronte (Campbell) and Emma (McKeon) and I just think being a part of that is something really special. . . it was more just the confidence and belief that it gave me in myself.”

Yet with the wins came the challenges, and over time she’d begun to place more pressure on herself ahead of big events.

“If I look at the three Olympics I’ve been to — Rio, Tokyo and Paris — I would say that I was increasingly nervous for each one,” Throssell says.

“And it wasn’t necessarily the Olympics I was nervous for, it was the trials. The Olympic trials are so cutthroat.

“If you’re not in the top two (in an individual event) and you miss the qualifying time, that one race could determine everything — even if you’re having a slightly off day, you have literally blown every chance.”

Reflecting on the past, when Throssell owned popular dress hire boutique West Coast Dress Hire, she would juggle training and working in the boutique. She also finished a business degree with a major in management.

“There is no way I could have done that (in the past few years),” she says.

“I don’t know if that’s my age, as you get older you can’t do as many things because there energy is not there. But when I was an older and more mature athlete, I dedicated a lot more and pushed myself a lot harder, which I think is just something you learn to do over time.”

Then there was the distance between her and new finance Josh Milner, who is based in Melbourne.

The man who bravely took a gorgeous diamond engagement ring to the Paris Olympics, and smuggled it throughout Europe so he could ask Throssell to marry him on a boat set against the lights of Positano beyond.

The couple met more than two years ago. Throssell was a regular at a Pilates studio called Strong, a spot that Milner (a health and fitness business owner) happened to be co-owner of. They met when he was on the Sunshine Coast for a business trip, and the rest is history.

“I was a little unsure at first, distance is never easy, and I knew my schedule,” Throssell reflects.

“To a non-swimmer it’s quite hard to explain how much we travel and how much time is dedicated to the pool. At the end of the day, it’s quite a selfish thing and I was a little unsure how things would work, but it did.”

Milner flew to visit her every second weekend, and the two made the most of the snippets of time they had together.

The light at the end of the tunnel was the five-week European holiday they’d been planning for 12 months post-Paris. They’d made a promise to book one special dinner each, Milner taking this responsibility very seriously.

Throssell wasn’t sure if she’d be coming home with two gold items, but she kept her nails nude and manicured — just in case.

When she stepped onto a private sunset tour along the Amalfi Coast that Milner had organised, and noticed the photographer on board, she had an inkling a special question might be on the cards.

The proposal was an evening Throssell says she’ll remember forever. What a few months.

It took a few weeks after the win for the Olympian to shake a slight feeling of numbness and to come back down to reality.

“It really took a while to relax and unwind and settle into the holiday,” Throssell says.

“We had such a beautiful time but I felt a little bit exhausted and overstimulated from Olympic life, so it did take me a little bit to really relax into the holiday.”

Judging by the gorgeous snaps across Tuscany, Santorini and Lake Como on her Instagram, she was able to finally find some peace.

The relaxation is set to continue, at least for the months ahead, as Throssell takes the rest of year off swimming.

Without the early-morning training sessions, Throssell is most looking forward to a few sleep-ins, and exercising for fun rather than to push her body to the limit.

She’ll be balancing her time between Perth and Melbourne, making the most of the upcoming sunshine, and hopes to explore opportunities in business, fashion or media. There is also a wedding to plan.

Her win, and swimming, are never far from her mind though.

Not only because it’s been at the centre of her existence since winning seven bronze medals at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games, but because of the Olympic rings tattoo that adorns her wrist.

It’s seen better days — the colours have faded and the black outline has stretched — but as someone once said to Throssell when she considered getting it removed, its imperfections represent the highs and lows of her career.

“They said to me, ‘Bri the path to the Olympics isn’t perfect and the tattoo is almost a representation of that — not everything is perfect’,” she says.