WHILE he’s smaller than most that line up on the pontoon and never was a child prodigy, a renewed Nick Sloman has earned himself a ticket to Paris through sheer grit and determination.

Sloman – in the best shape of his career – claimed his elusive Olympic blazer by finishing 5^th (1hr:48:29.60) in the men’s 10km race at the Doha World Championships in February, 2024.

“It’s always been a dream of mine to represent Australia, especially at an Olympic Games. It hasn’t been an easy feat to get there, for me especially it’s taken me 12 years … so it means a lot,” Sloman said.

The Dolphins capped off an extremely successful championships with a dramatic victory in the mixed 4x1500m relay.

Moesha Johnson and Chelsea Gubecka got Australia into fourth position at the halfway point, before Nick took the lead in the third leg and Kyle Lee hung on to win by a fingertip.

“As a team we really wanted this,” Nick said. “Personally when I hit the water, I just wanted to make the most of the effort that Moe and Chelsea had put in – I just didn’t want to let them down.”

The Sunshine Coast open water swimmer nearly quit the sport after missing out on the Tokyo Olympics but went away and worked on his mental approach.

Nick debuted on the world stage in 2018, making the Dolphins team for the Pan-Pacific Championships in Tokyo, where he won a bronze medal in the 10km open water swim event.

Since then, he has been a mainstay on the international circuit, winning a gold and a silver medal in the 2019 FINA Marathon Swim World Series; three silver and a bronze in the 2022 FINA Marathon Swim World Series; and silver in the 2023 World Series.

In addition to his success on the open-water swimming circuit, Nick is also a skilled ocean swimmer, having won the Australian Surf Life Saving Ocean Swim five times.

POD POP UP STAT: The Sunshine Coast open water swimmer Nick Sloman has a bag of international medals to his name, but his favourite swimming memory is something a little more modest. “My favourite memory is winning bronze in the 25m butterfly (for) six-seven-year-old boys at my first swimming carnival. That’s where it all started,” Nick said.