The High Performance Pathways (HPP) Program is designed to support athletes, coaches and support staff across the Olympic Pool, Open Water and Paralympic disciplines. The HP Pathway team and program are part of the Swimming Australia High Performance unit and play a key role in the development of all key participants.
The High Performance Pathway Program is led by National Youth Coach (NYC) Simon Cusack (pictured above). Simon has been NYC since January 2025 following many years as one of Australia’s leading international coaches where he worked with many athletes including Cate and Bronte Campbell. He has also led several recent campaigns including the Australian Junior team to the 2023 &2025 World Junior Championships and the Australian Senior team to the 2024 World Short Course Championships in Budapest.
Simon is supported by a team of experienced technical leads, performance staff and management team including:
- Former Australian Head Coach and Head Coach of the 2004 & 2012 Olympic Teams, Leigh Nugent
- Olympic gold medal winning coach Tracey Menzies-Stegbauer
- Australian Team Coach for more than 20 years and Olympic gold medal winning coach, Vince Raleigh
- Highly experienced Sports Science Delivery Specialist, Steve Crowcroft
- Internationally experience HP Pathway Operations Lead, Toni Lorens
Key HPP activities:
- Provide an integrated High Performance Pathway Program that identifies targeted athletes, coaches and support staff for development to support the current and next generation swimmers who are (or have potential) to be individual medallists.
- Implement learning opportunities and experiences supported by follow up debriefs and monitoring by experiences coaches and performance support to ensure desired learning objectives are achieved.
- Work effectively with our partners to ensure the development of identified coaches, swimmers and Performance Support staff.
- Deliver NextGen Camps focused on the development of coaches, swimmers and staff to be Dolphin ready, preparing swimmers capable of international performance, especially in form events (breaststroke, butterfly & backstroke).
- Provide targeted and purposeful interstate and international competition experiences focused on learning and developing the performance processes necessary to perform an international stage.
- Identified and targeted programs to develop female coaches, especially early career female coaches to support their career path into high performance.
- Provide direction and financial support for state-based National Flipper activities to ensure camp and coach development activities are targeted in the right areas to assist State’s to develop an oversupply of national performers (swimmers, coaches and staff) preparing them for the High Performance Pathway programs.
Elite Youth Athlete Guidelines:
The Elite Youth Athlete (EYA) Guidelines have been designed by the Australian Sports Commission and:
- contain eight guidelines for young athletes.
- complement the National Integrity Framework and existing sport and child protection policies.
- are aligned with IOC consensus statement recommendations.
- are, to our knowledge, a world-first in their release and scope.
The Guidelines include recommendations for supporting the wellbeing, development, and performance of U18 individuals across high performance sport/swimming, and can be found at the bottom of this page under resources.
