‘I texted him like a desperate ex’: How Snapchat helped ignite Lani Pallister’s career

Glasgow: It was Snapchat that unlocked an athlete who is now poised to become Australia’s greatest female distance swimmer.Lani Pallister was relaxing in bed on a lazy Sunday last February, scrolling through her phone. It was about six months on from a deeply disappointing 2024 Paris Olympics. Pallister had contracted COVID-19, finished a distant sixth in the 800m freestyle and withdrawn from the 1500m freestyle.She was burnt out, broken and contemplating walking away from pool swimming altogether in favour of surf racing, a discipline in which she also excels.Then, amid the doomscrolling, Snapchat served up a memory. Pallister, the daughter of three-time Commonwealth Games medallist Janelle Elford, could have scrolled on. She clicked on it.The video, filmed at an Australian event camp in 2019, showed Dean Boxall – the renowned coach of Ariarne Titmus and Mollie O’Callaghan – screaming at the top of his lungs.Not at one of his swimmers, but in the car, alongside fellow coach and Olympian Ash Delaney, to a song by American rock band Tool.Australian swimmer Lani Pallister ahead of the Commonwealth Games. Channel SevenIt wasn’t a motivational speech or technical session. Just two mates being themselves, with Pallister sitting in the back seat.“Lol, can’t believe it’s been this long,” Pallister, a member of the Griffith University program under Mel Marshall, texted Boxall after seeing the clip.She laughs about it now.“I remember texting him like a desperate ex,” Pallister, a Speedo ambassador, said ahead of her Commonwealth Games campaign, which begins with the 400m freestyle on Friday. “It’s wild how quickly that relationship has developed. I feel like he’s part of my family now. He’s someone I’d do absolutely anything for.”Swimming coach Dean Boxall. GettyPallister asked Boxall if they could grab coffee. She told him straight away that she wasn’t joining his squad. Boxall seemed a little surprised, but understood.“At that point, I had no intentions of moving,” Pallister said.But there is something magnetic about Boxall. The head coach at elite Brisbane club St Peters Western has an aura that makes his swimmers feel like the most important person in the world. He is an elusive character who rarely grants interviews, but the care he shows his athletes is obvious.“I’m constantly thinking about them,” Boxall told this masthead. “I’m trying to find ways to make them better or trying to solve a problem. I love the siege mentality. I think that’s one of our strengths.“I’m really careful that all my swords are up and the guys actually quite like it. They feel protected. Sometimes they feel quite overwhelmed with everything that is going on. They know when they come into St Peters, you’ve got walls up and nothing gets out. Nothing will escape.”The turning point came when Pallister joined St Peters’ distance squad for sessions during an event camp. Training alongside swimmers such as Lizzy Dekkers and Ben Goedemans, whom Boxall coaches, reignited her passion for distance swimming, a notoriously lonely pursuit that can be brutal at times.“It was so much fun having a group of athletes in the distance group to train with,” Pallister said. “That was what I was missing at Griffith.“I was pretty emotional from the end of Paris through to March [last year] before I left Griffith. I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll just do surf full-time for six months’. I just needed a break. I was so burnt out.Day one swimming program at Commonwealth Games in GlasgowWomen’s 400m freestyleMen’s 200m individual medleyWomen’s 100m freestyle (S13)Men’s 100m freestyle (S13)Women’s 200m backstrokeMen’s 50m backstroke (heats and semis)Women’s 50m butterfly (heats and semis)Men’s 100m breaststroke (heats and semis)Women’s 200m individual medley (SM10)Men’s 100m butterfly (S10)Women’s 4x100m freestyle relayMen’s 4x100m freestyle relay“I remember sitting at a function with Joe Lydon, the British rugby sevens coach, and he said, ‘You just sound like you don’t enjoy it.’ And I was like, ‘I do. I just don’t know what I want’.”When Pallister eventually committed to Boxall and told him she was all-in, his response was characteristically brief.“OK, let’s go,” Boxall said.The transformation that followed was eye-catching.Pallister starts Commonwealth Games competition this week as the favourite for gold in the 400m freestyle, with New Zealand’s Erika Fairweather the only other swimmer in the field to have broken four minutes. Only seven have managed it in history; Titmus is the only other Australian to have done so.However, Pallister, 24, is an even stronger gold medal prospect in the 800m and 1500m freestyle.Pallister had a hugely successful meeting at last year’s world championships in Singapore. After finishing fourth in the 400m freestyle in a personal best 3:58.87, she claimed bronze in the 1500m before producing the best for last with the swim of her life in the 800m freestyle.It had been billed by some as the “race of the century”, a showdown between American legend Katie Ledecky – arguably the greatest female swimmer of all time – and Canadian phenomenon Summer McIntosh, who may one day inherit that title.A preview article in The New York Times did not even mention Pallister. By the finish, nobody could ignore her.From left to right: Silver medallist Lani Pallister, gold medallist Katie Ledecky and bronze medallist Summer McIntosh after the women’s 800m freestyle final at the 2025 world championships. APIt was arguably the greatest women’s 800m freestyle ever contested, with no swimmer establishing a decisive lead. At halfway, just 0.18 seconds separated the three.Pallister finished only 0.36 seconds behind Ledecky in second place, while comfortably holding off McIntosh by 1.31 seconds, to claim one of Australian swimming’s finest silver medals.Pallister’s time of 8:05.98 was almost 10 seconds faster than her personal best when she arrived at the Australian trials the previous month. Such a major drop is very rare.The gap between Pallister and Ledecky – Olympic champion at the past three Games – is shrinking, setting up what shapes as one of the tantalising races of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Pallister also turned heads in October by breaking Ledecky’s 800m freestyle shortcourse world record by three seconds at a World Cup event in Toronto.“To turn around and go to Singapore under a new coach in a new environment and swim an 8:05 … I feel like I fast-tracked everything that I wanted into a year,” Pallister said.“If you put me from 2024 and me now side by side, we’re completely different people. I wanted the Olympics so badly in 2024.”Victory on Friday (Saturday morning AEST) in the 400m freestyle would deliver Pallister her first individual longcourse gold medal at a senior international meeting.She gets a chance to race Ledecky and McIntosh next month at the Pan Pacific Championships in California, but her major focus is the Olympics two years later, which will take place at SoFi Stadium in front of approximately 40,000 fans. It will be far and away the biggest swimming crowd in history.“Everything I do is about LA and wanting to have an Olympic medal,” Pallister said. “It’s also wanting to be the best and cement myself as Australia’s best-ever distance swimmer.“I have full trust in Dean. I think our relationship has grown so much in the space of 12 months. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like in two years’ time.”Get around our Commonwealth Games coverageTom Decent is the chief sports writer for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.From our partners