‘I think I can make it’: Emily Seebohm on the Paris Olympics, motherhood and a rare look into her family life

As she prepares to take on Paris, swim star Emily Seebohm and her partner Ryan Gallagher pose in their debut shoot as a family with their baby boy. See the photos.

After fighting her way to a bronze medal in the 200 metre backstroke at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, nine years after winning her previous individual medal in London, Australian swimmer Emily Seebohm – overcome with emotion and excitement – described herself as “a fine wine” that gets better with age.

It seemed a fitting way to cap her career in the pool. Commentators assumed that race would be her swan song. For a time, Seebohm thought it was, too.

But six weeks after giving birth to her first child last September – a son named Sampson – with her fiance, reality-TV personality Ryan Gallagher, Seebohm was already diving back into the water. She now trains six days a week.

Family affair! Emily Seebohm and Ryan Gallagher with their baby, Sampson. Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar

Her goal: making her way to Paris this coming July for what could be her fifth consecutive Olympic Games.

“It was an idea that I had while I was pregnant,” Seebohm, 31, tells Stellar.

“Pregnancy for me was really hard. I ended up with borderline pre-eclampsia [a toxic and serious condition that can occur during pregnancy]. I couldn’t do much exercise because there were a lot of pains. It felt like the pregnancy took away everything that I ever knew. Now, being able to be in the water is nice, because I remember what my body is able to do.”

Before she jumped back in, Seebohm consulted her coaches as to whether a return to the pool while her baby was still a newborn was even possible.

“They basically said to me, ‘You’re a tough athlete and if you put your mind to it, you can totally do it,’” she remembers.

Of course, her victories in Tokyo – where she also won a gold medal in the 4 x 100 metre medley relay – had proved that she could.

“Heading into the Games, I thought it was my last. I thought I was getting old, so maybe I should move on and do something else. But it wasn’t like I couldn’t do it; it wasn’t that my body was breaking down.”

Still, she did go on to try something else. In 2022, Seebohm tried her hand at reality TV, joining the casts of I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! and The Challenge Australia. It was on the set of the latter that she met comedian and former Married At First Sight star Ryan Gallagher. Just months later they became engaged, and in July the couple publicly announced on their social media that they were expecting.

Swim star and new mum Emily Seebohm, left, has revealed her Paris Olympic dream in a new interview with Stellar. Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar

Gallagher tells Stellar that it was Seebohm’s ability to handle his heightened anxiety during The Challenge Australia’s gruelling on-set activities that drew him to her.

“She was really understanding, and sort of just knew how to handle me,” he says. “And that’s hard to find.”

Her healthy lifestyle (in particular “the fact that she doesn’t do drugs”) was another crucial factor, one that hit close to home. “I’ve always hated drugs,” he explains.

“It’s the biggest turn off in the world. I don’t want to date someone who does cocaine just on weekends and has kids. My brother was an ice addict and it took him getting in a wheelchair and a coma to stop doing drugs. Drugs don’t stop because you have a kid. I’ve seen it all before and I didn’t want that.

“I always wanted to be a dad. I just wasn’t ready. And I never wanted to have babies with anyone until Em came along.”

The couple’s quick path from courtship to getting engaged to becoming parents was a whirlwind, but when Sampson’s arrival was imminent, it became clear that all the athletic prowess in the world matters little when it comes to planning a birth. Seebohm had to be induced because doctors worried that her high blood pressure would lead to pre-eclampsia. On September 12, Sampson arrived. “I was pushing so hard and I remember getting so out of breath and being like, I’ve been to four Olympics, yet this is hard!” she tells Stellar, laughing.

Still, she adds, giving birth to her son has made her a better athlete.

Read more inside Stellar, out today. Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar

Emily Seebohm and Ryan Gallagher with baby Sampson. Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar

“What surprised me the most is that you can be so tired and you can still function,” she explains. “Before Tokyo, I would make sure I got a good eight hours of sleep every night and very rarely let loose. But with Sampson, I fed him the other night at 3.30am and then had to train at 5.30 and couldn’t go back to sleep – and I survived. It’s definitely hard work. I feel like when I’m home I’ve got to be so switched on and in mum mode instead of being able to relax, but I just love hanging out with Sampson.”

It was her fiance, in fact, who was a driving factor in her decision to return to the pool. As Gallagher puts it, “Before Sampson, I used to say, ‘It’s a shame I never got to see you swim.’ As far as I knew, she wasn’t going to do Paris. Then one day she said, ‘Maybe I will.’ There was no negative from me and I’ve been on hand to help however I can.”

That means taking a hands-on approach as necessary; he is often the only father in attendance at rhyme time sessions – and that suits him just fine. “I want to be a part of everything he does. I don’t want to miss anything,” says Gallagher, who adds that his own upbringing has played

a part in his approach to fatherhood. “I had a dad who wasn’t the best at fathering and I’ve done pretty much the opposite. My mission has been to be the dad I wanted when I was younger. My dad never really went to anything I did, unless he found some sort of benefit for him. So I don’t care if it makes me feel like sh*t or anything, I just want to be there. Even if it means sitting on the uncomfortable floor for rhyme time, I’m doing it.”

As for their next step as a couple, they admit that between her training and the demands of raising a baby, there’s no time to plan a wedding.

“I feel like sometimes we talk about it and say maybe we should elope or we’ll go to the Town Hall and just get it done,” Seebohm says. “If weddings weren’t so expensive or take so long to plan, we would have done it. It’s probably an after Paris thing.”

As to whether her Paris dream can become a reality, she remains optimistic. “I think I can make it. But, you know, people might exceed their expectations and make the team ahead of me.

“Sometimes I feel silly saying it, because the possibility is 50-50,” Seebohm continues. “But I just want to give it a go. And I don’t want it to be that I’m not doing it because of Sampson – I’m doing it for Sampson.”