French flavoured session planned for Indooroopilly as coach Dean Boxall goes left field to Paris

The Olympic Games are coming to Brisbane eight years early, with Dean Boxall transforming the suburb of Indooroopilly to prepare Australia’s swimmers to conquer Paris.

Colourful coach Dean Boxall has a French twist in store for his swimmers as Paris comes to the Pilly for one day only.

As in Indooroopilly, the Brisbane suburb which hosts the iconic St Peters Western Swim Club which could field around 10 swimmers at July’s Olympic Games in Paris.

Boxall, the exuberant, award-winning coach and left-field thinker, will on Saturday week host a three hour session where he will give his St Peters squad a taste of the verve, nerves and general vibe that awaits them in Paris in July.

If they feel nervous and a tad disorientated the coach will feel he has done his job.

A crowd of around 400 fans (tickets available here) will be encouraged to offer throaty support to international stars including Ariarne Titmus, Mollie O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack and Elijah Winnington who will be introduced over a loud speaker as if they are swimming for gold, silver or bronze.

The likes of Mollie O’Callaghan and Ariane Titmus will be in action in Indooroopilly. Picture: Clive Rose/Getty Images

In fact they will be training not racing for this ground-breaking day, their farewell home training session before their Olympic journey, will be about sharpening their senses not their splits.

The Olympic theme will start in a humble car park a few kilometres up the road.

“They are all going to park at a car park and get picked up by a bus and dropped off at the pool,’’ Boxall told this masthead.

“They will go through a back entrance to the pool like they would in Paris. They won’t go through the public entrance. There is going to be a team room. A marshalling room. A crowd, VIP’s, media.

“They will be asked to talk to the media at the end of their sessions as well. We are trying to incorporate every element of a simulated event.’’

Boxall, renowned for his inventive thinking and zany outbursts which made him global social media star at the Tokyo Olympics, admits inviting outside observers into his traditionally very private world was a rare move.

Coach Dean Boxall is shaking up preparations for the Paris Olympics. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/Courier Mail

“We are quite a closed shop but I love that people can come along and see swimmers they will watch at the Olympics in a few months.

“I love the fact they can think ‘I watched that person … I was in their environment. I am backing that person. I like what they are doing.’ Forming that connection.’’

In essence, Boxall will assault his swimmers’ senses by shunting them out of their well-grooved suburban comfort zone into a more pressurised world filled with unusual sights and sounds that detonates their major meet nerves.

“What I am trying to do is simulate an environment to get the nerves going. I know you will never quite get the Olympics but I want something special and unique.

“We have got elements there of French and Paris and Olympic themes – those proponents will come together. It will be as close as you can get.

“The hardest part is creating the atmosphere that you cannot see but it is in you. That feeling that you just know it is the Olympics. The production around it. At Tokyo there was no crowd but it just felt like the Olympics. The tension was incredible. You could cut the air with a knife.

“I cannot reproduce that but what I can do is I can enhance a training environment to make them feel out of control because they have never seen it before.’’

Originally published as French flavoured session planned for Indooroopilly as coach Dean Boxall goes left field to Paris