Phillippa Langrell is the best Kiwi female swimmer you’ve never heard of.
She is only one of a handful of swimmers to place top four at an Olympic Games, doing so in the 800m freestyle at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, aged 19. She credits that to her coach in Canterbury, Swiss Olympian Rainer Goltzsche.
“He took me from a good age grouper at 13 to an Olympic finalist six years later.”
Aged 14, Langrell won the first of more than 30 national open titles in seven different events. She broke three New Zealand records at Barcelona, winning the B final in the 400m freestyle in a time that would have placed sixth overall. No female Aquablack has placed top six twice at an Olympics.
Langrell missed the Olympics opening ceremony as she had her first event the following morning and wanted to get a good sleep.
That never happened.
“I was up half the night. I couldn’t sleep because I was worried I wasn’t nervous enough,” she says. “Maybe it worked as I did personal bests in all my races.”
Langrell was 16 when she qualified for her first senior team – the 1989 Pan Pacific championships, where she broke Rebecca Perrott’s 800m freestyle record and held it for 22 years. She went on to win the 1500m freestyle silver medal just 0.17 seconds behind defending champion Australian Janelle Elford at the 1991 championships.
Langrell’s 1991 time would have won a silver medal at last year’s national championships and, under today’s rules, would be under the qualifying time for this year’s Pan Pacific championships, 35 years later.
But many would not have heard of her. That’s because, despite holding some national records for more than 20 years, at higher profile competitions her best individual result was fourth: at the Olympics and twice at the 1990 Commonwealth Games. All were in personal best times. She sometimes wonders if she might have got an individual medal had the 1500m freestyle been on offer back then. But her family, watching from the Auckland spectator stands in 1990, did get to see her win a 4x200m freestyle relay medal.
At the 1992 Barcelona Olympics Langrell broke Perrott’s 400m freestyle record, holding it until Lauren Boyle broke it 20 years later. Former world champion Erika Fairweather has now broken four minutes in the distance, twice. Ironically all four Kiwi middle distance swimmers have a top Olympic Games result of fourth, as does Langrell and Fairweather for the Commonwealth Games.
It was at the 1994 World championships before even competing her 800m freestyle, that Langrell decided she would retire. She was 22; the same age Fairweather is now.
“Rome in 1994 was my final competition. I was completely burned out. “I was on the blocks for the 800m thinking ‘I can’t do this anymore.’’
She was fourth earlier that year too, at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Canada, ahead of British swimmer Sarah Hardcastle. (As an aside, Hardcastle’s daughter, Eve Thomas got her highest international placings for New Zealand at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and the 2024 world championships, both also fourth).
Looking back, Langrell does have regrets about not placing on the podium in key pinnacle competitions.
“Of course – what if I had have had more confidence in myself; more self-belief,” she says. A lot of it for me was a mental game. I saw a lot of swimmers who were more talented than me, but my strength was that I trained so hard and was incredibly committed.”
Langrell felt a bit lost after retiring, as many top athletes do after spending years of competing and training, particularly swimmers as they get up before dawn to train each day staring at the same black line at the bottom of the pool. Life kind of stopped and so did her interest in swimming.
“I went through a long period of not following swimming all; I didn’t want to know about it,” Langrell says.
“Athletes die twice. They die when they retire and then, um, the other one, the other end of life. When you retire your whole identity is gone. All of a sudden, you’re not the swimmer anymore.”
Langrell studied – and she still does some postgradute study. She gained a Bachelor of Science degree majoring in psychology at the University of Canterbury. She then graduated from the New Zealand College of Chiropractic in Auckland and became a practising chiropractor in 1999. After many years running her own practice in Singapore, her family moved from Rotorua to Cambridge for her husband Ian’s work.
Her chiropractic care specialises in spinal and nervous system wellness care to enhance physical, mental and emotional health for children and adults, including athletes. She also teaches people new strategies to recover from, manage and benefit from stress. For five years, until 2016, she was also on the New Zealand College of Chiropractic Board of Trustees.
Now, with two daughters, aged 12 and nine, she is a stay-at -home mum and intends to go back to into practice when her daughters are older, although she has done locum work.
Still in Cambridge, she is also widowed, as her husband Ian McAlley died in 2023 from a tragic cycling accident.
“It shatters your world, really,” Langrell recalls. “He fell, training on a road bike three days before Christmas three years ago and was in a coma for 15 days. Since Ian’s passing, I haven’t had the capacity to go back to work – and I’ve had to recover.
“I jokingly say I’m still on maternity leave, even though my youngest is now nine. But I have done locums since 2016 while primarily being a stay-at-home mum.”
Langrell currently takes an interest in swimming, mainly to keep up with swimmers’ efforts overseas. And she does keep her eye on Erika Fairweather, who swims the same events as she did.
“Erika is supremely talented. Just watching her swim, her technique is just beautiful,” she says. “After seeing Lauren (Boyle) breaking through, it’s just fantastic, and I hope she keeps going as long as she is happy and enjoying it.”
