NEWS

Road to LA | Durack Backs Cameron McEvoy

Backing Australian Athletes to Take on The World

Durack has partnered with Olympic champion and 50m freestyle world record holder Cameron McEvoy, backing one of Australian sport’s most unconventional thinkers on his journey towards Los Angeles 2028.

There are athletes who reach the top by perfecting the system.

Then there are those willing to question it.

Cameron McEvoy belongs firmly in the second camp.

The Queensland swimmer has spent much of his career challenging conventional thinking about what an elite swimmer should look like, how they should train and what it takes to perform at the highest level.

Today, he is the fastest 50m freestyle swimmer in history.

In March 2026, McEvoy stopped the clock at 20.88 seconds in Shenzhen, breaking a world record that had stood since 2009. It followed Olympic gold in Paris in 2024 and world championship victories in 2023 and 2025.

But it is the thinking behind those performances rather than simply the medals that made a partnership with Durack feel like a natural fit.

McEvoy studied physics at university and has brought the same analytical mindset to his swimming career.

After years within traditional high-volume swimming programs, he began questioning whether the accepted approach was actually the best approach for him.

The result was a radically different training philosophy built around strength, power, technique, recovery and specificity.

Less volume. More intent.

Instead of accepting that things had to be done a certain way because they always had been, McEvoy pulled the problem apart and rebuilt his approach around what he believed would make him faster.

For Durack Managing Director James Durack, an engineer and former competitive swimmer himself, that philosophy immediately struck a chord.

“When I first met Cam, we were meant to be talking about a partnership,” James said.

“We ended up having a coffee and talking about swimming, engineering, pressure, performance and the slightly obsessive way our brains work.

“I walked away thinking this was a long-lost mate from a parallel life.”

James grew up swimming competitively and remembers the pressure that came with standing behind the blocks knowing coaches, teammates and others had invested in the outcome.

That experience gave him an appreciation for what elite athletes carry into competition and for the person behind the performance.

“When you meet someone like Cam, you realise that behind the Olympic medals and performances is a remarkably down-to-earth, intelligent and curious person who has spent years dealing with those same pressures,” James said.

“That really resonated with me.”

Question The Conventional

There is an obvious difference between constructing infrastructure and swimming 50 metres faster than anyone else in history.

But the thinking required to improve either one can be surprisingly similar.

Break the problem down. Understand the variables. Question assumptions. Test ideas. Learn. Then look for the small improvements that compound into something significant.

It is a mindset that has underpinned McEvoy's extraordinary second act as an athlete and one Durack believes has relevance well beyond a swimming pool.“Cam studied physics. I became an engineer,” James said.

“We both seem to have brains that naturally want to pull things apart, question why they're done a certain way and search for the tiny margins that might make something better.

“Cam's career is a pretty extraordinary example of what can happen when you're prepared to challenge conventional thinking.

“You don't have to fit the traditional mould. You don't have to do things the way they've always been done.”

Durack's partnership with McEvoy will extend through the next chapter of his career as he works towards Los Angeles 2028.

Along the way, Durack will document parts of that journey — from training and preparation to the ideas, setbacks, experiments and decisions behind elite performance.

For Durack, it is also an opportunity to share those lessons with its own people and with young Australians considering careers in sport, engineering, construction and other fields.

Because ultimately, the partnership isn't simply about putting a logo alongside an athlete.

It's about backing a person whose approach represents something Durack believes in.

“I've always believed the best partnerships are about backing people,” James said.

“Because stadiums don't inspire the next generation. People do."

“People who think differently, challenge convention and have the courage to find their own way."

“So having Cam choose to partner with Durack genuinely feels like a privilege.”

Over the next few years, we'll be following Cam's pursuit of what's possible, sharing the thinking behind the performance and backing him all the way to Los Angeles.

Road to LA starts here.