Susan O'Neill

In 1994, O'Neill switched from Wakefield to Scott Volkers. She had just won bronze medals for the 100-meter and 200-meter butterfly in the world championship meets in Rome and felt she wasn't capable of achieving much better. She told Wayne Smith of the Sunday Tasmanian, "I thought I had reached my plateau." She was wrong. Volkers helped O'Neill continue on an upward curve that led her to win a gold medal for the 200-meter butterfly in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

O'Neill was lucky to have Volkers by her side after her win in Atlanta because an earlier doping scandal had made him ineligible to attend. Volkers was banned for one year by La Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA) when one of his swimmers and O'Neill's very good friend, Samantha Riley, tested positive for a banned painkiller. He appealed the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland. The court approved his appeal and Volkers was with his team during the competitions in Atlanta, Georgia.

After her win at the 1996 Olympics, O'Neill continued to excel. She explained to the Sunday Tasmanian, "I don't want to fall into the trap of other gold medal-lists.… I want to keep improving." O'Neill did not let herself or her fans down. In 1997, she broke the Australian record for the 200-meter butterfly with a time of 2:8.90. She had won enough Australian titles by this time that she was quickly approaching the record previously set by Sir Frank Beaurepaire. In May of 1998, she won her 30th national title. She thought she had broken Beaurepaire's record, but four more wins were discovered, making his total wins thirty-three, not the previously held twenty-nine. It took her two more years, but at the Olympic trials held in 2000, O'Neill surpassed Beaurepaire's record with her thirty-fourth title. By the time she retired, O'Neill had thirty-five Australian titles to her name.

One goal that continually eluded O'Neill was breaking Mary T. Meagher's 1981 world record for the 200-meter butterfly. Meagher's speed was the longest standing record in international swimming history. O'Neill had broken the Australian record in 1997. That same year she was the fastest swimmer of the 200-meter butterfly in the world for the year. Her times were often faster than Meagher's during the first 150 meters of the race, but O'Neill's early attacks would lead to exhaustion during the last fifty meters, where she always lost her lead.