Kyle Chalmers’s collection ranges from small Olympic marks to a winged crown across his chest, with designs linked to Port Lincoln, family and his health.
A gold-medal moment
At 18, Chalmers won the 100-metre freestyle at his first Olympic Games in Rio. The photograph here shows that career moment, not his tattoos.
The Rio Olympic rings tattoo
At 16, Chalmers’s first tattoo was the number 761 in Roman numerals on his wrist, his Dolphins swimming number. After Rio, he told Adelaide radio that he had the Olympic rings tattooed on his ribs, XXXI on his right wrist for the 31st Games, and the Olympic motto on his right forearm: “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (“Faster, Higher, Stronger”).
How the tattoo collection grew
The comparison spans four years. Chalmers said he spent more than 60 hours in the chair with Adelaide artist Nick Lazaris, known as Laz. His tattooing picked up after the 2019 World Championships and again after the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Laz’s name is also inked on Chalmers’s arm.
The winged crown tattoo and the German words on his chest
The large chest piece is a winged crown above “Nur die Starken überleben,” German for “Only the strong survive.” Chalmers has said German was his favourite subject at school and that he continued studying it afterwards. The words connect the design to an interest he had before the tattoo.
On his left forearm, a lion and heart are joined by a broken chain. Chalmers said the heart represented the supraventricular tachycardia he had lived with; after three surgeries fixed the problem, he saw the broken chain as the heart no longer holding him back. He described himself as the lion. He has also called the lion-and-heart piece his favourite tattoo because it means the most to him.
Port Lincoln, family and the smaller details
A shark on Chalmers’s foot represents Port Lincoln, the South Australian town where he grew up. He has also said coordinates on his body point to a Pet Barn in town. He joked that he copied them from Wikipedia without checking where they led.
His arm includes the Chalmers family crest and a map of Australia. Other pieces include a hawk on his forearm, a cow’s skull on his shin (which he described as his most painful tattoo), and a butterfly-bee design based on Muhammad Ali’s famous line about floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.
The bigger picture
Chalmers has said his tattoos tell his story. The pieces he has explained link Olympic milestones with home, family and a difficult health period; there’s no need to attach a backstory to every other image.
Watch Kyle Chalmers discuss swimming
In the World Aquatics interview below, Chalmers talks about his swimming career and goals.