Awards MC

Hayley burst onto the scene as a 15-year-old schoolgirl, capturing the hearts of Australians by winning 5 Gold medals at the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games. Backing up a year later, she went on to become one of Australia’s youngest ever World Champions by winning the 200m freestyle at the Perth World Championships.
In 1992, at her first Olympics in Barcelona, Hayley brought home a Silver and a Bronze followed by more medals at the 93 Pan Pacific, the 1994 Commonwealth Games, 95 Rome World Championships and the 96 Atlanta Olympics.

Taking a break from swimming after Atlanta, Hayley married her high- school sweetheart Greg Taylor in 1997 and the following year gave birth to their first son, Jacob.

In 1999, she returned to swimming with the goal of making the 2000 Olympic team which she did, as well as the 2001 World Championships in Fukuoka which saw her become the first ever swimmer to compete for her country in both open water and pool swimming at the same meet. Hayley went on to win a bronze medal at this meet and officially retired upon returning home at the age of 27.
In sharing per passion for swimming she opened a LEARN TO SWIM school at Westfield Carindale in 2002, the first for an Australian shopping centre.

Changing pace, she went on to host five seasons of The Biggest Loser Australia between 2010 and 2014, write a business book – ‘Dream, Believe, Create’ and purchase a commercial property in Balmoral, Brisbane which has been home to her gift and homewares store ‘Coming Up Roses’ for over 10 years.

In 2022 she has took up the gauntlet as Queensland’s Mental Health Ambassador sharing “Having that safe workplace is just something that’s right at the top of my priority along with my own mental health. Sometimes you’re too scared to say, are you okay? Through my ambassadorial role, I hope to be able to change that just a little bit. To help people understand that by speaking up and saying that you’re not coping, or you are finding things a bit difficult, that it’s actually an empowering thing”.

 In between her role as an inspirational speaker, Mental Health Ambassador and endeavours of becoming a qualified psychologist, Hayley continues to be the very proud mum of her two boys, Jacob (23) and Kai (18) who is currently in pursuit of his own success in the Olympic swimming pool.