Lane 9 — Personal coaching for the swimmers outside the system.

01 / Why I built this

Charlie Kerr · Founder · Brisbane, QLD

My name's Charlie. I grew up in Brisbane and I've been in the water since before I can remember — a kid who played every community sport going, but the one that stuck was swimming.

I made my first state team at 12. My first national team at 15. I qualified for my first age-group national final at 18. I'm now studying a Bachelor of Commerce at UQ on a Sporting Excellence Scholarship, training six days a week with one goal at the end of it — making the Australian swim team for Brisbane 2032.

Outside the pool I coach. I teach Learn-to-Swim and I coach junior competitive squads — the fundamentals, the catch, the kick, the rotation. The boring stuff that makes the fast stuff possible.

In 2016 I was a ten-year-old kid on the couch watching Kyle Chalmers win the 100 free in Rio. That was the moment. That's where it ignited.

Every Australian Olympic gold medal does that for some kid, somewhere. The trouble is — not every kid has the pool to walk into the next morning. Not every kid has a coach on the deck. Not every kid even knows what's possible.

I built Lane 9 because I want to be the reason a kid in Roma, or Mount Isa, or Cape York, gets the chance I did. And it doesn't matter if their dream is the Olympics, a school scholarship, or just being told "you're better than you know." The plan is the same. The plan starts with them.

First state team

First national team

First age-group national final

2032

The dream in chase

02 / How Lane 9 works

A real coach. Real feedback. Real tools.

Every review comes from a coach — not a black box. I use AI to see what the human eye can't, then I do the thinking. The technology serves the coaching, not the other way round.

The Coach

Trained in the water. Not in a lab.

Every session, every review, every plan comes from a coach who's actually raced. National-team background. Learn-to-Swim credentials. The advice you get is the advice I'd give to a swimmer standing next to me on the pool deck.

The Tools

AI-assisted, never AI-alone.

Modern review tools let me see stroke mechanics frame by frame — the catch angle, the kick timing, the body position — things the naked eye misses. I use them to sharpen my analysis, not replace it. You always get a human reading of what the tools show.

The Plan

Built for your event.

A 50 sprinter doesn't train like a 400 IMer. A club swimmer doesn't train like a state finalist. Every Lane 9 plan is built around your event, your level, and the pool you actually have access to — with pool sessions, dryland, and technique focus tuned to you.

The Loop

You send. I respond.

Upload a video. Get a voice-over review inside 48 hours. Get your next session in your inbox. Ask questions, get answers. Coaching isn't a one-way broadcast — it's a conversation, and Lane 9 is built to keep that conversation going every week.

03 / Development, on your own terms

The plan starts with you.

Not every swimmer wants to make the Olympics. Some want a school scholarship. Some want to make the state team. Some just want to know they've become the best version of themselves in the water. All of those are legitimate goals. Lane 9 works with the goal you actually have.

Every swimmer who works with Lane 9 starts with a conversation — what do you swim, what do you love about it, and what are you chasing? From there we build backwards.

If your target is a State qualifying time, we build the plan against that time. If your target is looking sharp at a school swimming carnival, we build the plan against that. If you don't know your goal yet — that's fine too. Part of good coaching is helping you find the one worth chasing.

The rest of the world will measure you against a world record. Lane 9 measures you against the next mountain you can actually climb.

Coaching aimed at your goals — not someone else's.