Nicole Dawn Livingstone, OAM (born 24 June 1971) is an Australian former competitive swimmer. Since retiring from swimming Livingstone has had careers as a television sports commentator and media presenter and as a sports administrator. She was known for a period as Nicole Stevenson, when she was married to Australian cyclist Clayton Stevenson.
She had an older brother, Gary and older sister, Karen.[2]
Swimming career
Livingstone competed for Australia in three summer Olympics - 1988, 1992, and 1996 - winning both individual and team medals. She was an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder.[3]
She held the Australian record for the 200-metre backstroke, with at time of 2:10.20, set on 31 July 1992 at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain for 16 years. Meagen Nay broke the Australian record twice at the 2008 Australian Olympic Trials. She is the only Australian swimmer to have competed in six successive Pan Pacific Swimming Championships. Livingstone's coaches included Bill Nelson at Melbourne Vicentre and Gennadi Touretski.
Since her retirement, Livingstone has travelled to all six Summer Olympics and at the Commonwealth Games as a commentator for the swimming coverage.
Nicole has worked for Amazon Prime Video in 2021 and 2022 commentating on the Australian Swimming Championships.
She has also been a presenter for Melbourne station SEN 1116 and appeared on a number of programs including The Project and Q+A.
Business and administrative roles
Sporting roles
Livingstone has worked on multiple boards for various sporting bodiesLivingstone is active in promoting drug-free sports in Australia and is involved in the Australian Olympic Committee's "Live Clean, Play Clean" anti-doping education program. She was also a board member of the Australian Sports Drug Agency (ASDA), whose mission is to combat drug use in sports.
Livingstone was elected to the board of the Australian Olympic Committee in 2013.[7] In 2017 she backed the campaign for Danni Roche to take over as the head of the , and ran in the elections for the executive.[8] While Roche's campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, Livingstone was the only member of the rival ticket to be elected.[9]
Livingstone was announced as the Australian Football League's head of women's football on 16 November 2017.[7] At this time she resigned her post on the executive of the AOC. She is responsible for managing the AFL Women's competition.[11]
In addition to these roles, she has also sat on the board of the Victorian Olympic Council.[12]
Other roles
At the time of her appointment to the board of Swimming Australia, Livingstone was also a member of the VicHealth and State Sports Centre Trust boards.[12]
Following her mother's death from ovarian cancer, Livingstone started Ovarian Cancer Australia and is currently the patron of the organisation.[1]
Personal life
Livingstone was married to cyclist Clayton Stevenson, and is currently married to cinematographer Marty Smith.[1]
She has three children, twins Ella and Joshua in 2002, and a second son, Robinson in 2007.[6][5]
Her mother died from ovarian cancer, and both Livingstone and her sister have both tested positive for the BRCA2 gene. They have both had surgery to remove their ovaries.[2]
Livingstone was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 1997 for service to swimming as a representative at state, national and international levels.[13]
A Sydney RiverCat ferry was named after Livingstone in 1995.
She was a finalist for Veuve Clicquot BOLD Woman award in 2021.[1]
