Cook Shire underwater hockey player Rocco Thomason in the pool. Photos: Supplied.
Cook Shire mates Eli Carroll and Rocco Thomason are preparing to take on the globe’s best at the 2026 Underwater Hockey World Championships in Turkiye.
But the Cooktown Crocs Underwater Hockey Club competitors will not get much of a chance to explore the colourful local culture, with preparations for the 16 – 26 July event taking precedent over sightseeing.
“I’m super excited, but I don’t think we actually get to see a whole lot. We get one day of looking around and then the rest is looking at the bottom of a pool,” Carroll laughed.
“I’ll just have to chip away, get my parents to show me some photos.”
Carroll, 17, and Thomason, 19, have trained at the Cooktown Pool for more than seven years, while also raising funds and travelling long distances for state and national-level competitions.
Rocco Thomason, 19, and Eli Carroll, 17, have been training hard.
They have progressed from local juniors to Queensland and Australian representatives. Carroll was named a reserve for the 2024 under-19 World Cup at just 16 and will now represent Australia as under-19 vice-captain in the 2026 championships.
Thomason captained the Australian under-19 men’s team at the 2024 championships in Malaysia and will again represent Australia on the world stage in the under-24 division.
The elite swimmers are expecting tough matches in Turkiye and will have to adjust to a somewhat different structure, involving “different setups of teams” and positioning.
The pair will compete against countries such as China, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, the USA, Colombia, France, Poland, South Africa, Argentina and host nation Turkiye.
Nevertheless, Carroll said they were as confident as could be in the circumstances and had been training hard to make a splash. The pair are constantly hitting the pool and gym to achieve their best underwater.
“At this level athleticism is a massive part, but it is a very strategic game,” Carroll said.
“It’s going to be interesting because I’ve only ever played with the Australian hockey structure.”
Carroll, who started playing underwater hockey when he was 10, said he was first drawn to social aspects of the sport and he encouraged others to get involved.
“When I was about 10, one of my mates who I played another sport with said, ‘Oh, do you want to come to underwater hockey?’ And I was like, ‘I’ve never heard of it before,'” he said.
Eli and Rocco are looking forward to picking up some tips from other elite players.
“I just thought I’d go along. There were a few other people that I knew there. I was a bit shy and didn’t know what to do – but I stuck with it and ended up loving it.
“If you can make good decisions, think about the strategy and if you can pull off plays and sort of communicate without using your mouth [underwater], then I think you’re worlds ahead of a lot of people.
“There’s so many people who play that aren’t athletes at all and they enjoy it a lot.
“It’s mostly about timing and about game awareness. If you’ve got good awareness and timing, I think that you could reach further than those with really good fitness [at a club level].”
The Cooktown community has rallied behind the pair’s overseas underwater endeavours.
The swimmers thanked the Cooktown RSL Memorial Club, Cooktown Endeavour Lions Club, Cape York Tyres and Mechanical and Cooktown Real Estate.
