When Sally Hunter (nee Foster) stepped up to the blocks at the Open State Champs in Western Australia, she wasn't just racing the clock—she was chasing a legacy. Join us on this episode of Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast as the Olympian and mother opens up about the allure of the pool's embrace and her journey back to competitive swimming at the age of 38. Sally breaks down her meticulous routine at Central Aquatic Swimming Club, detailing the evolution from a leg-dominant junior to a seasoned athlete with a harmonious balance of kick and pull. Her tale is one of striking the delicate balance between intense training sessions that include both endurance and breaststroke-specific drills, and the tenderness of family life, all while making pivotal adjustments to her technique and mentality.
Imagine the pride of showing your children that passion doesn't have an expiration date. Sally shares the powerful motivations fuelling her resurgence, emphasising her desire to be a living example of perseverance and dedication for her little ones. She recounts the joy of her children cheering her on and the inspirational bond with fellow Olympian Alicia Coutts, painting a vivid picture of how the perception of an athlete's peak age is changing, fostering an environment of longevity within the sport.
We reminisce about Olympic experiences that span generations, as Sally reflects on the emotional resonance of donning the national colours and competing on the world stage, juxtaposed with tales from her Aunt Evelyn's 1936 Berlin Olympic diary. Through these intimate stories, we glimpse the evolving landscape of the sport, the collective efforts in rebuilding the Australian swim team's culture, and the profound impact of shared triumphs and trials. Whether it's the silver medal moment at the 2014 Commonwealth Games or the camaraderie of Masters swimming, Sally's experiences are a testament to the deep-seated spirit of swimming—a force that binds, inspires, and propels athletes to make waves, no matter their age.
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Torpedo Swimtalk is sponsored by AMANZI SWIMWEAR
#swim #swimmer #swimming #mastersswimmer #mastersswimmers #mastersswimming #openwaterswimmer #openwaterswimmers #openwaterswimming #swimminglover #swimmingpodcast #mastersswimmingpodcast #torpedoswimtalkpodcast #torpedoswimtalk #tstquicksplashpodcast #podcast #podcaster #podcastersofinstagram #swimmersofinstagram #swimlife #swimfit #ageisjustanumber #health #notdoneyet
When Sally Hunter (nee Foster) stepped up to the blocks at the Open State Champs in Western Australia, she wasn't just racing the clock—she was chasing a legacy. Join us on this episode of Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast as the Olympian and mother opens up about the allure of the pool's embrace and her journey back to competitive swimming at the age of 38. Sally breaks down her meticulous routine at Central Aquatic Swimming Club, detailing the evolution from a leg-dominant junior to a seasoned athlete with a harmonious balance of kick and pull. Her tale is one of striking the delicate balance between intense training sessions that include both endurance and breaststroke-specific drills, and the tenderness of family life, all while making pivotal adjustments to her technique and mentality.
Imagine the pride of showing your children that passion doesn't have an expiration date. Sally shares the powerful motivations fuelling her resurgence, emphasising her desire to be a living example of perseverance and dedication for her little ones. She recounts the joy of her children cheering her on and the inspirational bond with fellow Olympian Alicia Coutts, painting a vivid picture of how the perception of an athlete's peak age is changing, fostering an environment of longevity within the sport.
We reminisce about Olympic experiences that span generations, as Sally reflects on the emotional resonance of donning the national colours and competing on the world stage, juxtaposed with tales from her Aunt Evelyn's 1936 Berlin Olympic diary. Through these intimate stories, we glimpse the evolving landscape of the sport, the collective efforts in rebuilding the Australian swim team's culture, and the profound impact of shared triumphs and trials. Whether it's the silver medal moment at the 2014 Commonwealth Games or the camaraderie of Masters swimming, Sally's experiences are a testament to the deep-seated spirit of swimming—a force that binds, inspires, and propels athletes to make waves, no matter their age.
Connect with Sally
Website
Instagram
You can connect with Torpedo Swimtalk:
Website
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube
Sign up for our Newsletter
Leave us a review
Torpedo Swimtalk is sponsored by AMANZI SWIMWEAR
#swim #swimmer #swimming #mastersswimmer #mastersswimmers #mastersswimming #openwaterswimmer #openwaterswimmers #openwaterswimming #swimminglover #swimmingpodcast #mastersswimmingpodcast #torpedoswimtalkpodcast #torpedoswimtalk #tstquicksplashpodcast #podcast #podcaster #podcastersofinstagram #swimmersofinstagram #swimlife #swimfit #ageisjustanumber #health #notdoneyet
Hello Swimmers and welcome to our first episode of Torpedo Swim Talk podcast in 2024. I'm your host, danielle Spearling, and each week we chat to a master swimmer from around the world about their swimming journey. If you're a regular listener, thank you for tuning in again, and if you're new to the podcast, welcome, and I hope you enjoy listening to today's guest, sally Hunter Knee Foster. Sally is a dual Olympian, world championship and Commonwealth Games medalist, mother of three and now, at 38, finds herself back in the water meddling at Open State Champs in Western Australia recently. Let's find out all about Sally's intriguing swimming journey now. Hi, sally, thanks for joining me on the podcast today. Thanks very much for having me. Yeah, you're welcome Now. I know that you just trained this morning. What pool do you swim out of in Perth and give us a rundown of the session that you just completed?
Speaker 2:I train with my uncle, who actually is the head coach of Central Aquatic Swimming Club, and they train at Bayeswater Wave. So I go down there and swim three to four mornings a week. It wasn't that bad this morning about 4K and I went straight from there to the gym because, yeah, it's either take two kids to the gym with me or really quickly get it in before eight o'clock so that I can get home and take over from my husband who's bringing me a coffee.
Speaker 1:That's good, that's nice. And what did you do in the session that made up with 4K? You just walked through the warm up and the main set.
Speaker 2:It was pretty light aerobic warm up and then a little bit of breaststroke stuff. At the moment we're doing probably a little bit more endurance based sort of. I think a lot of people had time off over Christmas. I didn't, because I only swim three times a week, so it was nice to just go in and get some a break, yeah. So the main set was a little bit of breaststroke, so some short rest, sort of a bit more endurance based, and then at the back end of things I did a bit of speed work and then got out and headed to the gym. Yeah, so it wasn't, it wasn't too much. Like I don't do more than 4K now in a session. Well, I don't have the time. And two, I just don't have the capacity anymore to do, you know, five, six, seven K sessions like I used to when I was younger and I get bored. Yeah, a lot of my stuff now sort of goes towards that sort of aerobic endurance and then just for a little bit and then usually just a lot of speed work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you mainly do most of your workouts being a breaststroke or in your past life Do you do most of it breaststroke or you mix up strokes?
Speaker 2:I know a lot of it's free. I try and just do specific speed work, breaststroke and yeah, I think it's really different from what I used to do back when I was a teenager and definitely back through most of my career was really really breaststroke orientated for everything. I'm actually alright at freestyle, so that's okay. And you know it's hard to swim around the lane when you're doing breaststroke with lots of people doing braille. So I really just try and keep all my specific speed work for breaststroke now. That way I'm not fatigued either. I'm not over, you know, overdoing things with breaststroke and yeah, I enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and are you someone who's more leg or dominant with your swimming?
Speaker 2:I'm a bit of both. I worked really hard when I was an athlete to make sure I was both. So as a junior I was probably better kicker a really, really good kicker and my breaststroke pool was really bad. I was really good at free and fly pool, but my breaststroke pool was, you know, a bit like cluster, and I had to work really, really hard for quite a few years. When I was at the AIS, there was a girl there that was amazing at pool and I used to be so jealous of how good she was Tani White.
Speaker 2:she was incredible breaststroke balsammer and incredible sprint breaststroker in Australia, but I was just so jealous of what she could do and I had to work really, really hard so that I could become a really good pool swimmer and, yeah, towards the end of my career, got really good at breaststroke pool as well. So I'm a bit, I'm quite even now and I think that's important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I find that so interesting because people are often very dominant one or the other, and it's really refreshing to hear that you're sort of equal in both but that you worked really hard to get there. Did that sort of entail a lot of pool with the pool boy, or was it with a band, or was it with drag suit? How did you work on that?
Speaker 2:A lot of it was just pool boy work and a lot of breaststroke pool. So I was at the AIS I'm trying to think of what year, it was probably about 2007 and eight and nine and I just did. It was like a lot of like I do a 200 medley, then a 200 breaststroke pool, then 200 medley, then 200 breaststroke pool, and I didn't get any extra rest, as either you make the cycle, you don't, and then it was like we do 1650s breaststroke pool and every second one was fast. So you just had to get better at it and, like I said, I was strong in freestyle pool, so I did have a strong upper body and I knew that I was good at pool.
Speaker 2:It was just trying to find it in breaststroke. I just had never had or done breaststroke arms training. I was always leg dominant. So it was a lot of work and even now I get really tired arms. But I think that it works well, like especially when you're trying to do a bit more speed work, like I am now. Like I said, don't have the pleasure of getting in more training to do anything other than a 50 or maybe a 100, but really I make it to 75 meters and hold on. That's what I say now just go out and like hold on. So yeah, it helps with that, because I know that I've got both my legs and my arms there, but it took a lot of work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so interesting. You're a dual Olympian, world championship and Commonwealth Games medalist, and for all intensive purposes you were tired from the pool, so share with us. Now, as a mother and a businesswoman, you find yourself back training at 38 and winning medals at the Western Australian State Chants.
Speaker 2:How did that all come about? Yeah, I loved being a swimmer and I loved that part of my life. And when I finished swimming I actually became a coach and was getting up early on. Why would you do that to yourself? But anyway, I was getting up early as a coach and then I became a mum and I absolutely love being a mum. I've got three boys, so one just turned one. I've got a three-year-old or three and a half year old and one that just turned six. So a bit of a handful, but I think it was end of August.
Speaker 2:My husband always used to say why don't you get up in the morning and go for a swim? Because swimming starts at 5.30 in the morning, so you can go, it's fine. Like, go two mornings away, call, do whatever, just get out and do some swimming. And I'm like no, I don't want to swim anymore, I don't want to swim, and I was really adamant that I didn't want to do that. And then I think I got to the end of August and we sort of sat down and I was like I'm really struggling, I don't have anything for me anymore. I feel like I'm really overwhelmed with all of this stuff to do with my kids like making sure they get to everywhere, and we started our own business as well as husband and wife. So that's another whole other story and he runs it. So it's sort of there's a lot that we're taking on.
Speaker 2:In the past sort of 12 months and I wasn't getting any time for me and I wasn't doing anything. No matter how much you know, we try and give each other time. You know, three kids in a business and life take up a lot. And I just sort of sat down and was like I'm struggling and I work for a mental health organisation, so how charity? So I should, I should know when I'm like this is happening. But I was just getting a bit angry and upset all the time and just not holding it together and I said maybe I should, you know, and my husband was like again, why don't you go back swimming? And I said I can't go back swimming without a goal. I need a goal because I'm not one of those people who can just get up in the morning after being woken up five times during the night from sick kids or a baby not sleeping, and go for a swim. I'll be like no bed. Sleep is way more important, like the extra half an hour that I'm going to get. And so it's like, well, why don't you set yourself a goal? Then, like, if this is what it's going to take? So I did. I set myself that goal of going to state championships. I said, all right, if I'm going to do this, I want to go to states. Let me see if I can qualify and zoom at the West Australian state championships, which is in December, which gave me four months.
Speaker 2:And so I started off pretty simple, just getting up and going swimming three times a week and trying to make it to the end of the session, you know, every day, without dying. Then I started adding, adding in gym, and my husband used to laugh because he was like, why don't you get a gym membership? He's like, no, I'm not getting a gym, I'm not that serious, it's just a goal. I take my baby down to the park where they have the gym equipment, and I let my two the three year old run around at the park and I'd hold my baby and like do sit ups and squats, because he was like eight kilos. So I was like I don't need a gym, I've got. I've got that down the road and I had meet some other mums there and we'd have a chat and you know. So it wasn't, it wasn't serious.
Speaker 2:So then you know, I started entering some country competitions and some different competitions and racing and, yeah, it was just a whole nother outlook on swimming again for me, like getting back into racing again. I was like, oh my God, how am I going to go? What's this going to be like? And yeah, just a whole yeah for me. It was starting to do something for me to help my mental health and to help my sort of everyday well-being. And you know we have found that that's picked up. I'm really happy after I go for a swim in the morning, so my kids get up at five anyway. So it's like, see you, baby. You leave it to him with me when he's awake, which is like, yeah, I can't, can't thank him enough for all the support that he's giving me. But it's been lots of fun.
Speaker 1:And how far do you see this new journey going now? Like what, what's you've done? The champs in December, what's next on the horizon?
Speaker 2:Um, I was talking to Andrew about this because we had to. As a family, we have to release it down and organise our life. But I said to Andrew, what if I go to nationals? Like if I could set myself a goal of qualifying, like I think I've qualified for national, sorry. So like going and competing again and one of the things about for me starting competing again it was never about I want to see if I can make an Australian team. I want to see if I can. You know, if I can win as much as those things would be amazing and that, you know, winning a medal at States was great For me.
Speaker 2:It was like I want my kids to see me race, like I want I want them to know that that picture on the wall of mummy that they walked past every day and don't give a crap about me you know swimming breaststroke at the Olympics. You know they never ask about it. They will talk about any other photo that's on my wall, but they'll never ask. They don't know that mummy was really a swimmer. Sorry, I said to Andrew, that's the one thing that I want to do. I want my kids to see me swim and say that you know mummy gets up and pushes herself really hard and, you know, still looks after you and still does all the other things during the day, and this is what you can do if you dedicate yourself to something. So, yeah, it was that, that was that's been my goal originally, and so now you know if I'm hoping to go to nationals, which is June.
Speaker 1:I think it's June. It's June, isn't it? Yes, june, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I have set myself a goal of doing that. But now I just want to keep doing sort of races and getting my kids down, because the first time I raced that they saw me race properly. I said I made a HBF stadium. It was just a qualifying meet, I think, or a carnival and my kids, andrew brought the boys down to watch me swim late in the afternoon and they watched two of my races. And as soon as I finished my first race, my three year olds like down the stairs, push and pass the officials, trying to get on the blocks, and my five-year-old bike in the stands taking his clothes off, like getting his bathers on Come on, daddy, not understanding that the competition is still running.
Speaker 2:So, and that was the greatest thing ever, it was so good to finish that meet and these boys came on Cool Deck and, lucky for me, I've been around a long time, right, so all the officials do. I know they're my kids. They get in lane four and they dive in and they start swimming. My five-year-olds start swimming laps. I've been in the red of ball. It's like come on, mommy, you've got to race me and that's just so good. Whether they become simmers, they're not in the future. But that's one of the things that really inspires me now, I think, is seeing them really excited to watch mommy race and see that what I can do I'm not just their everyday mommy I can do other things.
Speaker 1:You've got other things on there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I think you're setting a great role model for your few children, and I think that's the way that they then learn and model that for their own life. So, let's hope that we get some future Hunter boys swimming for the Australian team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, We've got Alicia Cotes. We were Rumi's three, two Olympics and we stay in contact all the time we catch up. When we caught up for the first time in five years, a few months back, and we were saying that between us we've got six boys, so surely we'll have a real age-old future. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:How old will they be in 2032?
Speaker 2:They won't be old enough. They won't be old enough, they'll be like 10 years from now, so maybe 16. I don't think you can do.
Speaker 1:It's getting harder. I mean, like back in the days when I was swimming, 16-year-olds made the Olympic team.
Speaker 2:but it's getting older and older, Sort of now isn't it and I think that's the thing too in swimming in Australia. Like one of the things that I try and tell a lot of kids that I see is like don't, you, don't need to be that champion at 16. It's not about that. You know, those Olympic medals are, you know one in the 20s now in the mid 20s, like, depending on your event, it's even later. Like it's like you know some of those resoles events. Those boys are like in their 30s now winning medals and the girls too, like we're getting more and more girls in their late 20s starting to drift and that's just so awesome for the sport. Like again, I was like you seeing kids or seeing girls and boys at 14, 15, 16, and then retiring at 18.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exactly, and that's what people did back in in sort of when I was swimming, when I was a teenager, like at 18 or 19, if you hadn't made the Australian team, that's, that's it. You're out, there's nothing for you. There was no step forward. I love the way there's swimming. Australia put in those extra age groups. It opened nationals where they have the sort of the 18 to 19 and was it 20 to 21 as an extra sort of like extra competition and motivation for those kids who just miss out on that team. So they've still got something to aim for. So just might keep them in the sport that little bit longer so that they might make the next team. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And I think they're doing a really good job with that and I actually think that they could do more in that space because so many kids, like we're not the only sport in Australia that has a massive drop off rate of athlete you know sport from what is it age? You know like 16, 17,. Like there's a massive drop off rate in all sports in Australia and you know we don't want that to happen. If we can just keep those kids just around so then they can go to nationals, get, make it a little bit easier and get them competing in, you know, like at, like interstate, and then give them more opportunities. For me, like there's only, you know, 40, 45 spots on the Australian team every year and usually those spots you know, like a lot of the time there's repeat summers. There's not someone who usually comes in and goes, like it's usually a repeat thing for summers now, which is awesome, but means that there's, you know we've got 100,000 members in our sport, you know, australia wide, and only 45 that make an Australian team. So it's like okay, well, what else can we offer?
Speaker 2:For me and I think there's so much more that they could offer there's so many things internationally that we could do. I guess it's all just about funding and money. But there's so many opportunities internationally to go race now there's got to be a way to get these guys to go. Hey, look, you know, like, okay, if you don't make the Australian team, we can still. You can still go and compete in France, you can still go and compete in Europe, we can still go and do these World Cups. It's just about how we can, I guess, fund them to get there. You know it's it's hard, but yeah, that for me, if you didn't make an Australian team but you got to go travel around Europe and compete and make friends, that you know how awesome would that be.
Speaker 1:For sure, that would be great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there were years that I didn't make the Australian team and one of the things that kept me alive was going away internationally and competing and catching up with people that I knew and just that still having that really high intensity racing, but just not at the world level, not at the world championships, just didn't have the label around it and I loved that. That was that kept me going for those couple of years there. We know, mr Dave.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's heartbreaking when that happens. Which team did you miss? Was it 204?
Speaker 2:So, oh, actually 2004. Well, I don't know if I expect I didn't. That was my first Olympic trials, so I dropped seven and a half seconds that year to make the qualifying and then I dropped another like three and a half seconds to get second fastest women in Australia going into that trials and I had, like I was never been to a trial, so for me it was this massive eye opener. So I don't think I was expecting I would have thought, like my dream was always to go Olympic, to go to an Olympics, but I never thought that I'd go in 2004. Yeah, it was my first. It was lots of fun. I completely you know, I say crap my pants, like I got so nervous. I wasn't used to anything, but it was for me. That gave me that opportunity of what I actually want to do. Now this is what it takes to go to an Olympic Games, like what I want to do, and it made me make some really hard choices in the next sort of 12 months of my life. So, yeah, but the teams that I missed were 2015. So I missed Worlds in 2015. And then so I had so from 2014 to 2016,. When I didn't make Worlds in 2015, I did a lot of international racing anyway. So I went overseas and and competed and loved it, and so I had something else to race for, you know, and that's what I needed at that end of my career. And then 2016 missed the Olympic team and ended up retiring after that. I didn't retire straight away. So I actually say I never want to make it.
Speaker 2:I never wanted to make an emotional decision around swimming, because obviously, when you miss a team, there's a lot of there's a lot going on like mentally for you. So I said no, I'll keep swimming. And obviously I had Kyle, who'd made the Olympic team I trained with and I had and, and so I had a couple of boys that had made the Olympic team and I really just wanted to keep training for them as well. I wanted to be there because I was always the mum. I just wanted to be there for them and support them.
Speaker 2:So I kept training and then it got to a couple of days before they were about to go to USA. So I kept training for another couple of about three months and they were about to go over to the US to do some competition and I pulled coach aside and said, yeah, look, I'm not going to be here. I'm done Like yeah, yeah, sorry, I can't, I can't do it anymore. I was really emotional, but I said like I'm just not happy and I'm coming in because I want to be there for those boys like Josh and Kyle, but but I'm done, so yeah that's understandable.
Speaker 1:Going back to the positive side of things, you did make your Olympic debut in Beijing and then returned in London in 2012. Take us through the emotions and those races that you raced in over there 200 breaststroke believe you made the final in 2012.
Speaker 2:So I guess I'll start with 2008. So obviously that was my goal, my major goal, from when I was 13. I set a goal of I wanted to go to Olympic Games. After reading my art story and so I was like, now I'm going to go to Olympic Games and that was my chance 2008. I knew I was pretty. I was in the top two and three in Australia and turn a breaststroke and I really that was it.
Speaker 2:So I was quite confident in that competition and when I made the Olympic team, I was you know, your emotions can't describe it. It's been a dream come true for for a decade, like I was 13 and I was 23 when I made my first Olympic team and it was just you can't really describe it. I still think back and I get like the goosebumps of, you know, walking into the village for the first time and getting your uniform given to you and just going into dining hall and, for me as well again, walking into the water cube, walking into the pool in. She was just, you know, just took your breath away. There's just this incredible venue and you just knowing that you're going to be there for the Olympics, you couldn't. You couldn't stop the nerves from like hitting you and all of the excitement and everything like all that emotion hitting you when you walked into that pool for the first time and I was pretty confident, like I really thought that I could do something good at the Olympic Games. Whether or not I believed I could win a medal, I don't, I don't think I did Not really. I just really wanted to have an opportunity to be there. And so I saw I'm a really good heat zoom.
Speaker 2:So in Beijing they had they swapped the timetable around. So it was the first Olympics that I did the finals in the morning and the heats at night time. So we've been training for that and you know we weren't trying to get to put up in. It was we knew what we had to do. So we went and I swam the heat in the evening and I saw my PB and I was really, really happy. I was like I felt really good. So the next, and then I had to go back to the village have a sleep and I just remember that after that heat swim, I felt really confident. That was so easy. It felt really amazing, like I'm really excited to swim in the semifinal, but I had to go home and get yourself to sleep. So it was not like you have a day you can walk around. It's like you got to get yourself like at least five hours sleep here, so I don't think I really slept.
Speaker 1:Not really.
Speaker 2:I did what I could. I got up the next day and we did that, went for a walk and went for like a little bit of a paddle in the pool that was at the village and then we would get ourselves ready. Then we go in for the finals session. So I went in and I remember warming up and feeling really good again and went and found that semifinal and I think it was a little bit slower in the semi than I was in my with my heat swim, so it was that little bit slower. And so I stood sort of on pool deck like watching and watching and watching, and the event before me was the women's kind of free actually, so not the exact event, but we don't want to do it and Libby Tricket had missed the final by one spot. So I remember seeing her miss that Olympic final and she was like a favorite to win a medal. And then I did my swim and the same thing happened. So I got nine, so I was nice and I've seen her get nice, and so I was just like absolutely devastated. And she was in the team area and she was the same. And so for me I was trying to hold in all of this emotion of how could I get nine? Like I'm not going to be in that far.
Speaker 2:So I went through my motions, coach came over, we did our debrief. I said, all right now, get in and swim down. So, like you need to, you need to. You know we still need to come back. You're still a reserve, so we're still going to warm you up. You're still going to have to go through the process and pretend you never know what can happen at an Olympic game. Someone can miss a bus. So I'm, you know, like someone can get back somewhere you don't know. So we're going to prepare yourself. Like you have to swim in that final. Whether you get that birth or not, it's going to happen. So I did my swim down and got my massage and everything.
Speaker 2:And as I was swimming down, they did an announcement over the PA system and one of the girls in that Hunter Free final had got DQ'd. So Libby had been put in and I remember like the whole Australian team is just losing that like going, this is amazing. Like she's going to be in and then she and I are winning a medal. So for me I was swimming and swimming every 100 meters and I'm like Shannon, please tell me something. I got the school applied Like, can I? Just? I just want that too. I just I just want to hear that someone in the Tourne du Brest got DQ'd Not an Australian, obviously, lisa was in there. But like in my mind I was like, come on, look at me too. It didn't.
Speaker 2:I went about my emotions and obviously went and warmed up the next day and it was like so you're not going to, they're not going to need you, don't worry about suiting up everyone's. So I was okay and had a lot of tears and was talking to my family a lot and was actually and Jim Fowley, who used to coach in Australia, john Fowley's dad and he used to do a lot of stuff with the parents of the Olympic Summers and stuff. And he said we do this thing with the parents of the Olympic Summers instead of picking an athlete every night who's gonna win each race, and we put like $2 on us to make it fun, because then people could bet against their own kids or events or own country, like they do it for the whole of the world. They said we pick a time, so why don't you pick a time of what's gonna win the women's 200 breaststroke and I said all right. And so I was like, all right, I can do 221 because Leesal was in it. So I really was hoping she could win it. And I just went and sat in the final, sat in the crowd cheering on the Australian team and cheering on Leesal.
Speaker 2:And that 200 breaststroke final, in tears, just watching it, like absolutely heartbroken. Just all I wanted to do was be in that race. But it was such a long journey Because it was such a long journey like to get there and to be sitting and watching the race go by when all you wanna do is be in it. So I was just in absolute tears and Rebecca Sunny ended up winning that race, thinking a world record, and Leesal got second. And I was just like in my heart, I just wanted to be in there, like I just was like, if I'm in there, I've got a chance.
Speaker 2:So, although it was absolutely devastated, I think the fire was reborn on that night for me to go to another Olympics, like my dream was to go to one. So if I ever got a second it was gonna be incredible. But that was where it was born, because I never wanted to sit there and feel like that again. I never wanted to be sitting in a stands at an Olympics watching the final of the race that I wanna be and be swum Like I wanted to give myself a chance, even if it's in lane eight, like it doesn't matter, like in the final you've got a chance, you've got the same chance as every other lane. So I think that's just where it was reborn. So the devastation there was reborn of this new fire, of I know what I wanna do now and I wanna go again and I don't wanna be in this position again. So, yeah, I went home and started training for four more years.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Four years later did made a second Olympics, which is super exciting. Didn't have the best trials, actually had a horrific Olympic trials, but made the team in the 200 breaststroke, ended up doing a good time in the heat, good time in the like PBM semi this time, and so got eighth into the final. So I went into like that was my. When I saw my name come up eighth in the top eight and being that final, that was it, that was it for me. I think I was just like, oh my God, I've done it, like this is my goal, I just did it. So I didn't have the best final swim, I think I just didn't. I don't know. I don't know if I was overwhelmed with all of that. I've made my goal of going to the Olympics. I probably should have aimed higher. You know, for me I was really goal. I probably should have aimed to try and win a medal. I was on fire in training for the past six months like I should have had it. I'm not aiming for that, but you know, the relief of being in that final and just the opportunity to walk out on pool deck and have my name pulled out and wave to the crowd, you know, I think back now it happened so fast, like you know, from when you walk out to when you swim, like there's only a few minutes gone, and it was just you know. I feel I look back now and I think I wish I'd enjoyed that moment so much more than I did, like I think that I was like in the moment but I just I didn't absorb it as much as I should have.
Speaker 2:I think now that I look back. So you know, I had a good final swim. It wasn't my best swim. I was a bit slower than my semi finished eighth at the Olympic Games and, you know, walked away from that really not knowing what I wanted to do. It's really hard. I learned a lot about myself and, like I said, I wish I'd enjoyed that moment just that little bit more, just tried to absorb everything. I think you know you're trying so much to do everything to get yourself ready to race that you don't really let yourself sort of absorb what's going on. And that's one of the things now when I race is I just try and enjoy the fact that I get to stand up and race. It's not the for me now there is no pressure Like, and I think that's the thing too, is like learning racing again now is it's been so different and so much more fun to learn.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, the pressure, the pressure's off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you know, towards the end of my career I really questioned everything about my race, like, did I get a good start? Like you know, like you try and break down those every single little one percent is to try and get better, and one of the things about that is that you just add more and more pressure, and for part of it, I think as well for me, that I've definitely found out since starting back racing is I always wondered if, you know, my nerves were actually nerves. Like, were they the good energy that you need, or was that anxiety driven? Was that driven, you know? Was that it's not actually nerves, that's just like it's a different feeling that your body gives right and it's not to your older or me. For me, especially that I was like, now that I stand on her race, I'm like, oh, I actually don't think what I was feeling those last few years of my career was nerves. I think it was like I was putting so much pressure on myself that I was feeling anxious and getting that anxiety.
Speaker 2:And yeah, there probably were nerves mixed in, but there was just so much going on inside my head to get everything right that I didn't probably get the best out of myself ultimately, because I let that all overcome myself. And now I race so much for you. I just, you know I feel nervous and I know it's gonna hurt and I just go, I just go get in and go, like you know what, like it's okay, and I think it's just such a different feeling now. So it's as well that. That's the great part about it. I said to, and I don't know how I'm gonna feel when I go back racing, because I didn't really enjoy racing as an athlete ultimately towards the end of my career. I didn't really enjoy it because of how stressed I was about it all, I think. And now I just get in and go see what I can do and have fun and, yeah, I really don't have that pressure anymore. So it's good.
Speaker 1:That's so nice. It's like you've rediscovered the joy of swimming. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's good that it's happened now. But you like I always think back in my damn it like what can I do? I know?
Speaker 1:Yes, well, with hindsight and what you know, I mean, you know how they say youth is always wasted when you're young, and that's very true, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can't yeah, you can't go back, can you Like? But you know, like one of the best things about this order, too, is there's for me, racing now is just the bonus. Like I get to race, like I'm so happy that I get to train three times a week and sometimes four times a week in the pool, you know, and I get to bring my kids into the pool like I might swim three mornings a week, but they get to come to the pool with me in the afternoons and have a play and do swimming. I say swimming because they see that it's my family, like my auntie and my uncle and my mum coaching them. They're like I'm gonna do whatever they want. They get away with murder there and then we go play for half an hour.
Speaker 2:So you know, to be back on Pooledeck and around my family again and be part of this amazing community at the club is really, really cool. And to bring my boys up in that, you know, to see them like bolt through the front doors of the swimming pool like a massive swimming home legs and like high-tail it for my aunties and uncles, which they call Auntie and Uncle like high-tail it to go see their family. And like I posted a video of my three-year-old in his first club night. Yeah, they were people.
Speaker 1:Oh how gorgeous.
Speaker 2:So it's like before Christmas and like just having all these bigger kids you know, the teenagers that I say bigger, like 13 year olds, you know sitting in the stands and like getting my sons to stick with them and playing games with them and sharing popcorn with them, and you know, that's what I love about it now is like there's this massive community of people and it's, you know, there's just so much that you can get out of swimming. I think it's not just about that competition side of things and getting the things out of yourself, like this community and these people that support you and around you and help your family. I think you know you can't get better than that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And I mean you come from such a strong family background of swimming. As you mentioned before, your aunt Evelyn was Evelyn Delacey was her maiden name. She went to the Berlin Olympics in 1936 and you mentioned you read her diary. What did she have to say in that? What did you learn from that that you took into your swimming?
Speaker 2:A lot, a lot. Her story is really incredible, really.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot that's not in the diary. So I was giving her a diary when I was about 12, 13-ish, and said you know, read this and go away and think of what you want to do in swimming, because my sister was older than me and she didn't really want to take swimming that seriously. She loved open water swimming and she had these. She was actually a much better breaststroke than me. I don't know how I got good at breaststroke on the butterfly, but she, you know she didn't want to do it and so I was giving this diary it was a hand type, like typewriter, like a year of a diary, and I sat down and I read it and I'd heard stories about her. So my, my gran, I was this incredible storyteller who would always get up, you know, every Sunday night at dinner we would sit there as kids and sit around him and he tells stories about, you know, him and one of his 13 siblings. So he was one of 14 kids and she was one of them. I'm not a big family, right, like you know. We'd heard his stories about how tough she was and how she wouldn't take shit from anybody, and sorry, I should say, you know. And back back we're talking about the 40s and the 50s, like and a young woman and she, she was a big woman and she did not care, like if someone was doing something wrong, she made sure that she stepped in to tell them they were doing something wrong. So she saw someone bullying someone in the playground. She was there to step in and I I really, you know sort of was drawn to the fact that she was this really strong, you know, sister of his. That wouldn't take any crap and I got to meet her later on. But, yeah, read this diary and just thought, wow, like this is really cool If she can do it, you know why can't I? She, she spent four weeks on a boat, you know, swimming in like a three meter boat, a three meter by three meter canvas seawater pool, and someone had to hold her feet so she could do arms and then hold her hand, you know, and then she'd hold the edge and kick her legs and they would only get that, you know, one hour day because it was a, you know, had to do the whole of the the line, everybody on that cruise ship. So you know just what she went through to train to go to Olympics and then you know she talked about walking in the opening ceremony and seeing Hitler and also the fact that she was a woman, so she wasn't actually in the Olympic Village. There was a separate area for the women to stay in. They didn't stay in the village. Yeah, like loud in the Olympic Village.
Speaker 2:But just also hearing and finding out about how hard it was for her to go later on, I think that kind of inspired me to go off. I know that I've met, you know I've heard about this woman. I've met her. You know I want to go to Olympics. She has so much harder than I have it Like why can't I do it? I think that was it. Like she just sort of she was the, the, the moment of inspiration that made me want to go.
Speaker 2:You know, like I said, she was, she was one of. She was one of the fastest women in the world for her events. She was faster than the men in Australia, but the men were picked on the Australian team to go to Olympics over her. So they there was a big protest in WA and for another girl, I think in New South Wales Selectors didn't pick these two girls who were top two in the world in events and they picked men over them, which you know, we're talking about my big six. So it happened and I just was thinking like how cool is it that a whole state rallied behind her to protest her selected and they basically said, yeah, sure she can go, but you got to find the money to pay for it to go. We're not paying for it to go. So the family fundraised and did everything they could until at the last minute. I think it was like the Daily Mail, the Daily Newspaper over here. Basically, gates said we'll give her the 150 pounds to get on the boat, and that was 24 hours before the boat was leaving. Wow, she got on the boat and they took a baby, joey, a kangaroo, over to Berlin with them and Percy Oliver.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, like her story, I think as well. The more research that I've done as I've gotten older and found out more and more about her, just you know, no wonder she was so powerful to me. She's powerful to me as a kid. But then, you know, I heard the family had to pay for her to go. Yeah, just thought it was incredible that this overcame so many odds and unfortunately she went to Olympic Games, where it was a little bit different. It wasn't like the top eight make the final At 1936, it was, you know, like, like a staggered thing. So top two, two, two, two, you know. So the top two or three from each heat make it through the final. And she was, I think, third in her heat but the third fastest time overall and the time that she swam would have, I think, meddled in the final. So it was just one of those unlucky situations where that happened, and it happened, I think, in two events for her, so the time I said she went to Olympic Games, so you know, but for me, just having that just inspired me and hearing the stories from my grandad about her and then later on meeting her, was really, really awesome.
Speaker 2:And I still stay in contact with her family now, which is, you know, they live in, they live in Sydney and she, you know, she used to steal up until just before she passed away, go down to the baths, the Bronte baths, and go for a swim. I think they ended up giving her a key because she complained that they weren't open earlier. I love it. I hear some women. She's a pretty, pretty stubborn woman but a very forthright woman. So you wouldn't, you wouldn't go against her and if she asked for something it wasn't worth arguing. I think I got that idea of like if she was like, no, like, how come, you know, like? And she also complained because there's no women's change rooms at the baths. So they gave her another key to the pump room because she complained that she had no way to get changed and she was here before anybody else, so she needed a key. So, and for me it's just like, how could that, this woman's amazing.
Speaker 1:What a trailblazer. I know she's just probably born in the wrong year, right? Yeah, well, that's, that's really hard. Yeah, I'm glad they changed that to an each heat. I mean, they still do it in the track and field in the athletics to from each heat goes through. So it's not fair, because if you've got a faster time you should be in that final.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I and that was the thing that took me a while to do I did a little bit of research on that because I was like, why didn't she make a final like? And you know, doing a bit of research, I was like, oh, it was like it was like athletics, swimming was basically top two, two, two, two. You make it through. So and that's just how it was. And, yeah, like I said, I like athletics have their own way about things, but I'm glad that they changed it for swimming because you know, like I'm not top two and you know there's some people who are six that are hate and they make the final like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly yeah, you never know. No, it should. It should be the fastest eight people there. It shouldn't be. Shouldn't be like a lottery system as to what heat you're getting to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think and I think that's the thing right, like it should. You should know that when you're in that top eight, the best of the best, that's it. Like there you've, you've done the time to get there for us. I think that's my sport. In a way, it's probably a little bit less, it's uncomplicated, like if you're in a final, you're in your spot there, like, and sometimes it means that maybe you miss, like I did. Sometimes you miss, you don't get it, but if you're there, you know that that's your spot. You've earned that right to be there.
Speaker 2:It's cutthroat and it sucks sometimes, but that's the rule, so it's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love the fact that it's objective. No one can argue that you've earned your spot there. It's not like getting picked for a basketball team when there might be someone more talented out there but someone knows someone or whatever. When it's subjective like that, it makes it so much harder. But I love the fact that swimming is just on time. So you earn your spot and the cards fall.
Speaker 2:Sorry, there's no variables either in this. Like everybody's trying to get me to syndrome right now. So at the moment, like everyone's like, come on, be like what are you syndrome right now? It's next year and I really don't want to swim 20K. I didn't want to ask the team with some friends and that was me done. But yeah, look for me pool swimming. It's like you have your own lane. The pool is exactly the same that everyone else is swimming to. You're stuck in your own lane, like same temperature, no matter what pool you go to for competition. Like you're safe. Yeah, like it's all of this stuff is like okay, I've got my little box and I'm happy with this box. Like I'm gonna stay here. Like I think open water and triathlons and team sports there's so many variables. I'm like if my kids get into team sports, I'll be like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's tough to watch. Well, you can always put yourself on the Masters World Championships. There's lots of world records at a break.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've heard. I actually didn't even, because I've been looking at pool swimming in WA for Masters and at the moment we're in the open water season in Western Australia, so there's not much going on in the pool in terms of Masters stuff. Cause I was like, oh, I could grab a few more competitions and see what I can do. And then someone told me today cause I was like, oh, worlds would be later. You know like, do they do something? I didn't know if they did worlds this year.
Speaker 1:And then someone told me today, actually, yes, well, they were pushed back because of COVID. So they did. They did a sort of a makeup one which was just Japan, and they've got. They're backing up again with Doha in February, but they'd be Singapore the following year, and then it's back to every second year.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, Cause I was someone. When someone said I was like no, I see it was in Japan. Cause I saw Susie swimming.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and I was like the whole of Australia watch that, because, but you know like, and I had a lot of friends when I, when I quit swimming in in Adelaide, or when I was step down, retired and became a coach, the Masters swimming community really sort of brought me into their fold.
Speaker 2:And I remember being pregnant and racing like 25 meter freestyle. Like this club was like we'll pay for you to come down and like be a member, and if you just could you enter this competition. I was like, yeah, okay, I guess, like you know, we'd do 25 and 50 years and that was it. And you know it was. I loved that. I loved how chill it was. I was, you know, going to this competition expecting like, oh my God, what. You know how serious is this going to be. And I don't mean wrong, it's serious. But in the same token, it was so cool that I could push a pram on Dupudec with a, you know, eight month old baby, you know, and people would sit around and play with my kid and I could swim 25 meters and then I'd get out and I'd time keep with my baby beside me. You know like, how cool is this? And then they all go to the pub after and I thought this is just so cool, like again a completely different community. But just like you know you've gone from for me you know I was an elite swimming and there's a great community around that. And then master swimming, which has had this cool family Again, another family vibe, like people sort of bring you in and I think when you step out of the sport.
Speaker 2:For me as well, like my job was to try and get those people that kind of missed as a sort of ambassador for master swimming in Adelaide and that was a really cool thing. There were a lot of simmers that were like 18, 19, that were trying to go on and want to quit and just like, oh, have you thought of master's me? You can just come and have fun and enter a 25 meter race and break a record and just do whatever you want to do. And just you know it's not you don't have to do specific training if you don't want to, but you know they do do training sessions and it's lots of fun. They go for coffee after and it's. You know it's not as intense if you don't want it to be.
Speaker 2:You know, and I think there's so many great things that master swimming does. So, yeah, they brought me to their fold and I loved it. And, yeah, to get sort of back. I don't know if I'll go to Wales, we'll see I've. Actually, when I found out what it was today, I was like, oh, I'm gonna need to chat to Andrew Because, yeah, I didn't even think about it. I just thought that I should have looked it up. Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I think we've got master's nationals in Darwin in May next year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I looked up that. Yeah, I did look up master's nationals in Darwin because I've been talking to Wayne about that and I've been talking to my auntie too, because she's back in swimming and I said, oh, you can go and do the open water. And she's like, where is it?
Speaker 1:I said Darwin, she's. No, there's crocodiles in that water. There's no way I'm doing that.
Speaker 2:It's like, surely they're not gonna hold it where there's crocs, right, but I guess you know.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm sure it's at that little foreshore thing and I have seen a photo and it's got a half sort of barrier, but the other half is not a barrier, so I think they can swim in there. There's no way I'm doing that, yeah. Yeah no, thank you, the pool yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the pool's really cool, Like I love Darwin.
Speaker 1:So I was like they're in a heart family.
Speaker 2:I'd rather use liver difference for a while, so, but then, yeah, I wouldn't. Yeah, like I said, I don't like open water anyway, there's just too many things happening that I can't see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is kind of scary. I just spent a week at the beach, actually, and I took a little video and I didn't realise. But there was something dark on the bottom of the pool and someone said what is that? When I look back at it now, it was seaweed, but I'm always conscious of seeing anything that goes underneath and you know, if the water's murky you can't see, so you don't know what's there. So it's kind of scary.
Speaker 2:I've got friends that go and they love it. And they're like, oh, I just feel so free. And I'm like, yeah, what if you see the shadows that freak me out? And they're like no, you just switch off and swim. And if it's, you know, if you're meant to be eaten by a shark, you know. And I'm like what? No, but there's, I get it. Like there are some people that just, you know that ocean is their place.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah, the ocean is theirs.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I would be like you. Was that touch me, I know.
Speaker 1:During COVID we swam a lot down in Port Phillip Bay in Melbourne and there was because the boats were not allowed to or no one was allowed to go on their boats. There was just an influx of wildlife, which was lovely. One morning we saw a pot of dolphins, but on the other hand there was a lot of stingray and there was heaps of jellyfish Like not life threatening but huge, huge jellyfish that actually like they smash into you and they give you a real thud and their little stingers go across your base.
Speaker 2:But it wasn't pleasant not present, but I guess you got to take swing where you can like.
Speaker 1:The pools were the pools were close, so you had to do what you had to do. But getting back to your swimming, one of your huge achievements was the silver medal that you won at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in the 200 breaststroke. Can you talk us through that race and tell us what that meant to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd. I'm trying to remember the race, but I don't know if you remember the race, but I think that race is. It was just so much fun. I was getting to the end of my career, I knew that it was sort of coming and I actually had given myself the goal to go to Commonwealth Games. I hadn't decided to go on to 2016 yet and I really so, and I had a great year the year before and you know a good year that year. So I spent the 50 earlier on and then the 200 was coming up and I just knew that I'd been training really well and it was.
Speaker 2:I was rooming with my best friend, like Alicia, and I just didn't really have anything to lose, I think, at that competition and I felt really good. My family came over to watch me too. So my mum and dad were there and my husband came over. It was quite funny because he had to fly out. He had to go to Paris for work the day of my 200. So he came and watched the heats. My dad came and watched me and then my cousin was there too, my cousin Haley. She lives down the road and you know it was just so cool.
Speaker 2:It was just it felt it didn't really feel like a major competition to me. It was this smaller pool, really close-knit crowd around you and it was just. You know, the Commonwealth Games is like a mini Olympics for us, but I feel like it's a little bit more laid back. So it's probably a little bit more my style, a little bit less stress. And I just remember getting up and going and swimming like pretty comfortable heat and I felt really good. And then getting up in that final and I was like, nah, this is it, I wanna win, and it's probably the most confident I've been going into a competition and especially a race. And I just remember standing on those blocks and going, yeah, I wanna win this. So I swam an amazing race and you know I just got pipped out by Taylor McKeown at the time, taylor McKeown and Kaylee's biggest sister and she was this little ripe 18-year-old Samar.
Speaker 2:But you know what, when I hit the wall and I because I always did this thing at the end of my career, the last few years of my career I hit the wall and I wouldn't look at the time that I did, I just assess how that felt. And so I hit the wall and I was like that felt really good and that was all I could do, like I've got nothing left. You know, that was the best race I could put together today. And then I turned around and saw that there was a tree next to my name and you know, I think three lanes over Taylor was there and she was like screaming like she just won a Commonwealth Games medal. And so, you know, I went over and I grabbed her arm and I lifted up. I was like congratulations, you know it's the best person one on the day. But for me I was just so ecstatic too because I'd done that PB and I'd gotten a Commonwealth Games medal. And it taken me you know how many years eight years being an Australian team to get individual silver medal in a long course competition.
Speaker 2:So just that moment of getting out in the pool and seeing my family and I think my husband was in the toilets in Paris in a restaurant, on the phone to my family, like trying to just supposed to be at a work meeting, you know, so excited that he could. You know it was sad that he missed it, but it was awesome that he could have been there in the morning and he just gave me so much confidence, sort of get you know being there and just he was like you're going to be amazing and he's always been like that. So, yeah, I think it was. It was really special and I was really really happy. Got to swim the 100 as well. I really wanted to medal in the 100, that competition, but didn't quite come to fruition. But that's okay. But I think that was my probably one of my favorite races. That one in the, I think the year before at trials, when I won the 100 breaststroke out of kind of nowhere, for me was really exciting too, and you had a relay at those Commonwealth Games as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I send the heat in the relay. So I'd actually which I've done a lot In my career. There was plenty of I've got so many heat like medals in my cabinet that are heat swimming medals and I probably never used to take any credit for them because I was like, oh, I didn't sound on the podium, I didn't win a medal. But I really love now how swimming Australia has embraced those heat swimmers. I feel like it's done a lot more now than when I was an athlete.
Speaker 2:We were sort of giving our medal off behind closed doors on the last day of swimming competition when they had them. You know it wasn't really that big of a fuss made about it. As I started to get through my career and like it's probably leading into being on that leadership group was, you know, making sure that every member of that team feels like they're special because they are. They are there and a member of that team whether they swim the heat swim of a relay or not, you know or in the final, that you know like that team could have made the final and you don't know if we could have won that medal if you take them away. So you know, for me it was cool to win that gold medal and get that space for that girls.
Speaker 2:But we were having a bit of a joke before it because who? I think it was Loth, I kind of think of who the heat swimmers were now, because I'm pretty sure there were four different the final swimmers because we just had so much depth and then it was really, really amazing. So I had, like Bronte and Leish I'm trying to think who did the bash, it's my brain but it was just heaps of fun. You know, that's real, as it just always fun, just relaxed fun, and you swim so fast for your friends. So you like I just yeah, for me I would have done all of my races in three layers and probably would have come away amazingly, but you know I could always step up for those girls.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure, and obviously that sort of feeling that you have about that time in the team led you to be on the leadership team of the Australian Dolphins. What was that experience like and what did you do in that role?
Speaker 2:It was kind of a big decision to get on that leadership team. I think in 2012, we had, you know, a fair bit of things not go right for the team. There was a lot of stuff that shouldn't have happened. That happened and I still think today, I look back and I think, you know, things still weren't handled well after that competition and I know a lot of girls that were in bad spots.
Speaker 2:But for me, I think the following year, when I did make the team and I, you know, I'd moved coaches, so I'd moved from Canberra and I followed my husband to Adelaide and I moved from training with Peter Bishop and it was just a whole new outlook on my career. Like he was so positive and happy and relaxed and, you know, cared about me holistically so that I found, like I found, my place when I moved to Vich and he was like, you know, you're such a good leader within the squad, why wouldn't you go to be on that leadership group? Why, you know, when I made the Australian team, it was like you know, they're nominating, why don't you nominate? And I'd never seen myself that way. Like I loved being like the mum of the squad and just, you know, helping people, kids out and mentoring and stuff like that. But I'd never thought of I'll be on the leadership group. So, yeah, I went for it and I got selected by my peers and it was a really massive rebuilding of our team, like we had some massive, massive cultural issues rung deep in our team and the team that took over that leadership group.
Speaker 2:That year. We had a lot of work to do and we did heaps and heaps and heaps of work. We had so many meetings, we had so many development days. We had so many things like learnings for us, like flying into a state for a day to do a whole, you know, workshop to figure out what we wanted as a team and then trying to relay that to Mr Ming, australia, and trying to get everything that we wanted. And I think it wasn't probably until after I left.
Speaker 2:So that was 2012 and I was on the leadership group all the way up until they went to the Olympics. So, even though I didn't make the Olympic team, I still and it was just really hard I still called in every leadership meeting because, even though I wasn't on that team, it was still my job to make sure everyone on that team is getting the right support and the right help. We were doing the right thing by all of the athletes. So and I think that was the really cool part about it that, even though I wasn't there, that was still sort of, yeah, we value your knowledge, we value we still value you as a person and what you can do. So it was a big process from 2012 after 2012 to rebuild it.
Speaker 2:And I think I look back now and I think, oh, my God, what did I do? But how hard it was, but it was also he's a fun, because we want to change and we wanted to drive it ourselves and we did. And now look at the Australian team like they're, they're absolutely fine. And for me as well, when I didn't make that team in 2016 and I had Kyle and Josh go on it, I felt good, like I felt like, yeah, these guys are safe, like, as the rookies on the team, they'll be protected, they'll be looked after, like there's amazing culture there.
Speaker 2:Now that's building and that they can help be a part of and they can help grow, whereas before it didn't feel like you could do that. I think that, yeah, I loved being. It was tough and nowadays it was really tough, but I loved it and for me it was, I guess, a bit of a second nature. I'm not very good at standing up in front of people and telling people what to do, but I'm good at being part of the team and trying to encourage people to step up.
Speaker 1:Well, whatever you did back then, certainly got the ball rolling, because they're flying now and the culture amongst the team is awesome, from what you see from the outside.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's a really cool part. I think, especially what we know is happening sort of within the sport itself Like to just see how strong that team is on a stand alone is amazing and those simmers on that team I was a really small part of the thing Like I was a part of six simmers that were on a leadership group that worked really hard but there were heaps and heaps of other people Like it takes belief of a whole group the last six people driving it. It wasn't. We never wanted it just to be us. We wanted the whole team to believe in what we stood for and seeing them now and hearing the stories and stuff, it sounds like it's really good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does it. Does they all look really close? I mean, aside from the fact that Queensland is pretty much taken, every single swimmer in Australia, except for Peter Bishop's course we have nothing really left in Melbourne.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a bit so interesting now. It's to me it used to be that you would not leave your state and you wouldn't anywhere. And I feel like when I moved in 2012, it was probably around 2016, you started to see like people were actually starting to follow coaches. So and I find that really cool it was about like you know it used to be you stay in your state, you know if your coach leaves, it doesn't matter, you'll find someone else, that kind of thing. And then you did get the occasional person that might follow somebody.
Speaker 2:But now I feel like you know, like if you're a good coach which, like, people are gonna follow you, and I, you know, hello Hadobs, employees like Queensland have it at the moment. But you know, south Australia doing good, I'm sure you know WI, and I think that's the thing too is like you can have hubs, but eventually people will go where their heart is. So for me, you know, I was lucky, I had that support in South Australia. I went from, you know, here in Perth to AIS, to South Australia and three completely different community, completely different environments, so um.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, look, it's working at the moment. I'm sure, as you say, things turn around in their own sort of natural way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hopefully. Like look, and it doesn't you know, we're doing amazing things anyway in the pool, so yeah, Now I wanted to just.
Speaker 1:I know we've been talking for a while and I do. I know that I need to let you go, but I just wanted to quickly talk about your book Born to Swim. Tell us how that came about, how you wrote that and what it's about.
Speaker 2:So it was pretty much about my great aunt Evelyn. So, like I said, she went to the 1936 Olympics and wrote that diary and I wrote a diary, sort of you know, side by side with her, so like when I would read her diary and then I'd write my diary for leading into the 2012 Olympics.
Speaker 2:I should have done it in Beijing. But you know, like there was so much going on, I was young and I was like, ah, I wasn't really prepared to have the opportunity to actually write my own diary and sort of position it next to hers to see the difference in what can happen in you know what is it? 80 something years or 70 something. That was really, yeah, really cool. And you know, what she went through as an athlete to get to the Olympic Games was just incredible. But then what I went through is a completely different side of it.
Speaker 2:So you know, and talking about how I felt when I raced, so for me I felt like that was the hard part. I never really I wish I could have interviewed her and said, hey, look, can I interview you about your fields, how it felt to race, because it was more like you know, hers is very structured more like I swam, didn't make the final, but like there wasn't too much emotion in it and I would love to have gone back and found out that it was very serious. But for me I feel like there's more emotion in mine and comparing what I went through to what she went through, yeah, and then moving on after that. So it's just our diary, sort of side by side hers is at the front and mine is afterwards and just sort of seeing what we both went through as athletes at completely different times in Olympic Games.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing, and where can anyone that's listening, that wants to search that out? Where could they get it? Maybe just Google?
Speaker 2:I think I think I've seen it online still. Yeah, because there's a few years that are now 2014. I do have copies so you can always reach out and I can just post you a signed copy, because I still have copies in the drawer that I take around when I do talks and stuff. Yeah, probably just have a bit of a Google or reach out to me. I think my website's got my email, so see, yeah, people can do that.
Speaker 1:We can put your website in the show notes so if people would like to read the book because it sounds really interesting, they can contact you there. Yeah, like the faster the pages, so so everyone that comes on the podcast, I always ask them to finish off our talk deep dive five snapshot questions about your swimming career. So can you tell us this is the first thing that pops into your head favorite pool that you've ever swum in?
Speaker 2:Oh, I was gonna say, but the bathing people.
Speaker 1:Yes, the water cube Beautiful. What about your favorite breaststroke drill?
Speaker 2:Oh, I didn't learn this one until I was older. Who taught me it? I think it was an American girl taught me it actually, and it's like two breaststroke strokes fully underwater, so like proper breaststroke strokes to get your timing, and then you know one stroke on top, then two full breaststrokes underwater and then one on top, so a bit of hypoxic but also like really good for timing and you can do it as just 25 breaststroke underwater, then come up and do 25 on top as well. Disappends how good your lungs are. Well, yeah, yeah. So it really teaches you about your timing, because if your timing's out, you know you'll notice it straight away. So it's, you know, because of the pressure of the water and everything you probably can't do the lift up of your chest, but it's more like getting that hand movement in your legs, you can really sort out timing. So I liked it.
Speaker 1:And what's your favorite go-to dryland strength exercise?
Speaker 2:I love any sort of Pilates core work, so like I love like the one where you stand and your hands and your knees I don't even know the name of it, this is how bad I am your hands and your knees and you lift up one arm and one leg and sort of.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, it's not dead, it's the opposite of dead bug. It's um, yeah, yeah, opposite of dead bug where you're standing. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I love that one. Yeah, cool, just go core, make sure everything's balanced.
Speaker 1:And what about your favorite current training set?
Speaker 2:So we do, we do a lot of um, Wayne does a lot of 25. So he'll give me like 16, 25s and he'll be like you can do three easy one, fast, Um, and I really love that Like, even though I don't get super bad a rest, it's like full speed and I'll have to race the younger kid. Is there any sort of speed where I? Um, you know I'm good at endurance work, unfortunately, Um, but I, I love just any sort of 25 speed work. Now.
Speaker 1:And aside from your very famous aunt, which other swimmer do you most admire, can be past or present?
Speaker 2:I'm gonna. Can I give you two? So when I was a swimmer, I was like probably Shane Gould, like looking up to her, like and what she did as a youngster was absolutely incredible. Um, and then and I I don't say this lightly like and then now it's when I was a swimmer was my best friend, leish.
Speaker 2:So Alicia, so you know, she won five Olympic medals at the 2012 Olympic Games. She was Australia's most successful, equally Australia's most successful Olympian um in 2012 and didn't get any any of the credit that I believe that she should have got for it. Um, you know, because before Emma, there was her and I just think, like what that girl could do and I, you know, I used to train not with her, she was a different squad, but I knew what she went through and I knew how she trained and, um, I wouldn't mess her, mess with her, for anything Like that girl on a on a starting block was like bull on badass. Um, you couldn't beat it. Um, but yeah, just her.
Speaker 2:Because I feel like I knew what she went through being her roommate and an Olympic Games to win those five Olympic medals. I know how much sleep she didn't get. I knew her regime. I knew, you know, like no help, no help. Like you know, when people take bicarbonate, beetroot juice and beta alanine and all this stuff, to him she was all natural, like nothing, like she would have, you know, like a red bull, half a red bull can or something. That was her, that was her go-to thing. Like she didn't do physio, she didn't do massage, Like it was. Alicia was super tough and very old school, like I loved. I love her. Um, yeah, I feel like she was just such an amazing athlete and such an amazing to be in, to be in Olympic games. Like I say, because we were roommates that you know, we won five medals between us.
Speaker 1:You did your room won five medals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she was definitely in my as we got in my career. Like I look back now and I think I was so lucky to have you like as a roommate and what you did was incredible, um, the, the, yeah, absolutely incredible, and she's really underrated. Oh, so underrated. And if you? Met her today like, and she, you wouldn't even know that she's won five Olympic medals. Like I got three kids. Like nice, I like that answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, sally, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. It's been a delight speaking with you and I can see how joyful you are about being back in swimming, so that's so lovely. And, um, yeah, best wishes for heading internationals next year.
Speaker 2:Um, yes, thank you so much. And um, yeah, I'm really happy that none of my kids came in. I'm amazed I can hear him out there and like bubbles asleep in the next room. So I'm going to, I'm going to go and take over so he can go to work.
Speaker 1:Of course, of course. I'm sorry I kept you so long.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. It's been, yeah, really good to talk about it and, yeah, it's been fun.
Speaker 1:Thank you, okay, bye. I hope you enjoyed my chat with Sally. We'll put the link to Sally's book in the show notes of today's episode. Don't forget to check out our website for lots more information about the podcasts, training sessions and sets from our guests and blogs that may be of interest to you. Find us at wwwtorpedoswimtalkcom. Till next time, happy swimming and bye for now.