Get over and working once again to conversations. My guest today is a legend of Australian sport. No truly a legend. She is a legend in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, Raylene Boyle. How are you? Thank you for joining me?
I'm well, Cornsey, I'm sitting here in almost we've had rain, not like you. It's quite green up here in the Sunshine Coast, but I'm well, thank you.
How long have you been living up to you?
I've been up here in nearly thirty years?
Wow? Why? I mean, are Victorian? Why the Sunshine Coast? Look?
When I was ill with my cancer, with my breast cancer, the original one, I just couldn't cope with the cold in Melbourne any longer, going through chemo, through winter and doing all the hard yards. When it came to that stuff, I just had to make a decision. So I decided to I'd lived up here before and it was an easy decision, and both my brothers moved here as well, and it's been a good decision. Although I'm starting to dislike the rain at this stage this.
Year, there's something about the warmth, There's no doubt about that. We come to Adelaide, you get the best of both worlds. We do have winter.
I'll be down there in the next month actually to catch up with my buddy Margie Jackson.
Oh what a lady. What a lady. You're a Victorian girl, born and bred in Kobo.
Lucky.
That's Carlton area. Isn't that Carlton district? Did you? I read? I read somewhere you awarded a medal by the Anti Football League. Was that of taking the mickey? Or did you not really like football?
I never had anything to do with football, still don't. I've never I've been to a couple of games for Breast Cancer Network, but I haven't really been to a whole footy game. It's just not been in my culture. My culture was more individual sports. My older brother was an Olympic cyclist, and I of course ran, and that was more the setting that we were comfortable in, and we would doers rather than watchers.
Well, tell us about your back mument. You had three older brothers.
That I've got, an older and a younger brother.
Well that was Wikipedia, They're wrong picking correct it? And older and a younger brother. Yes, what did mom and dad do?
Dad was an engineer. He you know, he worked around a little bit and then he ended up at the Melbourne City Council and that's where he stayed until he died at fifty. And my mum was basically a housewife. But Dad had these grandiose, I don't know, concepts of buying and selling pushbikes and so, yeah, we had cycling shops, god knows what. I don't think they ever made money, but probably introduced him to women all.
Over the place.
And yeah, mum pretty much ran those. She was quite a depressed and a sad woman in many ways. I don't think she was ever that happy. And she died of cancer at seventy. So, you know, I see all my friends going through the nasties with their parents now.
Of.
Dementia and Alzheimer's and all sorts of things. I didn't get that far in life with my parents beforehand.
Yeah, fifty was young.
He heart disease and did nothing about it.
So I just dropped in one day.
You said that little aside about your dad meeting women. What does that mean is that one of the reasons your mother was sad?
I think so.
I think dad was a bit of a womanizer, and I think Mum probably was, you know, a woman who was chronically depressed and didn't really want to participate in the fund that dad wanted, and he moved on. But they stayed together, but I don't think it was an absolutely deliriously happy marriage. But I moved out of the house when I was eighteen nineteen.
What were your schooling years? Like?
My schooling years were, you know, pretty bad? Actually it wasn't my ghost school. I just couldn't sit still in class and I really couldn't understand why they were teaching me French because I was never going to go to France and.
There might have been of an Olympic Games.
Well, yeah, but I didn't think like that. I sort of thought, well, where I am coming from from Coburg, I'll probably be working a sandwich shop or something for the rest of my life. And I didn't realize that I would see the world and have the most amazing experiences that a person can have. But yeah, so I wasn't very good at school. I can still remember missus Kozik,
my French teacher. She'd say, ray Lean, I've given you three out of one hundred because you've felt your name right was well, okay, fair enough, but I objected to school. I once I did go to the Olympics, school pretty much fell by the way.
So when did you when did you realize? When did somebody recognize and that you had this athletic talent?
I think probably when I was at primary school eleven maybe twelve. There was no doubt that I could run fast. Certainly I wasn't a goutcount but he's extraordinary. But I was sort of leaning that way that I just could run fast, and I was oblivious to the idea of using that somehow or having the ability to use that somehow to actually enhance my life.
What changed who came along?
I think probably experience of Olympics.
To get to the Olympics, you mustn't You had to knuckle down at some stays, you had to take it a bit more seriously.
Well, I was sixteen and my father didn't want me to go to the first Olympics, something to Mexico City. He sort of said, well, if I do let her go, then she's not going to train for it in any aggressive manner. So I did about three months worth of training, three times a week for a three quarters of an hour, and I did exactly the same session every time, and that took me to a sew ofver medal and a
fourth in thee hundred meters. So obviously there was some raw talent there and I think that that sort of in a way gave me the direction I needed to actually do something with my life, and sport was going to be the guiding guiding light.
That is so dismissive that I have to explore it a bit more. You just cannot train for three months and goo to the Olympic Games. But we need a break, so I need to challenge you on that when we come back. And that's okay. Raylean Boyle is my guest. Folks back shortly. Raylean Boyle is my guest on conversations everybody, our great Olympic athlete, a legend in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, member of the British Empire mb and Order. It's an am Order of Australian award that she has
been granted. But before we went to the break railing, I was intrigue, as though you hardly trained it all to go to that first Olympic Games in Mexico. Now, there must have been a coach who saw something, and it must have been a coach who knuckled down and gave you a program. I mean, just up and go to the games and win a silver medal.
Surely that's pretty much what happened.
I don't believe you.
My father was.
He believed at sixteen I was far too young to be doing heavy duty work because I was still growing. And he said, you know, basically to the powers that be, she'll go to the next one, so she doesn't really need to go to these ones. And the powers that be accepted that and sent me over there for experience. I think they saw something, you know, big in the future.
How did you feel about that when your dad was not that enthusiastic about it. Did you feel, as I was an ambition that it was being thwarted?
Yeah, well, you know I read in the paper that I was selected and I was the youngest, and I thought, oh, this.
Is pretty cool.
I'll get on a plane and go away for a couple of you know, a couple of hours flight, and then I'll have a bit of running and come home. I guess it just the penny didn't drop that it was going to be a very long way away and that I was going to be away for six weeks and that, Yeah, I had to have some form of discipline to get myself to the track and it warmed up and get out and ready to race, and it was very intimidating.
In front of her.
It wasn't a massive stadium in Mexico. I was about sixty or seventy thousand people, but it was a huge thing in Mexico. And yes, it really opened my eyes to the world and gave me that gave me the ideas that fitted into the concept of you can make something of this. Not that I was ever going to make any money out of it then, but certainly that I could make something of this and be good at something in my life.
I did read that you don't have that much memory of Mexico, but surely the experience of standing on the dais must have stayed with you.
Yes, yes it did, it did.
And I Yeah, that silver metals the only one I have. The other two ones in the Gallery of Sport in Melbourne, I think, and one I gave to a friend because it was her birthday of the day I run.
It, but yeah, he gave it away. Yeah.
The metals are symbols of medals. Are more important than records. Let me just say at this significant time, it's nice. It's nice that gout outs running so fast, and that's brilliant, But the metals are the things you keep. The records are taken away from him there as time goes by, new methods and new equipment and the whole lot of it means that records are broken, which is chantastic.
We'll come to that issue because one of yours has just been broken up after fifty seven years. But I want to talk about that a bit later. But Mexico is renowned for the black POWs salute.
It was renowned for quite a few things, Cornsey.
It was renowned for altitude.
So I think it was six eight hundred feet or something. It was bloody high and the air was thin. But being a seventy year I had no idea what was going on. I used to walk up the stairs. The others got the elevator to the eighth floor, and you know Ron Clark.
Of course, the.
Story wasn't He actually stopped breathing and his heart stopped after the ten thousand meters. And then of course we had Frosberry jumping backwards over the high jump, and we had Beman Beaman doing that.
Unbelievable long jump.
So there was a lot happened, and then we got to Peter Norman and Carlos and the black counsel at Smith here, Carlous and Smith and the blacker. I don't know that it was so much a black power so that it was a message because Smith, who organized it, is actually a well educated, very nice man.
We've been lucky enough to interview him previously. And he was ostracized afterwards, wasn't.
He he was, which I think is very sad, very sad. But then you see, I forget the swimmer as it was. It wasn't Chalmers who didn't get on the dais at a swimming major swimming. I think it might have been the Olympics, might have been World Championships because the Chinese guy who won the race was a renowned drug chip and so here he refused to get on the dais for the silver medal in objection to I guess the big picture is the interference of drugs in sport.
Well, you're going to be impacted on that so negatively later in your career. But was there any any indication that when you were this naive seventeen year old. I supposed when you came back to Australia, had life changed for you?
Oh yeah, yes, we did these faux pictures of me going back to school and the kids whole welcoming me. I don't think I went to school for Finnish very many, if any, whole days after that, But my life changed dramatically. You know, the media requests, it was very different then. We didn't have these sorts of link ups that you and I are on. It was really in person mostly,
and you know you've been in the public eye. The requests come through and I don't think my family or I don't think I knew how to deal with that. So that was another massive growing pattern that I had to go through.
So when you say that, how did that impact negatively on you and the family?
I think it did.
I think there were positive sides to it, and I think without doubt there are negative sides to it. But it certainly made me grow up very quickly. Because I still was a pretty naive, innocent seventeen year old. That changed very quickly, quaranty. But yeah, I came home a
different person. But I think in that first problem six months life changed very dramatically for me, and expectation was one of the things that probably was the most punishing, because all of a sudden I was expected to know what to do and how to deal and how to be able to have a sandwich with the Queen and know what to do if you know, as a poor example, probably get you know what I mean.
It was also I love that. I love that analogy. So what was it like having a sandwich with the Queen?
She was a lovely lady.
I loved the Queen. Really, I didn't have a sandwich with her, but I did meet her at many different functions, though she wouldn't have remembered me.
I don't think, Oh you never know, you never know. Did she present you with the NBA.
No, I went to Government House in Victorian received that. But I did receive my AM from the Great Margie Jackson when she was a governm in South Australia. I had a private ceremony, even though Margie felt that was probably not the way to go. It should have been a public thing. But I rang and asked if I could just have a private ceremony with friends and family, and she agreed.
We love Marjorie Marge one of.
The best examples of living a good life and doing the right thing in every situation. Marge's and I speak to her. I speak to us sort of every week or two weeks, and I just love her. She's very close to me.
That's underpinned by a tragedy though, losing her husband.
So yes, yes, I think all of those things are examples if you move on with life. I think when it comes to Margie losing Peter, she moved forward. She still had three kids to defeed and get to school, and life had to go on. And it was a bit like that when I was diagnosed with cancer. Was it's like, do you drop your marbles now or do you actually pull everything together and move forward and try and like the most of the experience you've had. And
that's what I did with Breast Cancer Network Australia. I was on their board for twenty four years and I was there helping or trying to help as much as I could, and the network could with women who were newly diagnosed and diagnosed with breast cancer and blokes.
No, and I know one of my good friends, an outstanding sports died of breast cancer. Can we go back to the expectation. So you've come home from Mexico with silver. Munich is the next Olympic Games. Are you fired with ambition? Are you determined that you can go one better in Munich?
Oh?
I was certain I could. I was certain I could. I came home and certainly I didn't train hard initially, but leading up to those games, the last two years before, from seventy on, I put I put my spokes on, and I was ready to do what I needed to do to win a gold medal. And I believe that I could do that, which I think is a good way to go into training because you don't object to what's going on, and you never walk away from a session because you really have this belief that you can do something.
And I believed I could do something. Over there.
Was your dad still your coach?
No, I'd moved on from him, and I was being trained by a lady by the name of Arnie Dott, whose family I moved in with when my life with my family fell apart.
How did that happen?
I was just I got into trouble with.
Athletics Victoria, and they banned me for three months for wearing jeans with freight ends. And not wearing shoes when I was at the National Championships. Oh my god, it's changed so much. But I was so pathetic and the media interest in drove us nuts in my family home and dad last Arnie Dodd if she could cope with me living with her family for a little while while everything settled down. And I just saw a different, different way of life, I guess, and I liked it.
In last aid was Antie Dodd, an athlete.
Annie Dodd had been a hurdler, yes, okay involved, so she ended up coaching me into two games.
Rayleing Boil is my guest, folks, What a story, what a life, the ups and downs of it? Back shortly, Welcome back, everybody. Look if you just tuned in with chatting with Rayleing Boyle, it's a great chat. She's so open and frank a young girl who goes off to the Mexico Olympics and wins a silver medal at the age of seventeen, comes back, starts to take athletics a bit more seriously, falls out with mum and dad moves in with Ardie Dott, who coaches leading up to the
Munich Olympics. Now Munich Olympics should have been probably the highlight of your career, and as it turned out, I mean, you did it remarkably well, coming home with two silver medals, which in any other era would have been gold. But tell us about the Munich experience, can you please, Because there's so much happened there.
I leave.
The era that I went through at Olympics was a pretty sad era to be trick. There were so many international problems pushed.
To the fore.
I came up against these Germans, which I'm sure a lot of your listeners know, and these Germans were systematically doping, but with male hormones. They're female athletes, so they were on a drug called oral tarennobol, and so they in
fact were more inclined towards male strength. And really a female's not going to beat a male if some standard ever, and so I went over there believing I could win gold medals and came up against an artist Decker, who was a good bloke, And that was my first introduction against artificial means of an athlete, and I was devastated, really that I didn't beat it.
So when you're confronted with these physical specimens, are you intimidated. Were you intimidated?
I think you're intimidated more by the communist part of it. That they were herded like cattle. They might nod their head, but that's about all a recognition they'd give you. You could never be a friend of theirs because they weren't allowed to be friends outside of their German community. It was a very sad thing for me to watch.
Did you ever get a chance to meet Renada Sticker in normal circumstances later in life?
Yes? I did.
Sixty minutes took me over to Germany and did a story on the drug situation. And I went to where she lived, which was a little place called Jana Jenna in our language, which was where the pharmaceutical company Clipped that made.
The drugs that they used. But she.
Had her husband sitting I reckon his face was a foot away from hers, and he had been the person who had driven.
The drugs for her, so he'd.
Give them her and she'd take them in. And they're no longer together. But yeah, so she was an interesting character. She just rejected everything that was said. You know, did you take drugs? No? Would Raylen have beaten you?
No? Should you give the medals back.
No, it was really quite an awkward situation for me because it was in I think it was in ninety six and I was still quite ill, and you know, it was just fascinating. The other interesting place they took us too was the Stars He had caught us, which ran everything in Germany, and it was it was like
walking into a freezer. It was so cold, so impersonal, even though no one was there, just the make up, the way the building had been built, the single person, non stop elevator that you just hopped on and hopped
off while it was still moving. The they had a card room with all of every individual in the countries had a card and a cross section with a file room, and they kept a record on everything every individual did, how many times I went to the toilet a day, when they ate their lunch, when they ate their breakfast, if they went to work or stayed at home, who they mixed with.
And I am not kidding you.
If you ever got a chance to go to Germany's that was so confronting. You know, we have so much freedom, and I think I appreciated my freedom and being born in Australia far more after that visit than ever I have in my life.
I did read a comment that you made. You would far prefer to be a silver medalist living in Australia than a gold medalist living in East Germany.
There's no doubt about that. And I would reckoned that Renada Stecca would probably have changed the medals with me places with her?
Did she look at not going to happen?
Did she look different? Did she had she had the male features softened?
No, she looked pretty much the same, you know with your age. She was an interesting one because because it affected my life, I could actually look at her files and her card and she had written a letter to the powers to be or over there at the time, saying that she didn't want to stay on the stuff for forever, she just wanted to go on it when the games were coming up.
Why would the IOC not take action there when the evidence is so obvious.
I don't know.
I don't know whether it opens a can of worms for them or it's all the information is all documented, it's all there. The whole structure of how they did things is there, but the IOC won't look at it. And I think probably because they think, well, where do we start and where do we finish how many individuals now have been caught for drugs. It's the drugs in sport are an interesting area that I can't ever agree with, and in fact it's changed my whole outlook about sport and how I watch it.
Do you watch any sport these days?
I watched.
Gout Gout, I've met him and I watched him run at the National Championships on the Tully, But no I have I have not a lot of interest in sport.
If if the I made a decision to strip them of those athletes of their medals, would you accept the gold medal?
Absolutely without that. That's not just because I want a gold medal, because you know, cheats don't prosper, or they shouldn't.
But in the world was bought sheets do prosper.
Raylen Boyle is my guest, folks, was so much only not even halfway through her life, so much to talk about back shortly. My guest on conversations is Raylene Boyle, the Great Raylene Boyle a member of the Bought Australia Hall of Fame, but not only a member, she's a legend, elevated all these other awards too. She's a member of the British Empire. MBA and am we're talking about the drama in Munich. Raylen came home with two silver medals.
As we said previously, in another era, without drug cheats, they would have been gold medals. Of course, Munich is most remembered for the terrorist attack. Were you insulated from that?
No?
No, Actually we were the women's quarters at that stage. The quarters were separate women and men, and the women were behind the fence as they should and actually should have been. Behind the fences were the closest accommodation to the shootings of the Israelis in their quarters, so we could hear the guns. We could see the terrorists walking
around the top of their building. When they shot individuals and killed them, they dragged them out into a courtyard that was very close to us, dragged their bodies out, and it was horrible. It was horrible, and I can honestly say when this whole gaza things started again, I was sick in to my stomach and nervous and very upset by it. Because I am a true believer that you know, life is given.
To us to use as well as we can.
It's not given to us to fight for ridiculous things that are not going to change. And the people that have been killed the same as the people in Munich.
It was you know, eleven that the Israelis died. That was just horrible.
And they were young people, and they were coaches, and they had babies and husbands and wives at home. I'm sorry, I just can't forgive for that.
Oh dear me, you're still You're still young, and you're still at the peak of you at the peak of your powers. And then then we go to Montreal.
There was a disaster of an Olympics.
Oh no, you know, but you're you're the first lady to carry the flag for the Olympic team.
I think it was the last time I wore address.
Is that right? Do we do? We have to relive the disqualification?
Oh, look at that is something that happened. I being an argumentative little bugger. I I did break the well.
I didn't break the first time.
There was a noise behind it that the starter heard, and I heard and I went. And then the second one, I was coming off the blocks to argue the point, and the starter didn't give me a moment's time to talk to him, and he just disqualified me, which was devastating at the time, A feeling that it was one of those feelings where you think, I'll never feel like this ever again. I'll never feel this bad ever again. But of course you do as you go on in life.
Well you do because life dealt you a couple of rough hands. I mean, you had breast cancer and you got over that, and then you had ovarian cancer.
For heaven's sake, Yeah, how lucky am I?
Well, well, I don't think lucky, but I mean you've you've fought them off. I mean that must be an inspiration to other people going through the same ordio.
I think.
I think originally the breast cancer, I mean, it was a horrendous time in my life, the same as it is for everybody. But I think it gave me an opportunity to give back and make change or the women for the better. And a lot of the things we did really have made a big difference, and they're ongoing now and we have a good relationship with the government, and pushing new drugs through is a much easier path than it used to be, even though it's always a
struggle because it's costly for the government. But I've met the most wonderful people and had enormous experiences out of being diagnosed with breast cancer.
And the ovarian didn't kill me.
Might one day, But you know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
That intrigues me. Why did you recover when so many others don't?
Ah, I look, it all comes down to the type of breast cancer and the type of well the ovarian I was an early diagnosis, That's why I got through that. But the breast was it. It depends on the type of breast cancer you've had or you've got.
Depends on a whole lot of things.
You can't pinpoint any one thing that makes a difference for me and not for another woman. But yeah, it was horrible experience. I didn't have very big boobs either. I thought, nothing.
Make me laugh. It's not funny.
It's not funny, but you've got to be able to laugh, you laugh at yourself.
I just wonder what message that can you give to ladies who I guess they're all vulnerable, some more than others. Is there a message there that it is.
To be aware of your body, to be aware of any changes and have them checked. Don't just think I've got a little lump there and go away, or you know my nipple doesn't look right, that'll change. Just go and have the damn thing check. Because the earlier you get at the better chance you've got of having a normal life and a long life. So always consider yourself first. Women put themselves back in the long list of you know, a husband, children, parents, and sometimes that causes a problem.
You had a record that lasted for fifty seven years and a young kid from Perth just broke it. And I know we talked about records there you just borrow records? I think is that? Is that a term? You borrow records? But you win medals? How did you feel like was there a touch.
Of oh no, No, I felt really good about it that you know, finally there are some kids coming through. We've got a very good showing of young sprinters, both male and female at the moment. Records going means progress is being made.
So that's very.
Important in a sport that I was so passionate about and I still love watching to a certain degree. It's yeah, records have to be broken for progress.
Have you met young Leah O'Brien i've spoken.
To from the fine She sounds like a really lovely kid. She ran very well in the women's hundred at the National Championships, and Tory lewis just leader. But Torian have to be five years older than her, I would think, But no, I was very impressed.
Mind you.
These kids are so different to my era because they're all they're all very seriously trained.
Nick.
I understand that. It intrigues me that you had such minimal training in preparation for that record. You broke that in Mexico, didn't she?
Yes?
Did you know it was a record? Did that?
Probably? They're probably not. I went into races not to break records.
I don't think anyone does, really. I went into races to win them, and that was what it was about. Anything else was ancillary.
Coming to the end. Are you're living in You're living in the Gold.
Coast, Sunshine Coast.
I'm sorry.
Put me down at the Gold Coast corner.
I'm sorry.
I've got I've got ev and I don't live in Hell.
I've got a niece who lives up there, and a great niece is a great little surfer too. She might actually go.
So it's a good place to be for surfing.
So you look back over that life. I mean, we don't and we don't know it. You're still on the early seventies. Love's lost and loved and you look bad. Any regrets?
Not really.
I I had some lovely partners. I was engaged to a going perth for a while, but that obviously didn't suit my last time lovely guy. I still talk to him regularly. We've still got a lot in common.
We still have a.
Laugh to get and yeah, I just I've got a female partner that I've had for thirty years, and I'm happy in this world.
And it's easy. It seems so much easier to be in that sort of relationship these days, am I right?
It is back early. I don't think I realized that I prefer to female partner until I was in my twenties, well into my twenties. But the nice thing about Jude, my partner, is that she's got three children, and I now have grandchildren as well, So that's lovely for me, that next generational thing. Little Sam and Will are a delight and we're expecting them up for an Easter egg
hunt for Easter. But yeah, my life at times has been scary because of my sexuality, I suppose, But you have become those things, and you have to be true to yourself. And I think that's the bottom line. I haven't got anything to sell. I haven't got anything to I don't know nag on about or talk on about. I'm just me and I'm content in my skin, and my life.
Has been a good life.
You have your life to talk about, you have your achievements, you have you the records, the record, I mean, the record is there for everyone to see. It's an amazing record.
Yeah, Sponsie, you know, in today's world, I'd rather talk about my fourteen month old Golden Retriever that's around and wanting to.
Have a game.
Does it eat everything inside?
Has been a bit naughty of late. She did eat a pair of Jude's shoes the other Yes, that's not my fault.
I don't leave my shoes out and my dog has tastes. She would not chew my Nikes because she would be No, she'd be killed.
Who were you sponsored by Nike all the way through?
No, I was sponsored by Puma. Nike wasn't around. Nike came in to be about nineteen seventy two, and pretty much I moved over to them when they came to Australia. Pumore really wonderful to me, after me extremely well. But I needed a job and Nike offered me a job and I went across and I liked their shoes and so they've been wonderful to me and still are.
Well how does your day look these days?
Well, my day today was I've been up, I've taken the girl for a walk, I've had my breky because I'm homeline, and I've been back to bed and read the paper and I did get out of bed to come and do this and do you with you? And I'm about to go to the gym. So he doesn't help me lose weight, but he stops me from falling over and losing my balance and all that.
Stuff that's so important. Balance.
The two things that I think I've noticed getting older are one balance and two opening jars.
Oh tell me about that.
But Mike, I love Mike, and he you keep me trim talking true think I've been going to in about five years, and I can honestly say I did have a few fools. One was in Adelaide, and I just had to get over that because if I wanted a young dog, for example, I had to have balance to be able to walk her. And if I wanted to live my life in my own home, I needed to look after those incidentals. But major incidentals as they are.
What a delight catching up, What a delight speaking to you. Thank you so much for your time.
You're welcome. Corn say, I think we need to do a.
Series, mate, I can do it. I can dove a bit deeper, but I just didn't know how far to go.
That's right. No one never knows quite what to do with me.
Well, if there's no rules, we could do one.
Oh, if there were no rules, A lot of people that'd love to have done one like that.
Good gossip.
I'm sure don't talk about that. Thanks so much, Rylaane, all the best. Conci Rylan Boil was my guest. Folks, thank you so much for joining us.