Ordinarily speaking, silver meth of the Olympics should be something.
To celebrate, but I saw it as a failure.
Takes time.
Hello and welcome to Ordinarily speaking, I'm Narrowly Meadows and my guest this episode is three time Olympian Aimon Sullivan. At the peak of his powers, Aimen was the world's fastest man in the pool, a world record holder in both the fifty and one hundred meters. He overcame injury setback after injury setback across his career, but that was nothing compared to recovering from the disappointment of not winning gold.
This episode delves into the psyche of what it's like to be an Olympic favorite, under immense pressure both internally and externally, and coming up short. For Amon, it's an ongoing process. Twelve years after winning silver in the one hundred and coming sixth in the fifty at the Beijing Olympics, he's only just coming to terms with it. He says he wants to get to a point where he can proudly tell his kids Daddy won silver and not feel that pang of regret. I hope you enjoyed the chat.
You are.
Well, Aiman, Thanks for having me in one of your venues. Where do we find ourselves today?
Today we are in Pogo, which is only been open for a few days now.
It's a far cry from where we first met. I think we first met two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, around twelve years ago. You were absolutely flying, but you spoke about all of the injuries that you'd already gone through at that time, and it was an astronomy cool list. Now, twelve years on, run me through the injuries that you've had throughout the course of your swimming career.
It's been I've been retired for five years now. I haven't had to think about what my body feels like anymore.
I just sort of deal with it.
But so I had five label tears early on in my career. That's sort of what started the surgeries for me, which is basically cartidge and a hip joint that tears, and the technology didn't exist to shave down the head of your FEMA to stop that from happening. So the first three were kind of not much point because it just kept happening. So I had two more, but by that time they had the technology and they fixed it
pretty well. So five hip arthroscopes. I've had yeah, tender itarists and burst IDAs since I was fifteen in my shoulders, which is kind of why I turned into a sprinter, because I couldn't swim long distances because my shoulders were really bad. And partly why I think I found a way to swim fast whenever I wanted to was I was kind of always in a TAA and that seemed to work for me, and I kind of figured that out too late in my career. I wish I had
to figure that out earlier. When I didn't have an injuries, I actually swam worse because I was always over training and I was trying to get better and doing too much. And the times I saw my best is when I had the most injuries. I had a lot of subluxed costovertible joints, which is basically your ribs in your back popping out of the spine's painful.
And that was, Yeah, that was just due to my dive.
I sort of tweaked my dive to be quite I guess, dynamic and doing a few things to get myself off the block a bit quicker and with a bit more force. So that happened from time to time, and that related to some neck injuries as well. I had dislocated fingers and stuff touching the wall.
Just prone to injuries, I guess.
So how many surgeries did you have?
Oh? Yeah, and I had.
I had three shoulder surgeries in the two years just before.
I retired as well reconstructions. No, not reconstruction, it's just clean outs.
And that was just something that obviously fifteen years of shoulder burst sardus ten to niners, there was just a lot of scar tissue in there, so they got cleaned out.
Once I had the year off, I think it was after London to have my first one, and that was I had that shoulder injury in London and swam with that knowing that I needed to have the surgery after the Olympics, and the plan was to have that year off open BIBB and Taka, which was my sort of first bigger venue, have the year off and just sort of enjoy training and get back into it, which I did, but I had to have a second one in that year off as well, and then came back and I
think I qualified won the fifty and twenty fourteen. That was sort of my first comeback year. I think I ended up having two years off kind of twenty fourteen. I made the Comm Games team in twenty fourteen and the fifty and then retired just before the Comm Games having my third shoulder surgery and after that just sort of having enough of worrying about my body. Oh yeah,
there's another injury. I forgot high attitude training in Arizona, we had a really spicy chicken dish cooked dinner for everyone one night, and it was a really spicy packet sauce and it was delicious.
And I woke up.
I didn't make it as a packet sauce, but it was spicy. And we're just in like service apartments. We always cooked inner together and it's always that fun part of traveling. And I woke up the next morning I had a bit of stomach pain. I'm like, oh, I must have been a bit more spicy than I thought.
I'm pretty good with spicy food.
Funny enough, we were having blood tests those mornings that morning before we train, just to see the effects of attitude on our blood and the oxygen levels and our bloods, just to see what it was from before we went up there to halfway through the training camp, and I was like, Stole, I don't think I can actually train this morning. I've got really bad pain in my stomach. And everyone's like, oh, you're just being a what's the right word to say on a podcast, Yeah, being a silk.
And the doc said, oh, look just go and get checked out because I was feeling really bad and.
They're like, oh, where's the pain.
I was like, it's just here and there, like it's just one side and I'm like, yeah, like we should probably just go get a scan, and they're like, yeah, your appendics are about to explode. So I was literally in surgery a couple of hours after that, getting my appendix removed through a keyhole.
And yeah, they all feel a bit bad calling Missilk after that. So that was another one.
But then following on from that, I actually I got back in the pool after four days because the doctor was like, oh, yeah, my son was playing basketball.
After four days, you'll be fine.
I found out his son was like nine, not like an elite swimmer, you know, doing and putting a lot of stress on your core muscles, which swimmers obviously do.
So I actually ended up tearing my transversive dominance muscle after that, so I swam all through that training camp and then came back and had a torn transversive dominance, which I had to have I think like a month off, and even now I still find I've got a really bad I actually got a bad back from that because I lost a lot of strength through my my core had it, and then I yea from that sort of got some really bulging disc down the track from that.
Also fractured my heel once.
At a training camp as well, and no one believed me with that one as well. That just remind me that story. We're doing some dive training in Mexico, sort
of a weird one to explain. I won't explain it, but you jump instead of upright and go feet first, and we're in the shallow end and I was doing the demonstration for these new kids and everyone, I just watch out, it's it's shallow, but I was focusing on doing it right that I actually didn't hear them, and I went down straight and just my head was above water by the time I landed.
And my this sounds like something that somebody like a punta would do stupidly, not an elite swimmer.
Well I am stupid, so it kind of makes sense and it's all those are the injuries I always have the unlucky ones. And yeah, I had like stabbing pain in my heel. I sort of got up and I was the same thing. I was like, I'm in a lot of pain. I don't think I can actually swim, and say, oh, you're being a silk again, and we went I got a scan. He was in Mexico, obviously
not the greatest healthcare over there. When I got a scan, yeah you look fine, And I was hobbling around and everyone thinks I was taking the piss and trying to get off training and again trained through that for three weeks, and we got back to Australia for a swim meet in Sydney and I was like, this is something's not right. I got another scan before we started the sum meet. I've done two races and I get a call from the doctor. Luckily I checked my phone. He's like, ah,
you need to stop right now. You've got a big fracture in the back of your heel. So that was another couple of weeks I had to have off after that. So there's quite a few I've forgot about as well.
How lonely is rehab It.
Was more the mental battle of I guess when you're striving for that next step of knowing your competitors aren't injured, will assuming they aren't, I guess you don't know if they are. I did have times where I did go down a rabbit hole of catastrophizing everything, But looking back on it, that's actually what made me a better swimmer, was that I actually wasn't over training in the big picture of things. Now, on the other side of sport, I think you blow it up in your head like
it's sport it is, you know. I wish I could go back to feeling that bad in inverted commas because compared to the real life dramas of having kids and family, being in the real world where there's a lot more at stake, it's really not the end of the world. And I think it's when you are a sports person,
it's really hard to see it that way. It is your life, it is your career, but it's something you do for ten to fifteen years, and I wish you could have the mentality you have four or five years after you retire when you're actually in sport.
It's probably the.
One thing you hear at time and time again from retired athletes, But when you're in it, you think, I don't have to think like that because I've still got have the many years, but you just never know it. So definitely had my dark times, but we had some great sports psychologists and you build some good relationships that you get through it. And for me, my stress relief when it was like that was just cooking. I guess
that's why I'm doing what I'm doing now. Is I just loved when we were living in Sydney with a few of the boys, I'd finished training early, go home and cook a big dinner for everyone, and that was my sort of theay pudic therapeutic time.
I guess.
So when you're in a dark moment like that, what happened, what happened for you?
I guess it would be probably going underground a little bit. I think that mentality of like, oh if I can't do this, and models would do nothing, So I'd sleep in from training, or I'd miss a session, or I'd just be damn about things and probably just do less
in general and be not as motivated. The days where it was bad, it was that two or three days I'd just sleep in and you know, you coach with coy Go and where were You're like, oh, just you know, I wasn't feeling it, but it took me two to three days just to snap out of it, and then I'd be back sort of, you know, doing as much as I could, even if I couldn't do much.
Olympians fascinate me, particularly swimmers, because they've always had arguably the most pressure on them in this country when it comes to the Olympics. How do you cope with the pressure of being an Olympic favorites? How did you hand that pressure?
I don't think I I think I always coped with pressure when I was when I was doing well. But I think the big one was obviously two thousand and eight when I got beaten in the hundred.
I just went downhill.
I wasn't ready for that at all, and I don't think i'd had enough experience at that level to deal with.
Disappointment.
I think when you when you're not the favorite and you come second, you're pissed off. That's a bit different to being favorite wanting to win, and when it's taken from you by that point one of a second, it's pretty pretty brutal and trying to get yourself back up. There was definitely for me, it was the mental The mental capacity was there. I wanted to be there in that fifty, but my body just sort of it just I still remember the fear and my body was just flat.
It was just tired and so much emotional energy.
Went into that race and build up, and I guess the expectations I didn't think of, and I think to this day, I probably you know you still, even though you think you don't care what other people think, you kind of do, and especially a sprinter, you do have a bit of an ego. I'm not an egotistical person, but you want to be the fastest, You want to be the best, even if you say you don't care. I guess part of me did, and it's still taking me a bit of time even to this day to
get over it. It's one of the classic thing is it's like I made the biggest rookie mistake on the biggest day of my life in that hundred, assuming someone else's race rather than doing what I do best.
And that's probably the only thing I regret.
And at the time tell us what that means.
Assuming someone else's race.
So my race plan was to get out in front of everyone and make them chase me. I wasn't an endurance athlete, but I was fast. I had easy speed, and I could get far enough ahead of people and have enough energy in the tank to usually hold on, as opposed to some of like Michael Phelps, would always start way behind and drive over the top of people. So that was sort of my I guess it's a strength, but it's also a weakness and racing a lame Bernard.
We were pretty similar, like we're both reasonably fast on the first fifty and pretty strong on the second fifty in two thousand and eight, and in the I think we're going back and forth with that one hundred world record. So he was the word record hold leading in in one hundred. I was the word record holder in the fifty. I broke his world record in the lead off of the four by one by I think point point one
of a second. And then in one hundred freestyle individual in the semifinals, he broke my word record in the first semifinal I think by point zero five or something, and then I came out two minutes later and broke it back by point two or three of a second.
So forty seven zero five.
I think it was, you know, in point two point three of a second doesn't sound like much, but consuming terms, it is, so I guess I was pretty confident going
from that semi finals the final. I remember having the conversation my coach stead of going, oh yeah, what I can probably do is just be out in front of his shoulder and just try and take it a little bit easier in that first fifty, so I have enough energy on that second fifty to really hammer it home as opposed to going, this is what I'm doing and not even talking about his race plan. And as soon as I dived in, he was already in front of me and I was playing catch up the whole race.
So my game plan went out the window. And it really rattles you when you're not in control, especially when you're a speed athlete and you used to being in front with people chasing you. So my technique went out the window. I was rushed and unfortunately, air got pipped at the post by point one of a second.
So were you panicking while you're swimming?
What's a mental space not panicking?
I wasn't as far out of control as I thought, But you know, I wasn't where I wanted to be, So as soon as I turned in that second fifty and he was already he was in front of me, that was when I started going, oh shit, I've stuffed this up. And you go from being confident to going what have I done? And you know, it's that that classic case of you've got to wait four years if
you get another chance, which I didn't obviously individually. So it's one of those things that it's hard to see the positives of getting a silver medal at Olympics, which anyone would be happy with, which if I wasn't favorite, that would have been a dream come true to get a silver Olympics in an individual event?
Does times slow down in that moment, the moment from when you go, oh shit, I've stuffed this up to touching the wall.
What I certainly remember more of that race than races that you win and everything goes to plan. I don't remember much of because it happens so organically and you just feel you don't. It's automation. When things are going wrong, you're aware of a lot more stuff. So I remember a lot of that race. I remember my reaction. I remember every single thing in that moment, and it's something that I still have.
I still have.
I still have dreams of making comebacks because I think, see deep down, I want to come back and prove myself. But I think that's some of that mentality. I'm still trying to shad as a you know, an ex Olympian now in business and being in the real life of trying to be the best at stuff. I think that's probably the thing I've found the hardest to get rid of is just finding a different groove now that I'm retired, and just being happy being a person, being a family member,
and not having to be the best at everything. I'm still competitive with everything I do, like video games, and I think with mates, you kind of still want to beat, you know, And I'm starting to just enjoy, you know, playing social water polo on Wednesday nights and getting I get beaten in the sim off legs to get the ball because I'm unfit, and you know, it's hard to hearing everyone get excited that people are beating me, but I kind of I'm starting to not.
Care about it.
But at the start, I didn't want to do the swim up because I didn't want to get beaten. But now I'm just doing it because it's fun and that's what it's all about. So I think it's it's definitely hard to shed that mentality.
When you reflect on that race and you talk about it as in depth as you are, Now, how do you feel inside when you talk about it?
I feel better about it now, I think. You know, Actually, recently I've started seeing.
We're talking twelve years on, aren't we?
Yeah? Is it twelve years? It is? Yeah? Yeah.
I actually did start seeing a psychologist recently just to just to talk. I think I used to speak to sports psychologists every other week, and now that I've got six businesses to kids, you know, the life is stressful and it's hard. There's not many people you do talk to about that stuff anymore. You don't talk to your friends about, you know, how busy are it works because
everyone's busy. It's a different type of thing. And you don't want to download on your wife everything that's going on because she's got two kids at home, and I kind of I reckon she's got it tougher than I do, so, you know, and that's part of it that I've been speaking about, is that the expectation I've always had of myself, and I think it relates to that race of where I'm out at life now. Did I need to open five or six businesses? Probably not. I probably could have
just done one and been happy with that. But I think that athlete mentality is stuck with me, and I think it's what's driven me to do what we do. And with my business partner Scott and you know, Steve Hooker and Jamie do I are business partners and a few of them and a lot of them as well, I think that mentality I've always wanted to get bigger and better.
Is that athlete mentality is part of it.
Also trying to feel a void of what you didn't you know that in your mind you didn't achieve the ultimate.
Maybe I don't know. I think it's a bit of both. Maybe.
So Yeah, I guess I reflect on that race, and yeah, for the first for the first year especially, I.
Didn't want to look at it. I didn't want to talk about it.
I felt like I failed, which is a really shitty way to feel. It's hard to not think like that, I suppose when you're so invested in something and I think look now, like I referred to earlier of realizing you know, yeah, Olympic silver and Olympic gold and at the time that's your whole life. Now I've got two kids looking back on what would I choose kids? You know, And I think I've set my wife and I've talked
about it quite a bit. If I had I've got that gold medal, would I be at this point in time in.
My life and have met her?
Would I've been at the Lama bar and Subiaco, you know, drowning my sorrows and meet like meeting her? Or would I have, you know, stayed in Sydney or to live and you know, retired earlier because I might have had a bit more money and who knows, but I probably life would be different. So I think I've always been a big believer if everything happens for a reason. Sometimes it's hard to think like that, especially at that time.
But now I am where I am now, I certainly think it all happened for a reason, and I'm starting to find peace with it, even though it's so close. I would have loved to have had that gold medal, but certainly now I'm in the mindset of I don't want my sporting creator to find who I am as a person, and I'm really enjoying where I am at life. I love being back in Perth. I love the fact that I've got two beautiful kids. I'm obviously married to Naomi, and you know, it's taken twelve years to get there.
But I certainly believe, Yeah, things happen for a reason, and it does define who you are and how you deal with things. So I certainly didn't deal with it great the first couple of years. But the fact that I'm, you know, found another passion and it drove me into another passion.
I certainly think that's.
Sort of what fueled me getting into this and probably going as hard as we have with what we do, probably harder than we should have. But at the same time, if I had got God, I might not have wanted to jump into real life as soon as I did and everything. So, yeah, I think I do believe anything happens for a reason.
So that moment, because there's the famous shot of Bernard and you in the background sort of slightly out of focus, and you just you have that look on your face like what just happened? This can't be real.
It was more like your EF kidding me because I knew exactly what happens.
It's a podcast. You can swear if you Yeah.
I was like, you're fucking kidding me, You an idiot. I was more angry at myself, Like he swam a good race.
He was, he was point, he was the same time he did in the semi. I was point too slower. If I had to swim my time that the semi, I would have won by point two of a second. Happy Days. So yeah, I was. I was pretty pretty raw about that. But I was honest in my interview and I said the better man one other day, which was true. He swam his race, I didn't swim mine, and that's that's the rookie mistake.
Does the four years that you've put into it come into your mind in that moment.
No, not really.
No, you know, being at the Olympics and being with your team, that's for me, that's what it was all about. And that's the only thing I miss about swimming is traveling the world with your mates and having fun. I think that's what I missed the most. You know, and when you've got two kids and you can't leave the house on a Sunday because one's asleep and the other
ones having a tantrum. You think about when you used to be in Monaco at the man Ostrom tour, and or you can eat buffet every night in a nice hotel and you know Prince Albert's putting on soirees for you.
It's it's pretty good life.
It's a fair way from that. So yeah, I think at the time, you don't. You don't think of it like that. But yeah, as soon as as I retired, that's certain thing I missed. I missed competing and I missed traveling. The training side, I always hated. That's a sprinter.
Black line on the whole bottom of the book.
You never I never thought I looked at it until I did.
Like an open water swim and I swam in a zigzag like you don't realize how much you actually needed. I'm useless of open water swimming. But yeah, the training side of it, I never enjoyed it. But I enjoyed the camaraderie of pushing yourself to limit with your mates and the mates you meet along the way.
You're listening to ordinarily speaking with Aim and Sullivan, you obviously have that race and you win silver. So I know you feel like you lose gold, but you win silver, and then the fifty meter is well where you end up coming six. So a lot of people look at that as being the greater disappointment, but you see the one hundred meter as is that fair?
Yeah, it's funny. I listened to it as a podcast called the can I plug other podcasts?
Of course she can.
I listened to a few podcasts.
But as long as you listen to this one as well, I'll.
Listen to this episode.
Yeah, there's one called the Happiness Lab, and there's actually a one on Olympic silver medalists and did the study of happiness of the podiums at Olympic Games, and the silver medal is always the most unhappy person on the podium, which makes sense, and it was very relative to me. I think they talked to Michelle Kwan, the figure skater. They got silver and a fifteen year old beat her, but she was so happy just to be there and couldn't have done any better. She had a great score
and she was happy. Whereas the people know that they could have done better, we're always the unhappy ones.
And I think that's my category to a t.
So, yeah, it's an interesting you reflecting on that, But certainly the fifty I was actually I felt like I did try and dig myself out of that mental hole that I was in, but I dived in and my GoGG was filled up that day, and I think I was ahead at the twenty five, and my gog was a full of water. I didn't know where I was, what was going on, and I panicked a little bit.
And it's not an excuse, So it shouldn't be an excuse because you trained for that not to happen, but that c only happened to me twice in my career. God was filling up with water, so it was a little bit unlucky. But yeah, I was more disappointed about the hundred because when you come sixth, you were never you know that mentality. You come second, you lost gold, You come third, it's better than fourth. You come fourth, you missed third, that's shit. You come six you were
never in it anyway. So as long as you did a good time, you're happy. I didn't do a great time. Obviously I was a word record holder, but I think I was already so down about the one hundred that it didn't even register for me. That I'd miss something there. I was disappointed, but I was already defeated mentally going into that race, I think even though I tried my best to dig myself out of that whole, so you know,
I was lucky. I still had a great meet with the With the relays, we got a silver in the four by one bronze sorry, and a silver in the four by one medley, So I did a pretty good last leg of that. And when you're doing a relay, it's always a different energy level as well. So I walked away from that relatively successful, you know, but not what I wanted to be.
And that's what I wanted to say. Because you're a three time Olympic medalist, two silver isn't and a bronze, How does that summary sit with you?
It's pretty good, correct, I.
Guess yeah, if you said to anyone, And as a kid, it's always based on your expectations when you're a kid. I never thought i'd get to Olympic Games, let alone win a medal. You know, growing up, I was always a great relay swimmer. I managed to sum really fast in relays for some reason, but when it came to individuals, I was never the same.
Athlete, and my relay splits were always.
Better than my individuals because I just love being part of a team. And if I said to myself I was going to be a world record holder and a favorite and anything going into an Olympics, you know, I would have been so happy. But yeah, when you're in that moment and you're already the fastest in the world and you miss out on something, it's hard not to have that thing. But I guess now, I guess now. I don't really think about it too often. I'm pretty busy with what I do. I'm not trying to forget
about it. But at the same time, I don't want it to be the only thing that people remember me for anymore. So I'm not holding onto that like. I don't want it to be, oh, that's Aim of the you know, the Olympic swimmer. I'd be quite happy with my whole family just going, oh, that's Aim and you know he's he's a great family man, he's a great son, and you know, I'm doing well in life, and that's that's all I care about.
Now. I think part of me probably.
Trying to suppress that side of it because I was disappointed with the disappointed.
It's probably the wrong word now, but.
It sounds to me like you're almost you're talking about it and you're almost trying to convince yourself in this spot right now as well, a little bit.
Like now, I think my mentality has changed the last year. Yeah, I think it took me a long time to be okay with it. I think subliminally I probably was pushing myself a lot harder in the business world to try and prove myself and to try and prove that I didn't fail at something. But now the last year I've really come to terms with what that sport was and where I'm at. And I guess kids probably changed it
for me. I think, yeah, you know, it's a cliche, but it has so I think I'm trying to phrase it the right way.
I think I haven't. In my head.
I've come to terms with it, but I don't think i've said it out loud.
As to.
I don't know how to put into words. I suppose, so, yeah.
You said that that impacted you for the next couple of years. How did it impact you?
I just I wasn't as driven when I moved to Sydney. I i didn't get as injured in Sydney, so I did work a lot harder. I was working harder and I got overtrained, and I just I just wasn't the same person, Like I wasn't as driven I was. I was doing the one percenters, but I you know, when you're in Perth, and Perth is a different place to Sydney as well. Sydney's Sydney's pretty crazy compared to old
sleepy Perth. You know, there's there's so many more events that go on, and obviously when you when I moved to Sydney, I was a bit more well known, so I was getting invited to GQ Awards and all that stuff that in Perth just doesn't happen. So there's a lot more distractions and I probably drank a lot more on weekends THO would when I was in Perth. And yeah, I just wasn't as dedicated. I guess I wasn't as driven to being the best.
Lost motivation, but I was still in mentality of wanting to be the best.
So it's kind of like you can't you can't have your cake and eat it too, And yeah, I just did, I just I just I think it was a missed opportunity that those four years between two thousand and eight and two tenty twelve and a bit of a blur of you know, there was some injuries, there was a lot of travel, It was a different mentality. It was a bigger bunch of you know, we had a Jeff Hugel, Andrew Lord of Stein had a Bood Andrew Bood Libby trick at training with us. So we had a lot
of fun. We traveled a lot, but the results weren't there for me. I had some good relay wins in twenty eleven, the World Champs in twenty eleven that were great, but nothing really great individual of note, which I guess is disappointing. I had the opportunity to really leap frog and get better and better, and I just didn't take the chance. I think I was. I think mentally, I don't know. I don't think I ever wanted to be that famous, and I didn't deal with it that well.
And I think I sort of, yeah, I never want to. I remember, Yeah, I just never wanted to, never thought I would be, and never I've never even though I'm I guess I've dealt with a media side relatively well and I'm comfortable in front of the media. I'm actually quite a quiet person, and I think it comes across
as roods times, like I'm in social situations. If I meet new people, I'm not as outgoing as I am now, I'm quite quiet, and I think people sometimes think that's rude, but I'm actually quite reserved and quite anxious and social situations the people I don't know, but media is different. I'm able to come out of my shell and say what I need to say because i know it's only for ten minutes and I'm back to being me.
So because you were thrust into this, to the spotlight.
At that point in time, Yeah, and you have to learn and pick it up really quick. You have to speak well and be able to get your point across without sending like a wanker.
And you know, fine, do you ever feel misunderstood by the media? Were you ever annoyed?
Or Oh no, the media never missed, never says the wrong thing and take something out of context, do they?
So you know, there's obviously a few instances I had with alcohol that were you know, when you're assuming and you drink four times a year and you have an after party, have a few too many and someone knows who you are. There's certainly a few times I had a bit too much to drink and did some silly things, and you know that, I'll take that on the chin
one hundred percent. But yeah, it's like my injuries. I just seemed to get myself into stupid situations by doing something that I didn't think was gonna hurt myself or you know, result in something like that, And yeah, you wake up next.
Morning and go shit, you know.
So, Yeah, Sydney was the missed opportunity, But I had a lot of fun and met some great people, and yeah, I guess I don't regret it, because again I think everything happens for a reason, and I don't regret not taking that chance because it wasn't where I was at mentally.
I think I was pretty exhausted and flat after two thousand and eight.
But at the same time, if I had my time again, would I do it differently? Maybe slightly, but not too much different?
Is it too far to say you were grieving? Was a bit of grief not winning what you know, what you thought you would, not doing what you thought you would, because I'd imagine you'd imagine it over and over and over in the build up and you know, putting the positive vibes out there.
And I think in the short term it was and it's a really putting it that way sounds pretty It sounds pretty bad grieving over something that's you know. But I was disappointed, and I was probably more embarrassed, even though it shouldn't be embarrassed like you know, but again that's you know, the meta expectation. I take that as embarrassment, not personally. It was more pissed off at myself, embarrassed
that I could have got there. Yeah, certainly that year, I went for a six weeks holiday with my best mate, you know, over in Europe and had a great time and came back and I was I think I put on.
Like six killers in five weeks.
I remember that it really hit home when I went bungee jumping and they right your weight on your wrist so that they know how much tension to put in the rope. And I started the holiday at seventy eight kilos and they wrote down eighty six and I was like, oh. And I met my mate in Amsterdam after four weeks, and he'd been in Europe he'd been living in London and he saw me in this second, Oh, mate, you've
been in a good paddock. And that's when I was like, oh, I've probably had a little bit too much to eat. But yeah, I guess grieving is not the right word. I was disappointed and probably embarrassed more than anything which turns into not grief, but that sort of mentality of of just go, oh, well, I muzz well, have a few more drinks, enjoy myself. And I do remember Thorpe, You're ringing me up after that one hundred, and he goes, mate, you've got to be the first person to break forty
seven seconds. And I should have said, yeah, you're right, and you know, got myself into that headspace, and I just didn't. I just said I've deserved a break, and I said I just dropped the ball and just enjoyed myself. And it was probably a bit of a probably like that.
That build up was pretty intense, and I probably wasn't ready for that build up and the ramifications emotionally of to dealing with disappointment, and I probably just did drop the bundle and go yep, I just need to relax, and I relax too, much never got back into that headspace of wanting to be the best.
Tell me about these dreams, because dreams fascinate me. I constantly have dreams that relate to work and all that sort of stuff.
What are your dreams about that?
And they ask you a question, I'm interested about this, you dare turn it off?
Ordinarily speaking, what do you dream about? What sort of dreams would you have?
Just that I'm training and I'm making a comeback and that I'm going to summer fifty three. And you know when you wake up and need you have those dreams where you wake up and you won the lotter or something and you wake up thinking you've got money.
I haven't had those. Mind tend to be more negative.
I remember when I'm younger, like you dream that you've won load and your wake up like, oh, I've got money. I'm going to buy a boat or something, and then you slowly wake up and go shit and you realize it's dream. It's a similar thing to that. I dream that I'm making a comeback and I'm committed to doing it, and I wake up like, oh, you know, going to make a comeback for the fifty three, And then you go, oh, no, I'm not.
They got.
But I think I think part of me always felt like I could do the fifty again, but I really don't want to. You know, it's going to be a great Olympics, so I will. I do wish I could be there competing, but that's the only thing I think I dream about is competing. I love racing and winning and putting it all on the line. That's the only thing I miss.
For people who are competing in those Olympics, how do you want the public to treat them?
I don't know.
I think the hard thing about assuming is that every four years people gives a shit.
It's kind of kind of interesting, like they still follow.
The results in the World Champs and comm Games. Comm Games is kind of an easy one because the UK and South Africa, there's not If the US was in the Common Games, it would be similar Olympics, Like we wouldn't win as many goals.
That's just the reality of it.
They've got such a strong team. So it is a funny one, Like it's understandable there's no sponsorship money assumming because we've been on the TV every week, you know, like AFL and other other sports.
That's reality. Of it.
That's the same with other sports and athletics. We've got some of the best athletes in the world and pole vault and track sprinting and long jump, and we're just not the public eye and that's fine with us. We've
never had an issue with it. But all of a sudden, every four years, you just get this massive interest in what we do because where some of the highest medal winners in the Olympics, and it comes and goes so quickly you've got to almost rev yourself up to be ready for it, and then you're back into another three years of once a year. And that's just the reality of US sport. It's that you've got one major meat
every year. It's not twenty two meets every year. So yeah, it's a hard one for young kids, especially for your first Olympics. It's I remember Todd Pearson having a chat before the first Olympics, just going and you walk into the pool for the first day and half of.
The stands as media.
There's fifty cameras from different things around the world, and it's unlike anything you're ready for, like a national championships is stressful, but when you walk into that it's it's next level, and it really is.
So I guess you like, especially.
Now that I'm a little bit older, you look at the team now, and when I was twenty three twenty four, I thought I was old, but you are young, and these kids that are on the team are twenty five and under and they're competing at the world's bigger stage and they've got all this pressure on them, and they are they are still kids, you know, and they are mature for their age, certainly for getting you know, all the media training they have, but they aren't just kids
as well. So it's they're doing some pretty amazing stuff. And I guess yeah, just like for me, it's we always knew the public supporters. So I guess it's a mix of the media and public perception. Is that the public's perception of sports stars are what the media report on. They don't look at a race and go, oh, well, he probably had a bad lead up and this and that, and you know, this person's doing a really good race and they still did a PB. They don't see that.
They see what the media right. So we're certainly at the mercy of what the public think of us by what the media right. So I guess it's hard to say that the public make your own opinions of stuff, because unless you're a sports fanatic and you know the whole story, you don't know. So I guess it's for me.
The Olympics is just a celebration of exactly what you were saying to me before this podcast, of it's people getting to Olympic Games that shouldn't be there that are having a great time, And sometimes I think that message gets lost of just you should be there to enjoy it. Like you've trained so hard, any result is a good result, even though it's hard to see as an Olympic athlete, if you have a bad race, you know what I mean,
just enjoy watching it. These guys have trained so hard to be there, and it doesn't matter what you expect them to do. All that matters is what they expect and their results. If they're happy with their race, we should be happy with them. If they're so disappointed, we should feel that pain and feel the disappointment because there's
so much work that goes into it. We shouldn't punish them for having a bad race and not winning a gold or a silver, or not performing to our expectations because our expectations don't matter.
When you reflect on your career, all the injuries, the achievements, the disappointments, how do you summarize it, and how do you summarize yourself?
Ah, that's pretty deep.
I guess I summarize it as training for real life. I think that's what sport is in a way, like it teaches your time management, It teaches you how to get over obstacles, teaches it to work in a team, and when you get into real life, if you're working in a corporation or if you're on a business, that's what you have to do. Skills that I learned along the way that I could transition into to real life.
I think the challenge now is dulling down that killer mentality and just enjoying life and finding the joys in life rather than finding ways.
To improve it.
Thanks for your time today. I think it's important, especially in Olympic year, people to remember what athletes go through and that they are human and that probably the public's never going to beat you up as much as what you've you've done in your own mind.
No, you beat yourself up more than the public, do well.
I appreciate your time and hopefully people hear it and you know, see things and maybe a bit of a different light heading into Tokyo.
My pleasure and I hope everyone seems well and performs well the whole team.
Time.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Ordinarily Speaking. If you want to get in touch, you can follow on Instagram ordinarily Underscore Speaking. And if you enjoyed the podcast, please make sure you hit subscribe and tell your mates thanks.
From you right a badas tell me that you want me. There's nothing like you want me God, because I'm competrating the fire and with the just me like you wanna me tho