Apogae Production. Hi, my name's beck Woodbine and welcome to Tenderness for Nurses. I'm grateful for the person that I have the opportunity to be.
So I hit it and parked it for Nelly four years. We always have free will, We always get to choose.
We are autonomous. Hi everyone, thank you for tuning back into Tenderness for Nurses. Today we have the wonderful Alice Williams, who I've known for many many years as she played water polo with my daughter Chloe here in Australia and she was part of the Australian team that won silver at the Olympics in the water pollo, of which I watched every game. Thank you for coming in. I'm so excited to talk to you. And we just saw the silver medal, which I just want to say, you need
a crane to lift. It's remarkable. But congratulations. How are you feeling.
Thank you for having me. I'm really excited. I'm good. Good, Yeah, I'm feeling pretty good today today. Yeah it is. I will say it's definitely a rollercoaster. They're really high highs and low lows I think coming out of the Olympics. So yeah, it's just taking it day by day for me, really.
Give us a little bit of an idea of the lead up to the Olympics and what you had to go through to get that silver medal.
Yeah, I guess like something that always comes up for me is people chatting and saying how amazing the Olympics was. And my response is kind of like, you see two weeks whereas I've trained for eight years to get to that point, Like I missed out on Tokyo, so deciding to go again was tough. And this year particularly, we as a team, as a big squad lived together for eight months before the Olympics, and that was grueling, Like, it was really tough.
The that inb.
Yeah, we were in Canberra for a fair beer, but we kind of moved around Sydney, Brisbane. We were in America for a bit too. Yeah, And that's like, I'm lucky that I'm in such an amazing team and squad that really love and support each other. But you know that at the end of the day, there are only thirteen spots and you're all trying really hard to get there.
So what happened with Tokyo? Did you have an injury?
No? So Tokyo was difficult. The kind of short of the long is in that cycle, I was in every team in the first two years of the four year cycle, and then the coaches switched and the new coach didn't particularly like me, so he dropped me a few years out, and then when COVID happened, he reintegrated me into the squad, and then I was one of the final few that were de selected before Tokyo.
I can't even comprehend what that must be like. But how do you move on from that and then get back in the pool.
It was so tough. I the reasoning behind why I was dropped as well for me, like is it felt like it was nepotism in my opinion, and so it was political. It may have been more of my skill, but the general consensus from me and the people around me was that it just wasn't okay. And so I took a couple of weeks off and I slowly started getting back into things, but I just didn't feel right. And I actually had a really close mentor at the time that pulled me aside and said, look, what's going
on like that, I know how difficult that is. She'd been through it, and I was like, yeah, I just don't know if I want to go on with this, Like what if I do this again for four years and put myself through everything that I did and I get this same outcome. And it was kind of a decision that I really had to put a lot of thought into. But at the end of the day, I had such amazing people around me, like such amazing coaches that took me under their wing while I was really struggling,
and they're the ones that kept me through it. Like I'm really lucky because I don't think I would have continued without them.
It's an interesting thing how one or two people can make or break a career in sport. Did you during that time see a sports psychologist to help you navigate your emotions to get in the right headspace move forward.
Yeah, definitely. I have a few sights, like we have our team site and then where I train is the Queensland Academy of Sports. I have a psychologist there. But I also, when I was about twenty one, just realized that I had more going on mentally than what sport
was presenting. Like I had a few like family related things, and so I actually started seeing a family psychologist just on my own, and that's who really helped me through that time, because sometimes I find with sports sykes they're really outcome oriented and the new solution, whereas with my family psych she is like very nurturing. She's like, I'm
so sorry that you're going through this. That must be really tough, and she'll just let me sit with it, which is I think what I needed, Like, I didn't really want someone to kind of come and keep me up the bum and say, you know you've got this, you can keep going. I needed someone to say, that's really tough and I'm so sorry.
I think we do all need to hear it. Yeah, wouldn't we.
Yeah, it just kind of wasn't at the time. This was what four years ago now. At the time, it just wasn't really what the sykes in sport were doing. They were trying to be like, these are your goals, these what we need to hit to get there, and that wasn't working for me. Now it's different. We have different psychs around our team and they're phenomenal, truly phenomenal, But I.
Think psychs are a very personal thing and you're not going to fit with all of them. Anyway, you know a lot of people go through quite a few before they find the right one. And do you think it's necessary to have a sporting psychologist as well as a family psychologist or could have you melded the two and just seen the family psychologist.
I think there are moments even my family psych says that she's like, I have no sporting background, I don't understand what you're going through. So she's really emotionally supportive and kind of keeps me grounded in that sense. But I do think a sports psych has been very important, especially this year for me, because they travel with us well, so that on the ground they see everything that happens, and they relay things like between like what the athletes
are saying. If it's like a general consensus from the athletes, they can then be like talking to the powers that be about what we may need and that kind of stuff. So I think they are pretty important, yeah, because they're just always around. They just they see everything go through.
When you, guys, when you made the team, and obviously everyone wants to go in and win gold, did you think you'd be in the top four in all honesty? Yeah, considering where a strain water polo had come from.
I think I hoped, like I really hoped, but we went in as sixth seed, and I was definitely aware of that. We went on a tour to America in April of this year and we got logged like seventeen to nine in those games, and that was really it was a bit demoralizing, to be honest. We've just done all this hard work in Australia on our fitness and our mental mindsets, and then we went over there and we got flogged. And so there were definitely moments when we were away that we were all kind of like,
oh God, I don't know. But that's where our sports site came in. And our coach is phenomenal with that as well. She really welcomes our sports siche and all the feedback that she gives. And we were game by game, minute by minute, like we never looked ahead. Even when we were in the pre tournament to the Olympics, we weren't thinking about the Olympics. We were just like, okay, game one, what are we doing game two? And then we just rolled through it like that.
So was that from Beck or Beck in the Sykes or the team made that decision?
I think it's like a combination because Beck was really open to hearing what we need needed as players, and we've only had male coaches before, so that was never Really she.
Was wonderful to watch on TV. How calm she was. It was palatable and it's interesting. I was speaking to a very good friend who you would know her daughter was reffing a couple of weekends ago and was abused by D three coach very badly. But what was interesting was the kids were starting to muck up as well. And I think if you've got this high stressed, I think the players feed off.
Yeah, one hundred percent. They were. Every game at the Olympics was stressful because it's the Olympics and anything can happen and everyone knows that, and especially in the first game, because it was my first Olympics. We played China and we'd beaten them eighteen three or something like a month earlier, but still going into the game, I was like so nervous I was. I couldn't really breathe properly. I was crying. I was like, oh my god, yeah, because I was like,
this is everything I've dreamed of. My parents are sitting behind me, I'm singing the national anthem, and it all feels so different, and then you get in the water and I was still really frazzled, but I'd look at the bench and Beck would just give me a thumbs up like no, like so unfazed by the whole thing.
And because she's already done two Olympics herself.
Probably and been an assisting coach, well, she's just she's she gets it. And it was really important in those moments because of all of our team, only two had ever played an Olympics in front of the crowd, and so everyone was a little bit overwhelmed and frazzled, and Beck was so calm the entire Olympics.
It never waved, so each game you felt the same hopping in the water.
No, I think the first game was the worst by far, because also our team had had an outbreak of COVID right before, and I was one of the athletes that had it, so I was just nervous about how I'd feel as well, like there were so many things at play, and so that was my worst game for sure, And then it gradually I kind of eased into it. I would say, there a moment so that I was more
stressed than others, like the Hungry Game. That was our last round game, and if we didn't win or draw, we would have come third in our pool and the crossover would have been completely different. Absolutely, So I think it was the first game, the Hungry Game, and then the quarterfinal. Other than that, I was like, Jesus, take the wheel, like we've done it. We're in the top four, and then it's like we just have to play now.
Did everyone on the team have the top of nerves you did?
No, Some people were, Some people were way more calm, some people don't feel nerves like. Everyone has their own kind of things in way of coping, which we love as well, because for me, before a game, I'm very I'm far away from the group with them in the same area, but I'll be on my own facing a wall. Because some people need the high energy to like stuck
themselves up, whereas I need absolute calm. Like if I feed off that energy too early, then by the time a game comes around, I feel so depleted.
Yeah, okay, energy is so powerful. Oh yeah, So I believe Jonathan Brown from The Lions. They used to have to stop him listening to ACDC deca before a game. Because he'd come out firing so badly he'd go out swinging. So you know, it definitely does impact you prior to a game, your routine without a doubt.
Yeah, one hundred percent. And we're not just there when the game starts. In the game's an hour. We get there like an hour and a half before to make sure we're they're in time and can get ourselves sorted, do our land warm up in pool, warm up our lineup, and then we get in the pool. So it's just such a long period of time that you're mentally and physically preparing.
You must be exhausted after a game.
It is like something else, especially the Olympics, because it was so emotional after a game. I'd sit and stare at a wall. I was like, what what just happened?
Like, So, how did you look after yourself with your recovery after each game? I'm assuming really good diet. You're careful who you spend time with. You know you'd go to your people. Did you spend time with family?
We limited that very limited. We were able to see them directly after a game. If we were quick at getting changed and can make the bus, we'd see them for maybe ten minutes. Other than that, I think we were allowed to go and see them twice within the whole three weeks that we were at the Olympics, And honestly, I did go and see them, but it made me feel worse. I had to go back, like I had to cut it short and go back to the village because it made me feel so anxious being away from
my teammates. And they were asking questions and they were just it was like how are you? But I was like, I can't get into that, Like I can't get into how I am because It'll just open a can of worms. And I've got to stay focused, Like I've got to stay in the zone.
You got to shuttle the other stuff out with that later, yeah, and just stay focused. Is that pretty much how its one hundred?
Yeah? Yeah? And there was a lot of outside stuff, especially when the COVID outbreak happened. There were messages and media and everything asking about it and like even Instagram, like it just blew up for all of us because we were successful as like every game, like we were winning, and so people were gravitating towards our team and you really had to block it out to stay sent.
To a message saying we're so proud, are you?
Oh? No, I love it because I saw it weeks after and like it makes me cry, Like it was so lovely and it was the best feeling.
But in the moment too much.
I knew that if I looked at them, I would get emotional and I can't expend that energy.
Wow, there's so much to think about. Yeah, so you've come back, and did you fall in a heap? Did you get sick, did you have a meltdown? Did you feel flat depressed?
Yes, So we went out partying, obviously the night that we won the medal, and then the other the following night we had the closing ceremony, and then I went on holidays with my family the next morning to Italy, and as soon as I got to the airport it was maybe ten am, and I saw them. I just started bawling my eyes out because I was like, I am so drained, I'm so tired. And we knew that that was going to come at some point, Like we'd all been told that the post Olympic blues are truly
a thing. So when that happened, I was like, Oh, this is it, this must be them. But the worst of It came when I arrived back in Australia after being on holidays for a month in Europe, and i'd come home. I'd spent a couple of weeks at home and it was still really busy because people wanted to see me and see the metal and events. So it was around two weeks after I got home and everything started to settle and I was alone with my thoughts for a bit that I was, yeah, really down and
flat and sad. I'd be crying for reasons that I couldn't articulate why. It would just hit me like a wave. And I've spoken to my psych about it and she was like, it's kind you're in kind of a form of PTSD, because it's nothing like you went in there and you were going to potentially die, but you went into an Olympic gold medal game and you lost, and it's so hard to even get there, and I won't know if I'll ever make another Olympics or in another
gold medal game for that matter. So sitting with it and realizing that you were so close to your dream, you're halfway through the last hoop and you got pulled back, and it's hard to grapple with.
So that really upsets you that you didn't win gold, and everyone feels the same way. So it's like a scab that'll be there forever.
Yeah, basically, and even seeing my medal, like it takes me like a minute to look at it as well, because that's a reminder, you know, that I didn't get gold and I was so close. And everyone says, like people that have been through it, that with time, it does heal and you become more aware and accustomed to
those emotions and they slowly dissipate. But for now, it's only been like three and a half months since the gold medal game, and you know, sometimes even people say, they say, oh, Alice's gold medal, and I'm like, no, it's silver, Like I have to remind people that it isn't gold. And that's also kind of like a reminder assault in the wound too, you know, it's just a really you're in the call room. You get ten minutes
after the gold medal game to get changed. You don't need get to see a family, You get changed into your podium outfit, and then you're waiting in a call room in between the gold medal winning team and the bronze medal winning team and they've both won, but we just lost to get a silver medal, and people don't understand that.
It's interesting you say that mel Bexist is a good friend of mine and I remember her always saying that she'd prefer a bronze over silver because they finished on a high they won that game. Yeah, it doesn't make I mean, I get it, but I don't get it. Yeah, if that makes sense. I do get the idea of winning, because we all like to win. But it's an interesting concept. But you're right, like you were between two winners yet you still got silver.
Yeah, it is so weird. And I'd never thought about it or heard about it before I had you, No, never, No one had ever told me about what it's like to get a silver medal. You only hear about the gold or the bronze. No Australian women's team has ever done it.
That. We've done gold and we've done bronze.
Yeah, so it was a really strange situation. You got ten minutes to put a smile on your face after you've just lost the biggest game of your life, because you're going to go on the podium, You're going to get your medal and those protos are forever, you know, and your families and the crowd of crying because they're so proud of you.
But did you feel flat in that moment?
Yep?
Did everybody feel flat in that moment?
I can't speak for everyone, but I know the girls around me did.
Wow. Yeah, so you really felt like you'd let yourselves down.
Yeah. I was really disappointed. I was gutted. I wasn't proud. I was crying in the on call room with Tilly Cans because I was like, I don't I don't want to do this. Like that was huge for me. That game. I you know, it's just emotionally, even thinking about it, it is devastating.
That's so interesting. And yet I looked at you girls on the podium and felt such pride in you all. And I know quite a few of you that played, And I mean, yeah, it sucked that you didn't win that game, but I thought of the journey that you've all been through to get to that point, and most people never even get the chance. Yeah, and I just thought how amazing you girls are. It's not funny look
at things. I suppose differently, but you're the athlete. You're the one that was in there, and I do get it.
Yeah, it's perspective. And you know, well, I do go and talk at schools and I at functions and whatever, and I do talk about this, and I think it makes people feel uncomfortable because they just want you to be proud of yourself. So they're like, yeah, you lost, but oh my god, that's silver. That is incredible, Like we are so proud of you. And I'm like, it's amazing, Like I want people to feel that, like it's just we have like an Australian silver metal, Like it's not
just mine. I'm representing the country. So you're allowed to feel that. But also I'm allowed to feel.
Oh without a debt, got it. And I think when you speak with honesty and from the heart, it does make people feel uncomforted. It really does.
Yeah, oh god yah. And like if someone said that to me, I like, if I hadn't seen it, psych like for my whole life, I wouldn't notice. Say I'm so sorry that you feel that way. I'm here for you if you need anything. People say, oh, you know, like don't worry about it, like you'll be fine, like you're in time. It all you'll understand the gravity of what you've done. And I'm like, but even if I don't,
that's okay. No, it's your journey exactly, Like yeah, so it's just funny because yeah it's people see it as winning a silver medal, but right now I'm in the space I I've lost to get a silver.
Medal, you lost to gold. Yeah. You have been a big advocate around mental health and being very honest with mental health in sport. What triggered you to be such a strong advocate for it?
I think going through what I have, I've had so many setbacks, like so many. When I got dropped from Tokyo, that was one thing, but since then, like health and all those types of things have pushed me back to And I just felt like when I was growing up, there wasn't someone talking about it, so I never had someone to to. I felt like it was just me experiencing it alone. You know. It was always kind of like if you got dropped, it was like we'll get
back up and train harder. But for me, it's like, no, you get drop sit with it. That's really sad. You had a goal, mourn it, grieve it, just take a minute then you can get back into things. But I just had no one to look to when I was younger. So now I feel that I can be that person for young girls, particularly because we go through it. Women go through it way more than men. They don't even
come close. Like for me. Whenever I see young girls, I say, I'm so impressed by you, you know, just getting up and doing something today because it's tough, and you're so brave because you don't know what a girl's gone through. They may have just gotten their period this morning and having and they've been demetriosis and they're having the worst pain of the whole life. But they're at school, they're sitting there, they're getting their work done.
That's brave, that's so brave. Or they've been led to believe that that's normal, yes, and it's anything but exactly. So you also are a big advocate for talking about normal women's cycles in sports, so periods, period pain, windo, that sort of thing. Why did you feel it was important to discuss that because it does make people feel uncomfortable.
Yeah. I think that's one of the reasons why I started, because it was so taboo and I'm like, well, one of the biggest statistics in women's sport is that girls stop playing sport from around for the time they start their period onwards because they feel uncomfortable, they don't know how to handle it, and they lose interest because, especially in water polo, you're in togs yep, like body hair periods, tampons, like so many things, acne and all that stuff comes
into it. And so instead of having someone that kind of has been through it and can guide you, we had no one had that, so they just stopped. And that's just so disappointing to me, so sad, you know, Yeah, it's just we're just I feel like we've just failed young girls thus far. So that's one of the reasons that I really.
Think about them.
Yeah, I really do want people to like listen and hear what girls have to say, because it's powerful.
I do find well. I have felt that playing water pollo was one of those sports that I loved because it did encourage women to be strong, to be tall, to be proud of their bodies. You know, you do have to wear togs walking around the pool, and I can't tell you the pride I used to feel in the young girls just owning their bodies or at the Olympics, you know the center forwards that are always bigger women, they just own it. Or what's the name of that
amazing American football Alona. Oh my god, totally in love with her. She's just owned it and good on her. She's so strong, and I think we've got to turn it around, the dialogue around. And you know, strong women are empowered women. You know, women with muscles and that are fit and healthy, they're amazing. I mean, look at Julia Robinson. I interviewed her for the podcast. She's in
the Jilarus Plays rugby league. She got totally trolled on the Broncos page because they put a photo up of her and she's very muscular, works very hard at her body. She is remarkable, looks remarkable. They had to take down and stop any comments because the vitriol and the comments were so foul about her. I was ashamed. I was so embarrassed that people could be so cruel. Yeah, so cruel. It's it's disgusting it has on someone.
Like oh yeah, oh one hundred, Like I'm in a team of women, you know, like it's empowering every day to be around them. But we are human before we are athletes. Absolutely, and that's also what I talk to whenever I'm at an event. We people forget. I've had some disgusting comments on my Instagram posts. Oh absolutely, like it's always sexualized or Cellulight City or all that kind of stuff. But like for me, and there are moments, like it's normal as a human to have moments where
you feel self conscious. I feel self conscious all the time, you know, but it's the way that I work through it and my teammate's lifting me up that makes me keep going. But some people don't have that. They don't and that's so sad that that could be something that you know, makes will deters someone from you know, playing their sport or putting up photos of themselves when they look a certain way that isn't stereotypical, and it's vicious.
And it causes people to commit suicide. It impacts on mental health. Words actually do have consequences.
One of the girls when We're Away uploaded a video that was really funny of the way that we have to stretch our dogs out before we start playing because they're like suction to you. But their comments were insane. It was thousands of comments from people. There were I think like sixty million views on this Instagram and you know, most of it was being like, hah so funny. Didn't realize then the other half was look at those muscular women, how disgusting. Look at their arms and it's these fit
Olympic athletes. It's like, you couldn't be more peak than us, absolutely, And I'm like, just shut up, like we are like beautiful, phenomenal, successful women and you don't like that.
And we're at the Olympics and you're in your aarmn't you exactly? What was the best moment of the Olympics for you?
The best moment was I know I was saying that the first game was the hardest, but walking out and seeing my family sitting in their floral yellow shirts with Williams on the back, love it. That's what made me cry because, like I said, people see the two weeks the Olympics. My parents have seen me since I was born try and do this kind of stuff, and they
always believed in me. You know, like when I think about who I was representing when I was up there, obviously myself and my country, but it's those people that were in the stands as my family and my best friends because they've gotten me through the darkest of times, Like you can't do it without a really solid support now.
Because honestly, they would feel like it's just as much their medal as it's yours.
Oh my dad, oh his next level. Like we were at an event the other night and someone came up to him because he's holding my medal and he said, oh, my gosh, congratulations is silver medal. That's incredible and Dad, I'm standing right next to him, and Dad says, yeah, thanks mate, Like it was such a journey to get there, and I was like, hey, I'm Alice Williams. It's my medals.
My dad like it was like it was his, Like it was like he but like I didn't care like it because it is partly you know, it's so many people's partly. Like there was another moment that I just thought of that was one of the most specialists in the Hungry game and that was a really, like I said, tough game. We had to win or draw. And it was in the fourth quarter. I think it was my
fourth goal that I'd scored in the game. And there's a photo of me claiming it to my parents because they were directly in front of me after I scored, and that moment for me, it was like absolutely euphoric.
It was so good.
It was like, when I think about it, I get goosebumps because everything I've ever wanted in one moment, scoring a goal of the Olympic Games to get us up by a point or something. My family was right there on their feet, literally screaming. You know, you just don't find that a normal life.
No, you don't. It's so special.
It is.
What Now, how's day to day life were you?
It's different, Definitely, it's less stressful. I'm slowly getting back into things like I'm back at water polo training.
Do you think your corterisole levels were like through the roof?
Yeah? I think my sych said it becomes like a baseline, like a really really high quartersole level baseline that you maintain and you have to really actively try to switch it off when you're at the games because otherwise you can't sleep and stuff, and it just accumulates. So I think the come down was my final flight mode switching off and being like, oh, you're actually safe, You're okay, We're in our normal environment, you're at home. You can feely feels.
You think you'll go for the next Olympics.
I'm going to take it year by year. That's my aim and my goal. It depends on if I'm feeling happy and healthy, because if something you know, there's always lulls in sport, but if it's something that you know, pushes me into a place that I don't want to be for an extended period of time, then I know
it's time for me to retire. It's also kind of hard to come back because it's scary for me as well, now that we're not the underdog, you know, people and like people expect things from me now too, because I had a good Olympic campaign and.
An amazing omquit campaign.
So it's like can I do that again? You know, like will I be able to reach that potential that I had and I did? Or am I kind of like have I peaked? You know? So it also it's like something you think about.
So because you just got named as one of the people in for the water Pollo Player of the Year, yeah worldwide, Yeah, congratulations, thank you you did? Have you had a blinder?
Thank you you truly did.
You saved all of that up for that campaign. I love it.
Yeah, I think I just you never think about it in the game, like you never afterwards we review it and you know, think about it, and you know, I kind of I thought, you know, Gabby palm Our goalkeeper was phenomenal as well, so and I don't even feel it now. I don't even feel like I'm like, yeah, I'm one of the best players in the world. I think maybe when I retire, I'll look back on it
and be like, wow, that was cool. But yeah, these accolades and stuff, it just isn't really like something that I think too much about.
I just want to say thank you so much. Your positivity and honesty is really refreshing. And you haven't glossed over anything. And from someone who has you know, a daughter that's played a lot of high end sport, I know that there are some huge highs and some massive lows, and I think it's really refreshing that you're talking about it and the sport's under going to improve because of your honesty, and I think it's a wonderful thing. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Thank you for having me and giving them media space to be vulnerable. I really appreciate it.