March 28, 2025 • 50 mins
In this episode, we speak with Jane Flemming, who made her name in the late '80s and early '90s as a golden girl in track and field, a two-time Olympian – and Commonwealth Games gold medallist – specialising in the heptathlon and long jump. Flemming retired before the Sydney 2000 Olympics and transitioned into a career in media, marketing and management, but 18 months ago she took on a different role altogether, as president of Australian Athletics.
It’s an exciting time to be in the role, too, with a host of local mid-career champions like Nina Kennedy, Jessica Hull and Matt Denny, not to mention junior stars on the rise like Torrie Lewis and Claudia Hollingsworth, Cameron Myers and, of course, Gout Gout. Flemming talks to Good Weekend senior writer Konrad Marshall about everything from her early years as an athlete to the DNA tests being used to "protect women's sport", and the runway to Brisbane 2032.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:08):
Hi, I'm Konrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age. Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, a magazine
for your ears, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people from
sport and politics, science and culture, business and beyond. Every week,
you can download new episodes in which top journalists from
across our newsrooms talk to compelling people about the definitive
(00:30):
stories of the day. In this episode, we speak with
Jane Fleming. Fleming made her name in the late 80s
and early 90s as a golden girl in track and field.
A two time Olympian and Commonwealth Games gold medallist competing
in the heptathlon, as well as being an adept sprinter,
hurdler and long jumper, she retired before the Sydney Games, however,
(00:51):
transitioning to a career in media, marketing and management, and
18 months ago she took on a different role altogether
as President of Athletics Australia. It's an exciting time to
be in the role too, with a host of mid-career
champions like Nina Kennedy, Jessica Hull and Matt Denny, not
to mention junior stars on the rise like Tori Lewis,
Claudia Hollingsworth, Cameron Myers and of course, gout. Gout. She
(01:15):
joins us in the studio with The Age today to
talk about all that and more. Welcome, Jane.
S2 (01:20):
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
S1 (01:22):
Oh, it's a real privilege. Let's start at the beginning,
shall we? So you were born in Horsham. So I
was going to ask you about life out in that
regional town. But then I believe you kind of grew
up on the eastern edge of Melbourne, around Belgrave. So
what was it? What was your movement?
S2 (01:36):
Well, so I was born in Horsham, but we were
only there for six months and then moved to a
place called the Dookie Agricultural College, which is halfway between
Shepparton and Benalla, and it's a tertiary campus and we
lived on the campus. So I'm one of five children,
and my dad worked for the Victorian Agricultural Department. And
so it was, I have to say, a brilliant way
(01:56):
to spend the first eight years of my life and
my siblings. Um, we had the run of the college.
There was a swimming pool opposite us. There were tennis courts.
We were in the country. I recall going to the
poultry on the farm to on the college to pick
eggs up, and we'd pick them up in a bucket
and walk home with them, swinging that bucket around, keeping
(02:19):
the eggs in there with centrifugal force, and taking a
cane clothing basket down to a field of corn that
was going to be plowed up the next day. So
we all picked the corn and brought it home in
the basket. Before that, um, that field was plowed. So
we had a really brilliant early childhood. There were only
42 pupils at our school, and there was the big
(02:41):
school and the little school, and actually it was quite, um,
formative for me, even in terms of my introduction to athletics,
in a way. How so? Yeah, because I went to
my mother, dressed my older brother and sister and I up.
This shows how old I am actually in the white
Terry Towelling shorts with a white t shirt and a
pair of Dunlop volleys, and drove us the 26 miles.
(03:04):
It was at that time to the Shepparton and District
Primary School Athletics Carnival. When I was seven years old
and I came home with a chest of blue ribbons
for all sorts of exciting things like the egg and
spoon race and the three legged race. But I also won,
and I think I may have broken the record for
the 40 yard sprint. So. So that was me until
I was eight. And then we moved to the Big Smoke.
(03:24):
We moved down to Melbourne and lived in a place
called Ferntree Gully, and then sort of in my, in
my sort of early to mid teens, we moved up
to Monbulk in the dandenongs and then I did, I
went to school in Belgrave. Yeah.
S1 (03:36):
Hilly country up.
S2 (03:37):
There it is. Yeah. You didn't want to go for
a jog? I don't like turning bends or going around
corners when I run. That's way too far. And there
was a lot of that in Monbulk. Um, but, you know, again,
I think it was it was a great place to
kind of spend some time because it was it's beautiful,
as most people know here in the dandenongs if you're
in Melbourne. And, um. But I used to say to dad,
(03:57):
When I'm old enough, I'm going to live in Collins Street,
because the commutes that I used to have to do
to go to sport and to university were beyond, um,
and partly what drove me to move to the Institute
of Sport in Canberra, actually at the age of 20. Yeah.
S1 (04:12):
Right.
S2 (04:12):
Right. Yeah.
S1 (04:13):
So you eventually made your name, of course, as as
we said earlier, as a hurdler, sprinter, heptathlete, just all
round gun athlete. I'm, I'm always curious to know how
people land on certain events in maths. Is it this
process of elimination where you try them all and figure
out that you're good at this? Or is it to
do with what you like? Like, do you choose the
(04:34):
event or do the events choose you?
S2 (04:36):
So when we moved to Melbourne, there was, you know,
I had honestly the six month period in my life
that was, I think engendered my love of athletics. So
the first thing that happened was that carnival I just
spoke to you about. And I've often thought back and
I think with everyone that's really successful, there is a
moment in your life where you go, that's what I'm
going to do. So whether it's, you know, a US
(04:57):
president or whether it's an artist or somebody finds their thing.
And so that was the first thing. And then when
we moved to Melbourne and went to this primary school
of 600 pupils, they had sports houses. I didn't even
know what they were. Right. You know, I was eight
years old, but they were called Elliott, Clarke, Landy and Double,
so named after four famous Australian unbelievably successful track and
(05:22):
field runners.
S1 (05:23):
Yeah. From a golden.
S2 (05:24):
Age. Yes. They were. And you know, I now look back.
I ran for the Landy house and John Landy and
Marjorie Jackson, my two all time heroes. Not so much
because of what they did for athletics, but because when
I met them. And when you've had some success and
you meet a lot of other successful people, they're quite
disappointing as humans.
S1 (05:44):
Sure. Never meet your heroes.
S2 (05:45):
Yeah, but, um, they were even greater people. And they
are larger still alive, greater people than they were athletes.
So I'm so pleased that I ran for the Landi house. Um,
so that was one thing. And then the first. My
first really, I guess, friend that I made, um, did
a thing called Little Athletics.
S1 (06:03):
Yeah.
S2 (06:03):
Okay. And I had no idea. Like, we were so
naive coming in, coming from the country. And I went
home and said to Mom and dad, can I go
to this thing called Little Athletics on a Saturday morning?
And they actually said no. So because we used to
have to go to religious instruction classes on a Saturday morning,
and then they got changed to a Thursday. And I
often joke that, um, you know, I wasn't given this
(06:26):
talent for no reason. Kismet kind of came to it.
And then I did little athletics. And of course, the
premise of Little Athletics is that you do a whole
lot of different events. And I never really knew. I
was naturally good at sprinting and jumping and hurdling, but
I just never knew at state championships. And you could
only enter three events, and it was always a battle
for me to decide which ones I would do. So
(06:48):
I was drawn to quite a lot of different things,
but I also played quite high level netball and played
basketball as well. So I.
S1 (06:56):
Could.
S2 (06:57):
So I could throw. And so then learning when I
got the opportunity then to throw a javelin, then I
loved the javelin. And um, again, I think there's sort
of a number of things. So that happened. And you know,
my brother, one of my brothers, is four years older
than me. I was always allowed to play with him
and his friends because I could. Yeah. And so I
think that helped. And then when I that was that year,
(07:20):
there was an Olympic Games on and there was a
programme which is super. Anyone that follows sport in and
Olympics would know unbelievably groundbreaking series called Olympic Minutes. Okay.
And they were filmed by a guy named Bud Greenspan,
an American producer, and he was the official film maker
for the Olympic Games for years and years and years.
(07:43):
And his brother used to narrate these shows. And he
would start off with, I can give you a little
bit of a, a little bit of a take on this.
He would start off going Herb Elliott. 1960 Rome Olympic
Games Men's 1500 metres. And then they would run through
these amazing colored stories that would be, you know, ten
minutes to half an hour. Well, that show was showing
(08:06):
on a Monday night. And I was an eight year
old girl or a seven year old girl allowed to
stay up till 11:00 at night to watch that on
a Monday night with my father. So I learned about
the Olympics and I learned about not just athletics, but
I learned about people like, well, Paavo Nurmi, who's a
unbelievable Finnish distance runner. And indeed. Yeah. And, you know,
(08:30):
Lasse Viren and Dawn Fraser and Herb Elliott and Clark
and Landy, you know. So I learned about all these
other people and the Olympics, and it kind of led
a little bit of a fire within me as well.
So there was sort of those three things, the names
of the houses, the little athletics thing, the carnival. And
then this Olympic minutes Got me going. Yeah.
S1 (08:52):
You move into your career when you're in your prime.
You're a big name in Australian sport and a really
recognisable figure too. You had the the big blonde hair,
the steely gaze when you were out there competing. What
did you love about high level competition or maybe even what?
What do you miss most now that you're you're not
a high level athletic competitor?
S2 (09:15):
I was very single minded, and most people would say
that when they saw me on the track. Um, although
I laugh, one of my sons who's seen a photograph
of me with all that hair that I used to have,
and he goes when he was little, your mum, you
look like Simba. Simba's the lion from the Lion King. Um,
(09:36):
I loved competing, I did, and I felt it was the,
I guess, the mental challenge, the physical challenge, everything about it.
I did an event where there were seven different types
of event. And I'm an eternally optimistic person. Like ridiculously optimistic.
And always. I knew if something wasn't going well, something
else would go well, you know. And I was a
(09:57):
very hard worker, which I think, to tell you the truth,
in athletics can be a disadvantage. Okay. So I have
a theory that, um, you're better off being naturally lazy
than a natural workhorse in athletics. Because if you're a
natural workhorse, you generally get hurt and injured. So I
used to say, if I'm training and I'm not training, well,
(10:19):
then I want to keep training until I'm training well.
And if I'm training well, I want to keep training
because I'm training well and inevitably doing seven different events.
The load was very was high. I don't think I
trained harder than other athletes, but I had to train
more like longer hours, but to try and combine the
seven events of the heptathlon. So, um, so I think
(10:42):
that was, uh, that was a really big challenge that
my coach and I had to try and balance, and
I wasn't very good at stopping and in fact, at
the end of my heptathlon career came because I had
made a I had made a judgment in a moment
of rationality when I wasn't training, that if I was
doing a session for my 800m and I ran the
(11:04):
last 100 of any of the reps, I was doing
slower than 18 seconds, and I needed to stop the
session because I would become technically bad. And then, of course,
in the middle of a session, I did do that,
and instead of stopping, I just dropped a rep and
kept going. And that was when I finally hurt my Achilles,
which ended my career. Really. Um, so it's kind of
interesting to do that. And I think that that's where
(11:26):
it's a coach. Being present at a training session is
really important for someone who works really hard, because usually
they're the only one that can give you permission. You
won't give yourself that permission to take the session off.
And I often recall I was at a, um, actually
a post competition where I was commentating and I had
a conversation with Rob de Castella, our legendary marathon runner,
(11:50):
and he and I were talking around all sorts of
other things we were doing in life, and at one
point he said, people like us need to not do
things like Everest or other such challenges, because we don't
listen to the signs because we're so goal driven. Yes. So, so,
you know, I don't miss competing because it's a that
(12:11):
moment in my life was very intense, but I'm so
glad that I did it. And I still love the
feeling of running.
S1 (12:19):
Do you reckon he'd set you up with lifelong sort
of healthy habits as well?
S2 (12:23):
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. But the other thing that I know
myself quite well is that I've realised I'm quite goal driven.
But now what I did after that intense decade or
15 years is I changed my goal to try and
be more balanced because I know it's a healthier mentally
and physically a healthier way to to be. Yeah, completely. Yeah.
S1 (12:43):
Um, I just wanted to talk about one very might
be a minor experience, but it sort of stood out
to me. So you were an Olympian twice. Came seventh
in Seoul in 1988 and then went to Barcelona 1992. Um,
with all due respect to Cathy Freeman lighting the cauldron
in Sydney, the opening ceremony moment for me is the
(13:04):
lighting of the cauldron in Barcelona.
S2 (13:05):
With the arrow. The era.
S1 (13:07):
Were you there that night?
S2 (13:08):
I was, no, I wasn't, because I had had a
stress fracture in my foot and I had a very
interrupted lead up. And so we decided it was better
for me not to be standing around on my legs
for 4 or 5 hours. But I have to say,
those games were incredible. Yeah. And there is a real
difference between hosting a games in a country, because I've
now been to, I think, ten Olympic Games and a
(13:30):
Youth Olympics. Um, but the difference is between hosting in
a country that has a sporting culture to one that
does not. And so I've been to so for example, Seoul,
I competed in and it was fantastic and everything, but
it didn't have that atmosphere. And then I got to Barcelona.
I remember after I, I unfortunately didn't get to finish
(13:52):
competing because I got hurt in my warm up and
then but I remember going back to the stadium and
the men's decathlon was on and in the discus or
in the discus and the hammer, the cage, the arms
of the cage are movable, and they're supposed to be
on a particular angle or have a certain amount of
opening space for it to be legal. Okay. So one
(14:12):
of the officials kept moving the cage, and then the
decathlete who was in the circle would get out and
walk out of the circle and go and open the cage.
And then the official would put it back and it
was this sort of toing and froing, but the crowd
were booing the officials and they were cheering the athlete.
And to me, that's such an unbelievable epitome of this
(14:34):
nation that knew what was going on. And they were
so vocal. And I guess the Spanish or the Mediterranean
countries have this sense of passion about everything that they do. Yeah.
So the Barcelona Olympics because you think about the arrow.
You think about.
S1 (14:48):
The song as well. The song. The tenors.
S2 (14:50):
The tenors.
S1 (14:51):
Para siempre.
S2 (14:52):
You know, and we were sitting at the closing ceremony
waiting for it to start. And down came Placido Domingo
to warm up at the piano. He was literally like
ten meters away. Yeah. And we were saying, if you,
you know, the price that people pay and you know
that organizations now charge for an opening ceremony ticket and
the likes and the same thing for Sydney. But I
was saying to people, it will be the best concert,
(15:14):
the best live show you have ever been to because
we were there with Placido, with the Three Tenors. Yeah.
You know, like, how often do you get to see them?
Plus all the support acts? Yeah. You know, and it
was the same when you think about the Sydney Olympic
Games opening ceremony was just mind blowingly good from the
moment that horse came charging into the stadium. That was
(15:37):
special with the Lone Rider, with the waltz combination of
Waltzing Matilda, you know, being played in the background to
the lawn mowers being pushed around to the Hills Hoist.
You know, like the whole thing was the was, you know,
tap dogs tap dancing en masse up and down the stadium.
And the stadium was just rocking. And I think it
is the greatest show you can ever go and see.
S1 (15:59):
To switch gears and go to the the slightly lesser games,
the Commonwealth Games, that was where you had gold medal success. Yeah. Um,
Victoria famously pulled out of hosting, um, the games, uh,
and a lot of people in athletics, people who had
won medals at games and kind of gotten their start
or their foothold in international, um, competition at those games,
(16:25):
feel really badly about that. And, and they're worried for
the future of the. Com games. I mean, how important
was it to you, to your career and your life?
S2 (16:34):
I think just not me. I mean, I think back
to those Commonwealth Games in Auckland. Guess who we saw
for the first time there Hayley Lewis. You know, and
if you think back to all the Commonwealth Games, they
are the breeding ground, certainly for the sports that are
both common between Commonwealth Games and the Olympic Games. They
are the breeding ground for our future champions. Who else's
(16:55):
first games were those ones in Auckland? Cathy Freeman.
S1 (16:58):
Kieren Perkins.
S2 (16:58):
Kieren Perkins yep. Cathy Freeman you know, probably it was
probably almost Anna meares too. I don't know, I'm just guessing.
But they are absolutely the breeding ground because they seem
reachable when you're 18, 19, 20 and you're coming from being,
you know, usually a rock star in your own small
little pond as a junior, and you need to take
(17:19):
the step up to seniors. And I and I recall
speaking to my sports psychologist once, saying to him, I
need to be able to walk around the warm up
track like I did when I was a junior, and
I had this kick arse attitude and I knew everyone
was watching me warm up. Yep, yep. But to get that,
to take that from being a junior to into being
a senior is a big step. You know, mentally. And
(17:40):
I think the way you carry yourself, having the experience
and other things and the Commonwealth Games really helped provide that.
So the more than anything, I think that's of a
concern to those sports that that have relied on that
to be that transition phase from being a very good,
promising young athlete to making a career out of it. Now,
I don't think sport is the be all and end
(18:00):
all in life, but what I do think is that
there is hardly anything that a country or a community
that pulls together a community and brings that social fabric
like sport does. We don't have religion anymore as a
as a commonality, but we still have sport.
S1 (18:20):
Yeah, the opiate of the masses.
S2 (18:22):
There is and there is this platform for sharing. And
you know, the Sydney Olympic Games was a magnificent example
of that, not just those people that were in a stadium,
but everybody at an Olympics talks to anyone because they've
all got something in common for that period of time. And,
you know, I was in Paris six months ago and
my husband came over and someone asked him, you know,
(18:45):
was how were the Olympics? He said they were fantastic
because everyone in an Olympic city is happy, you know,
and I think they these are the things in a
modern world where we are disconnected in other ways, and
social media tends to disconnect us and disconnect us in a,
in a real term where sport plays this magnificent part.
And I think the Commonwealth Games are another manner in
(19:06):
which we can use that. And then when you think
about and it's interesting, we're coming up to an election,
and I think around the political understanding of the importance
of sport. So to understand that it is the country's
psyche that got changed and bought out of the depression
by Phar Lap and the Bodyline series. And then you
(19:29):
think around, everybody can recall what we were all doing
when we won the America's Cup and the Cathy Freeman
race and the Kieren Perkins. Dan, um, Dan Kowalski, 1500m,
you know. And so these are the things that pull
our country together. And to try and especially in harsh
(19:49):
economic times, to try and lift our psyche as a nation. Yeah.
I think there is such an unbelievable intangible value to sport.
And that's why I think things like the Commonwealth Games
are really important. And if I think around without being too, um,
negative around the Victorian economy and a whole series of
(20:12):
other difficulties that Victoria have had after the lockdown periods
and the likes, the Commonwealth Games could have been the
perfect antidote to have tried to lift Victoria up another
level in terms of the state's psyche. Yeah.
S1 (20:26):
Beyond sport. So we mentioned that you retired in 1997,
that it can be really tough for a lot of athletes,
not just ones who haven't made a name for themselves
and have a, you know, a bunch of gold medals
to sort of rely on. But even those ones that
have done nothing but win and win and win, but
they've done it for half their life by the time
(20:49):
they're giving up at around 30. What was that transition
like for you? Did you go through any tough times?
S2 (20:55):
I was so lucky. Can I just say, though, I
think it's worse for the gold medalists because one of
the things that happens is if you can imagine when
you're still trying to train, and then there are so
many demands on your time from media and sponsors, and
you're the hottest thing ever, and then you retire. First
of all, you usually don't have any sort of career
other than that, and there are only so many jobs
(21:16):
in inverted commas you can do in media, um, that
all of a sudden, first of all, your value drops.
You don't get paid what you used to get paid.
And secondly, you're not hot property anymore. Yeah. So I
think that's terribly difficult. And I managed a number of global, um,
Olympic superstars, and I had to try and explain that
to them.
S1 (21:35):
I was going to ask you about.
S2 (21:36):
That.
S1 (21:36):
Because you transitioned into management. Yeah I did. And these
weren't small figures. You were managing Sebastian Coe and Michael Johnson.
S2 (21:44):
Yeah. And Daley Thompson. Yeah, but you know what? It's
because I knew Daley from our careers and things. And
also the other thing I think I was good at
because I wasn't relying on the money. So I was
making long term decisions on their behalf or trying to
guide them that way. Um, but I think, you know,
I was so lucky, first of all, that I did
seven events. I always studied or worked when I competed.
(22:07):
And again, those that don't win gold medals still have
to try and progress a career or work or study.
So I think there's the difference in transition as well. Um,
and then I got I had an Achilles operation a
month before the Atlanta Olympics in 96. So I went
actually got on the plane to go to Atlanta on
a set of crutches to commentate, and I came home
(22:29):
and decided that I would move out of Canberra. So
I had been at the Institute of Sport for 11 years.
11.5 years training for seven events. Right. So very time consuming.
Training for seven events. Working part time studying. And then
I moved to Canberra, to Sydney. And I decided that
I would try and give 400 metre hurdles a go.
(22:50):
So all of a sudden I've gone the balance had
gone from seven events to one event. So that gave
me other time to do other things. And then the
Sydney Olympic Games were the most perfect place for was.
It was perfect for me to be there because I
had a whole lot of other commercial opportunities and opportunities,
full stop that those Olympics brought to me to allow
(23:13):
that transition to be almost seamless. And there's and I'm
so grateful for that opportunity because I have seen lots
of other people struggle. And then I started, you know,
I had sponsorship and marketing company and started managing people. And,
you know, I was super busy and I was still
in a world that I loved. So it was. I
(23:35):
was so lucky. Yeah.
S1 (23:38):
Fantastic.
S2 (23:38):
Yeah.
S1 (23:47):
In 2013, you helped with an initiative called Live Life,
Get Active, offering free health, fitness and nutritional education online
and in local parks. Yeah. That title reminds me so
much of the 1980s life campaign. You remember Norm?
S2 (24:03):
Yes I.
S1 (24:03):
Do. Hello, toes and munch and crunch lunches. Um, do
we need more of those kinds of initiatives or campaigns, um,
to combat things like childhood obesity? Like, how are we
doing on that front?
S2 (24:16):
Yeah. Well, so live life, get active was a is
a free community initiative. It still goes on. One of
the directors, um, and one of the the co-founder of
the of the initiative. And at one point, we were
offering 170 different venues around all different locations around Australia,
offering free exercise classes to anyone over the age of
18 on a on a week daily basis. So yeah. And, um,
(24:40):
with more than 100,000 members and the likes, and my
role really was to go and try and get councils
to let us use their land for free, to conduct
the classes on, and also to try and help bring
corporate corporate partners and the likes into the organisation. Um,
and yes, I have a real interest in community health
because I think that it is horrendously expensive. And we've
(25:04):
always joked that we have the Department of Ill Health,
not the Department of Health. And if we don't look
at that, and I'm also on a federal government board,
that's to do with health, what's called a primary health network.
And if we don't start talking more and acting more
in terms of a preventative nature, the economic impact is
just beyond horrendous. And, um, you know, it's funny, when
(25:28):
we first launched 12 years ago, a number of people
said to us, oh, don't talk to the government about prevention.
You need to talk about treatment. Okay. And I'm like going,
oh my goodness. And now, 12 years later everyone's talking prevention.
But we were kind of there 12 years ago. And um,
I do think that it's still, you know, the social
media thing, the lack of incidental physical activity our communities
(25:53):
have now, society, in fact, worldwide almost has is really
playing out. And it will get worse and worse and
worse unless we do something about it. So, you know,
I've come out before and said, I think that every,
every second class in school should be at a stand
up desk. Okay. You know, and we should have drop
off zones a kilometer from the schools. And, you know,
(26:14):
we can do a whole lot of things with a
built environment, with the way in which we build our
world and structure our world, not just physically, but society wise.
You know what's what's popular amongst kids? You know what
is the norm? Well, it used to be the norm,
didn't it? to walk to school. So I have twin
or my husband and I have twin 16 year old
(26:35):
boys and they we make them walk to school.
S1 (26:38):
Yeah.
S2 (26:38):
Okay.
S1 (26:39):
I started making my, um, 12 year old son walk
to school every day. Yeah. Loves it. And it's. I mean,
it's a two kilometer walk. Yeah.
S2 (26:47):
Our kids used to do the same from when they
were nine, actually, and they would pick another couple of
their friends up around the corner. So we'd either walk
or ride a scooter or a skateboard or a bike,
and I'd run next to them with the dog and,
and actually, you know, you think about the benefits, the
physical benefits, but it's those social benefits, which is, I
have to say, one of the magnificent things that Covid
(27:08):
has delivered, athletics, is that finally people have started to
understand what we all love.
S1 (27:16):
Yeah. About missed it.
S2 (27:18):
About. No, about running. And that's why run clubs have boomed. Yeah.
We know that when you run regularly and exercise regularly
with someone, you become really good friends with them, because
you have a whole series of incidental conversations and different
to swimming, or riding a bike or rowing a boat.
When you run, you can talk to someone. Yep. And
(27:40):
so it's become this social connection.
S1 (27:42):
What's the pressure free side by side? It is too,
isn't it? You don't have to be face to face.
You're just jogging along.
S2 (27:48):
And also, you know, if you're doing it 4 or
5 times a week with someone, then you do talk
about a whole series, actually, at times intimate things that
you don't even think are intimate. Only on looking back
at those would you think that's the case. And that
is what builds the fabric of a really good friendship.
And so we're so excited at athletics to now talk around.
That's why we've rebranded to Australian athletics. We think this
(28:11):
is a sport that Australians should own, that Australians connect with,
that everybody's done at primary school or now at a
run club, all the things we've known about it. And
it's not just in a stadium and it's not just
track and field, it's athletics. Yeah.
S1 (28:29):
I love that. Yeah. Australian athletics instead of athletics Australia. Yeah.
Didn't realise that. Yeah. Um, so you were appointed president
18 months ago? Well, um, what did you sort of
see as the immediate things you wanted to address or
what have you, um, been able to do, do you think,
or get underway?
S2 (28:47):
Yeah, I've been on the board for nearly five years now.
S1 (28:50):
And then vice president for four.
S2 (28:52):
Yeah. And then and then, um, president for the last
18 months. Last year we had two really two big goals.
And one of them was to do the rebrand and
to start to bring in to almost change the definition
of athletics. Like, we we like to say, if you've run, jump, thrown,
rolled or walk, then you're an athlete. Yep. You know,
so to try and broaden the definition of what our
(29:13):
what people perceive our sport to be. And then so
we did that that piece which has gone super well.
And then also to do a little bit of work
with the digital stuff. But um, when I first came
onto the board, the, the organisation needed some settling down,
which has sort of was done. And then and then
when I came in as president. Now we are honestly,
we are onward and upward. We are. We have very
(29:35):
big ambitions and big dreams and big visions, and we
have a fantastic high performance group within our organisation and
it's being played out. Um, I look back at some
of the things that we've done in the last ten years,
and I think one of the instigators of all of
this is we ran a coach mentoring program, and we've
(29:55):
had this great group of coaches in our sport for 20, 30,
40 years. And all of a sudden they started helping
out some of our younger coaches. And they are coaches
that coach Eleanor Patterson and Nicola Squires and um, uh, just,
you know, Kelsey-lee Barber and these coaches that were, you know,
(30:15):
really doyens of the sport had been previously either just
continued on doing what they were doing or lost to
the sport, and now they were back putting into these
young coaches. And those coaches are now ten years older
and have had this enormous success in knowledge bank and everything. And,
you know, we'll do the same thing with another group
as well. So our our sport is very coach driven
(30:36):
and I think that's been fantastic. We also have a
philosophy again driven through our high performance department, which is
around us getting the best performance on the day. It counts.
S1 (30:47):
Okay.
S2 (30:47):
So there's no point you doing a huge, massive performance.
You know, almost to a degree even at our domestic season.
We want you to do that at the Olympic Games
in the final or. Yeah, or at World Juniors on
the day that counts. Yeah. And it's been really incredible
to watch. You know, we've gone from Tokyo Olympics where
(31:09):
I was sitting there commentating to everyone in the commentary
area from other countries going, wow, what's going on in Australia?
We keep seeing your guys, you know, in finals and.
S1 (31:19):
Things. There were a lot of finalists.
S2 (31:20):
Oh well it was Peter Ball and but but you
know Nicola medaled. Yeah. You know, so we did have
some medalists, you know, and then it went from, from that.
And then if we kind of keep moving forward, then
the next World Championships were really good in Budapest, the
same thing, like people saying to me, what's going on
in Australia to the Olympic Games where we won seven medals,
which is our best performance since 1956, where in 1956
(31:45):
it was a six lane track and probably a third
of the number of countries that compete that do than
do now to, you know, our last year's Olympic Games,
as I said, second best and then a month after that,
which was just incredible. Our World Junior Championship team, where
we finished second in the number of medals that we
won behind the USA.
S1 (32:06):
Yeah, 2020.
S2 (32:07):
To 14 medalists, 28 finalists. Incredible, incredible. And then, you know,
we moved to the world indoors that were last weekend.
And seven medals there again second in terms of the
number of medals behind the US and the Sydney Marathon,
becoming a major. And athletics Australian athletics owns that event.
(32:29):
And you know, the announcement that was made three weeks
ago that you'll have Kipchoge, who's the greatest ever marathoner
we've ever had. He's the man that ran under two hours.
For those that aren't Athletics fans, you know he's coming
to run in Sydney. And so at the moment I'm
sort of going, here are the things you need to
go and watch as a sports fan, as an Australian,
first of all, if you get the chance to go
(32:49):
and watch YouTube Kipchoge, that's like watching Usain Bolt run.
S1 (32:52):
Absolutely it is. Yeah, yeah.
S2 (32:54):
And then I'm going and now we have this meat
on this Maurie plant meat that's a sellout. That'll be.
S1 (33:00):
The Saturday. Yeah.
S2 (33:01):
This. Yeah. It'll be the first time we've had a
meat sell out for more than two decades. And gout
gout's there. And I'm going. And my kids who don't
really follow athletics, all of them and their mates know
who gout. Gout is. People in the street know. I mean,
his name is is as such. But I sort of
do this analysis between where we are now before Brisbane
(33:22):
and where we were this time before Sydney. Yeah. And gout.
Gout is our Cathy Freeman. He's the star of the
show and I'm not putting pressure on him. But at
the moment that's how it looks. And that was Kath.
S1 (33:33):
There's an effect I mean.
S2 (33:34):
Yes.
S1 (33:34):
There is like kind of reminds me of when Ben
Simmons became the number one draft pick in the NBA.
It was like people talked about the Ben Simmons effect. Yes.
On Australian.
S2 (33:43):
Absolutely.
S1 (33:43):
And now there's there is the gout gout effect.
S2 (33:46):
But also it's not even just gout. Gout. The support
cast are amazing. So Cam Myers who's the world under
20 mile record holder Tory Lewis. You know who broke
the Australian women's 100m. You know there's you know and
then we've got the ones that we already know like
Jess Hull and Matt Denny and you know, Jemima montag
and Nina Kennedy. And so this support cast is amazing.
(34:10):
So we're further advanced than we were before Sydney. And
we haven't had the investment yet. Yeah. You know so
it's such like we are honestly the momentum is just
rolling for athletics at the moment. It's fantastic. And what
we don't want to do is we will not waste
this opportunity.
S1 (34:30):
Yes. I wanted to talk about a couple of the curly, um,
sort of questions in world athletics right now. So first, recently,
Lord Coe vowed to doggedly protect the female category in
world athletics, becoming the first sport to introduce DNA tests
with little. I think it's cheek swabs or perhaps blood
spots or something. Um, not just to sort of ensure
(34:52):
trans women remain kind of banned from competing at the
elite level, but also those difference of sex development or
DSD individuals like the Olympic boxers who won um, in
in Paris. Do you kind of where do you sit
on this. Do you sort of applaud that measure? Do
you think we need more study? Is it like the
nuance view where bans are really appropriate for the elite
(35:13):
level of sport? But we should still be, you know,
mindful of inclusion at grassroots level?
S2 (35:20):
Well, I.
S1 (35:20):
Think it's.
S2 (35:21):
A it's quite a complex issue and particularly for those
DSD athletes. But the only thing that I would say is,
first of all, that as Athletics Australia, we are governed
by the world, by World Athletics. So of course we
will do whatever um, the rules are. Yeah. And what
probably a lot of people don't know, and I certainly do,
(35:41):
is that in 1988, when I went to my first
Olympic Games, I had to do a buccal smear so
that what they're suggesting, which is on the side of
the cheek. And we were issued a femininity certificate.
S1 (35:51):
Okay.
S2 (35:52):
So this has all happened in the past politicised now. Yeah,
it is, but it was. But you know, we were
protecting the female category back then. Now if you know
the history of athletics, you remember there was a woman,
a Polish woman named Stella. I can't remember her surname
in the 20s. I think it was won the women's
100m later on proven she was a man. So, um,
(36:13):
so this has sort of been something that has, um,
challenged sport for years and years and years. Um, I
absolutely think the female category personally, this is I think
the female credit category needs to be protected. Every rule
in sport is made to give a fair playing environment.
And having elevated levels of testosterone in a human body
(36:38):
does not give a fair playing field. Okay. So and
then I would also suggest that it is challenging because I,
I believe everybody should have a place in sport. Everybody.
But that doesn't mean they should have a place in
women's sport.
S1 (36:55):
Speaking of women's sport and again of of Co um,
he was only recently rolled um, in the election for
the IOC presidency by former Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry. She's
the first woman in the role. The first person from
an African nation in the role and the youngest ever
leader of the IOC. What do you think her big
(37:16):
challenges are going to be immediately stepping into it.
S2 (37:20):
I think she has a massive responsibility, like the job
is a fully full on responsible role anyway. But because
of those three things you just mentioned, her burden is enormous.
So I hope and wish that she is very successful
in the role so that it opens the door to
(37:43):
more women, more African, more, you know, younger people to
do the same thing in the future. But that will
depend on the success with which she performs that role. Yeah, yeah.
S1 (37:55):
It'll be tough. It'll be interesting.
S2 (37:56):
It will be tough because. Yeah, and it will be
tough because, you know, well, first of all, global politics
is at an unbelievably interesting time at the moment. So
to deal with, with global politics, let alone dealing with
all of the, um, politics that come along with sport
at that level.
S1 (38:12):
Right. What happens in Los Angeles in 2028 if President
Trump wants to keep certain countries out of the games,
or if.
S2 (38:19):
Well, you know.
S1 (38:20):
He wants to keep Russia out of the game.
S2 (38:21):
Well, I think the LA games are going to be challenged. Yeah.
And I said I think they're going to be really challenged,
not for the reasons that you've just alluded to, but
nobody's really looked at it in terms of the impact
that those Los Angeles fires are going to have on
getting the games actually done. Sure. So we know in Australia,
from having lived through series, a lot of fires, that
(38:42):
there are inevitable consequences to that. So one is there's
a shortage of tradesmen. There's an increase in building costs. There,
you know, and in infrastructure costs, in everything that they'll
need to do for those Los Angeles Olympics is now
going to be so difficult and so expensive. And it's
only three years away. And no one seems to have
(39:04):
been talking about that at all. And I'm like, you know,
I know they're refurbing a whole lot of stadiums, but
it's really difficult. It would be very difficult for the
governor of California to be spending an enormous amount on
Olympic venues when they don't have internet or clean water
or sewerage or housing for a huge percentage of their population.
S1 (39:27):
From the other side of the world. Let's go back
locally here for a second. One of the issues that
I was really interested in last year, because I was
writing a lot about running and reading a lot about running,
was Olympic selection. Yes. Around the the Lisa Weightman issue
where she, she felt she had qualified and wanted to
appeal that decision and didn't ultimately end up being selected
(39:49):
for the Olympics. And there are all sorts of different
ways that selection could be done. Just for listeners who
aren't totally familiar with World Athletics. Yeah. The USA, for instance,
has a day of competition where you just you got
to you got to win or come top three or
you don't get on the plane. And we do it differently.
Are you happy with the way that selection works in Australia,
(40:10):
considering any changes to the selection process?
S2 (40:13):
Look, you know, when I came onto the into the
position as, um, president, one of the things that I
said at the board is that, of course, we want
to replicate the manner in which, as an organization, the
manner in which an athlete behaves. And we take expert
advice and we listen to that, and it's about us
getting the best performance we can out of the organisation.
And so we have a range of experts around the table,
(40:36):
around our boardroom table that have a huge amount of
knowledge that I have no idea about. So finance experts,
people and culture, a whole series of different skill sets.
So as an organisation, of course, we want to take
on and learn. And if we ever think we can
do selections better, of course we will adapt to that
and take take back, take in feedback. But what I
do want to say is that we have an independent
(41:00):
selection committee. Their job is to apply the selection criteria
that has been published. Every time we publish a selection criteria,
we have an open forum for athletes to ask our
chair of selectors any questions to clarify parts that they
(41:20):
may be confused about or that they want more clarity on. Further,
our selection panel. Our current selection panel has more than
200 years, a combined total of more than 200 years
experience in our sport. Yes. So they really have an
enormous amount of expertise that they draw on, and they
are from different aspects of athletics as well. So it's
(41:43):
not just a distance runner or a, you know, or
a track athlete or a thrower or, you know, it
is a vast array of expertise and experience that they
bring to the table. And I would suggest that that
is always used in terms of applying the criteria that
has been published.
S1 (42:01):
Excellent. All right. Just one more question then. Um, it's
a fun one. Yeah. The Murray plant meet is on
Saturday night. There are so many of the aforementioned athletes
that are going to be there competing. Not to mention that.
S2 (42:15):
I was about to say him. Yeah. World athlete of
the year last year.
S1 (42:18):
Athlete of the year. I was in the, um Stade
de France when he upset.
S2 (42:22):
No.
S1 (42:22):
Was it an upset do you reckon?
S2 (42:24):
No. So I'm not I mean, you followed athletics and
so have I. I mean, he won the sprint double
twice as a world junior.
S1 (42:33):
Yeah. Okay.
S2 (42:33):
Yeah.
S1 (42:34):
You know, we shouldn't have been shocked.
S2 (42:35):
No.
S1 (42:36):
All eyes were kind of on Lyles.
S2 (42:37):
Well that's because of his antics right. You know and
sprint sprinter. And I did laugh when I was talking
to the um CEO of World Athletics I said oh
I don't know about sprint. I said I couldn't watch
it after two episodes. I said, all of that carry
on by the Americans because it's very Un-australian of course,
to do all that. He goes, we don't make it
for you.
S1 (42:56):
You got to have a bit of swagger.
S2 (42:57):
Yeah I know, and sprinters do. Yeah they do. Although
Let's Seal is not as much like that, you know.
And um, and you know the greatest thing isn't it,
about sport and certainly it certainly is about athletics is
you win one week and you lose the next? You know,
there's not many that win week in, week out, week in,
week out. So it should keep you, keeps you relatively humble.
(43:17):
But I think the Murray plant made honestly, we're starting
off with the women's 100m at 6:04 p.m.. For those
that are lucky enough to have got tickets and that'll
be a great race, but at 612 we have the
men's 100m and that is going to be a cracker
of a race. So we've got, you know, Lachlan Kennedy,
who won the silver medal in the World Indoor 60s.
(43:39):
He's only 21 years of age which is young for
a sprinter.
S1 (43:42):
He's going to be great at um nudging gout gout
forward as well over the years because he's such a
good starter. Yeah. And gout isn't.
S2 (43:50):
Well. And then Sebastian Sultana, who's still a teenager and
he won our senior nationals last year. Rohan Browning ran ten, 12,
two weeks ago. So. And then Browning and gout. Gout
are not in the four by one. That just broke
our national record. Right. So I looked up the times.
And so the the time that the boys ran or
the men ran. A couple of weeks ago, when they
(44:12):
broke that national record with four athletes in the team.
So the four by one would have had them finish
fifth at the Olympic Games. But the Olympic four by one,
the Americans got disqualified, which is not unusual. There were
two teams that didn't didn't finish or got disqualified. There
was less than half a second between the six teams,
(44:33):
but the first five and then another a little bit
to the to the sixth team. So I'm going if
we finish fifth and we've got no gout, gout and
no rowing Browning in that. And that's with these other
young men that haven't improved yet. Yeah seriously if we
get our changes right in LA, can you even I
can't even. It's so hard to even fathom that we
could be in in the run for a medal in
(44:54):
the men's four by one at the Olympic Games, because
you can imagine gout running the back straight. Yeah. So
here's a.
S1 (45:01):
Bit of a wind.
S2 (45:01):
Up. Well, here's a piece of information that most people
don't know. You can see I'm getting very excited about this. Yeah.
So there's been an analysis done on the last 100m
of the top. Top 200 metre runners of all time. Okay, done.
So how fast have they been.
S1 (45:19):
After the turn, you mean? Yeah.
S2 (45:21):
The last. The last 100m. Gout's time in that company
is fourth.
S1 (45:27):
Wow. And he's 17.
S2 (45:29):
And he's 17. And I'm like, that is crazy. Yeah.
And so you put him down the back straight off
a fly. Yeah. Okay. And then we know what Rowan
can do. Or one of those other those young boys, like,
they're all their average age of those guys running the
hundreds is under 25. Yeah. And you know, sprinters mature later.
So we look at that with them. And then we've
(45:51):
got this pool of women in the 100m as well.
And every one of our relay teams at the World
Juniors finished in the medals. Two of them got disqualified.
But that's the depth that we've got going at the moment.
You know, like it's super exciting. And then you think
about there's a young kid most people don't know of,
a boy named Mason Magruder.
S1 (46:12):
Yeah.
S2 (46:14):
Mason Magruder went to the World Indoor Championships in Lima, Peru,
last year, his good AFL player. So we're trying to
keep him in athletics at the moment, which is good
because Gout's helping with that because I'll tell you about
that in a minute. But he became the youngest ever
world junior champion, world junior medallist for us at the
age of 15. He won a medal in the long jump.
(46:34):
You know, like that's like our juniors are under 20. Yeah.
So he literally fought a four and a half years
younger than everybody else in the world at that age. Yeah.
So you know, there's it's just it's very, very exciting.
But what I wanted to say to all those other
sports that keep stealing our talent or targeting our talent,
(46:55):
and I understand that there was a few of the
football codes or a couple of the football codes trying
to chase him as well, but were like the fact
that he is or, you know, or the the rumour
that he has signed a deal with Adidas for $6 million.
I'm going, that's way more than you're ever going to
make playing NFL or AFL. And we have a home
Olympics coming. And so our market is rising.
S1 (47:18):
Well, I was going to ask you what event you
were most excited by.
S2 (47:21):
I don't know.
S1 (47:22):
But I don't think you're going to be able to
answer that.
S2 (47:24):
No. And the men's 400, by the way, when you
want to have a look at this world athlete of
the year. Yeah. That's your Tobago. So just so you
know he won the 200 of course. And he's 100
200 meter runner. But his personal best for the 400
is faster than our Australian record.
S1 (47:39):
Wow. That's exciting.
S2 (47:41):
And he's got the other three from the 4x4 which
in Botswana where they won the silver medal at the
Olympic Games. The other three of his relay team are
running in that 400 as well. So you know like
we don't we won't even know where to look. And
the other person I should mention in all of this
for the Maurie plant meat, is that Matt Denny thinks
(48:01):
he may break the Australian record.
S1 (48:03):
Wow.
S2 (48:03):
In the discus. And Matt Denny won an Olympic medal.
So that gives you an idea. And and for the
kids out there, he's going to throw nearly 70m. Now
you need to at some point go and stand out
the front of your house. And if you've got a
regular sized front yard or house width in Australia, he's
(48:24):
probably jumping more than he's throwing probably four houses long.
It's just crazy to think when you when you look,
he's throwing a plate a, you know, a plate, a
plate down a shopping aisle. Yeah, yeah. You know, 4
or 5 houses down your street. Yeah.
S1 (48:44):
Well, you've got a very big year in athletics ahead. Yeah.
You've got a board meeting tomorrow. Um, thank you so
much for coming in. Yeah.
S2 (48:51):
That's okay. And and can I just say thank you
for all your support for our sport? You know, it's
really hard to get the sport out of your blood
once you've got it in there. So thank you for
your help.
S1 (49:01):
It's interesting. We're going to have a great ride over
the next decade or so.
S2 (49:04):
We sure are.
S1 (49:08):
That was Australian Athletics President Jane Fleming talking with Good
Weekend senior writer Conrad Marshall on the latest Good Weekend talks.
Coming soon we chat with Ellie Cole, the former Paralympic star,
star broadcaster and now children's book author. If you enjoyed
this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate and comment wherever
you get your podcasts and keep tuning in for more
(49:30):
compelling conversations. Good Weekend Talks is brought to you by
the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Proud newsrooms powered
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Herald or The Age? This episode of Good Weekend Talks
is produced by Konrad Marshall and edited by Tim Mummery,
with technical assistance from our executive producer Tami Mills. Tom
(49:54):
McKendrick is head of Audio and Greg Callahan is the
acting editor of Good Weekend.
Hi, I'm Konrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age. Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, a magazine
for your ears, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people from
sport and politics, science and culture, business and beyond. Every week,
you can download new episodes in which top journalists from
across our newsrooms talk to compelling people about the definitive
(00:30):
stories of the day. In this episode, we speak with
Jane Fleming. Fleming made her name in the late 80s
and early 90s as a golden girl in track and field.
A two time Olympian and Commonwealth Games gold medallist competing
in the heptathlon, as well as being an adept sprinter,
hurdler and long jumper, she retired before the Sydney Games, however,
(00:51):
transitioning to a career in media, marketing and management, and
18 months ago she took on a different role altogether
as President of Athletics Australia. It's an exciting time to
be in the role too, with a host of mid-career
champions like Nina Kennedy, Jessica Hull and Matt Denny, not
to mention junior stars on the rise like Tori Lewis,
Claudia Hollingsworth, Cameron Myers and of course, gout. Gout. She
(01:15):
joins us in the studio with The Age today to
talk about all that and more. Welcome, Jane.
S2 (01:20):
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
S1 (01:22):
Oh, it's a real privilege. Let's start at the beginning,
shall we? So you were born in Horsham. So I
was going to ask you about life out in that
regional town. But then I believe you kind of grew
up on the eastern edge of Melbourne, around Belgrave. So
what was it? What was your movement?
S2 (01:36):
Well, so I was born in Horsham, but we were
only there for six months and then moved to a
place called the Dookie Agricultural College, which is halfway between
Shepparton and Benalla, and it's a tertiary campus and we
lived on the campus. So I'm one of five children,
and my dad worked for the Victorian Agricultural Department. And
so it was, I have to say, a brilliant way
(01:56):
to spend the first eight years of my life and
my siblings. Um, we had the run of the college.
There was a swimming pool opposite us. There were tennis courts.
We were in the country. I recall going to the
poultry on the farm to on the college to pick
eggs up, and we'd pick them up in a bucket
and walk home with them, swinging that bucket around, keeping
(02:19):
the eggs in there with centrifugal force, and taking a
cane clothing basket down to a field of corn that
was going to be plowed up the next day. So
we all picked the corn and brought it home in
the basket. Before that, um, that field was plowed. So
we had a really brilliant early childhood. There were only
42 pupils at our school, and there was the big
(02:41):
school and the little school, and actually it was quite, um,
formative for me, even in terms of my introduction to athletics,
in a way. How so? Yeah, because I went to
my mother, dressed my older brother and sister and I up.
This shows how old I am actually in the white
Terry Towelling shorts with a white t shirt and a
pair of Dunlop volleys, and drove us the 26 miles.
(03:04):
It was at that time to the Shepparton and District
Primary School Athletics Carnival. When I was seven years old
and I came home with a chest of blue ribbons
for all sorts of exciting things like the egg and
spoon race and the three legged race. But I also won,
and I think I may have broken the record for
the 40 yard sprint. So. So that was me until
I was eight. And then we moved to the Big Smoke.
(03:24):
We moved down to Melbourne and lived in a place
called Ferntree Gully, and then sort of in my, in
my sort of early to mid teens, we moved up
to Monbulk in the dandenongs and then I did, I
went to school in Belgrave. Yeah.
S1 (03:36):
Hilly country up.
S2 (03:37):
There it is. Yeah. You didn't want to go for
a jog? I don't like turning bends or going around
corners when I run. That's way too far. And there
was a lot of that in Monbulk. Um, but, you know, again,
I think it was it was a great place to
kind of spend some time because it was it's beautiful,
as most people know here in the dandenongs if you're
in Melbourne. And, um. But I used to say to dad,
(03:57):
When I'm old enough, I'm going to live in Collins Street,
because the commutes that I used to have to do
to go to sport and to university were beyond, um,
and partly what drove me to move to the Institute
of Sport in Canberra, actually at the age of 20. Yeah.
S1 (04:12):
Right.
S2 (04:12):
Right. Yeah.
S1 (04:13):
So you eventually made your name, of course, as as
we said earlier, as a hurdler, sprinter, heptathlete, just all
round gun athlete. I'm, I'm always curious to know how
people land on certain events in maths. Is it this
process of elimination where you try them all and figure
out that you're good at this? Or is it to
do with what you like? Like, do you choose the
(04:34):
event or do the events choose you?
S2 (04:36):
So when we moved to Melbourne, there was, you know,
I had honestly the six month period in my life
that was, I think engendered my love of athletics. So
the first thing that happened was that carnival I just
spoke to you about. And I've often thought back and
I think with everyone that's really successful, there is a
moment in your life where you go, that's what I'm
going to do. So whether it's, you know, a US
(04:57):
president or whether it's an artist or somebody finds their thing.
And so that was the first thing. And then when
we moved to Melbourne and went to this primary school
of 600 pupils, they had sports houses. I didn't even
know what they were. Right. You know, I was eight
years old, but they were called Elliott, Clarke, Landy and Double,
so named after four famous Australian unbelievably successful track and
(05:22):
field runners.
S1 (05:23):
Yeah. From a golden.
S2 (05:24):
Age. Yes. They were. And you know, I now look back.
I ran for the Landy house and John Landy and
Marjorie Jackson, my two all time heroes. Not so much
because of what they did for athletics, but because when
I met them. And when you've had some success and
you meet a lot of other successful people, they're quite
disappointing as humans.
S1 (05:44):
Sure. Never meet your heroes.
S2 (05:45):
Yeah, but, um, they were even greater people. And they
are larger still alive, greater people than they were athletes.
So I'm so pleased that I ran for the Landi house. Um,
so that was one thing. And then the first. My
first really, I guess, friend that I made, um, did
a thing called Little Athletics.
S1 (06:03):
Yeah.
S2 (06:03):
Okay. And I had no idea. Like, we were so
naive coming in, coming from the country. And I went
home and said to Mom and dad, can I go
to this thing called Little Athletics on a Saturday morning?
And they actually said no. So because we used to
have to go to religious instruction classes on a Saturday morning,
and then they got changed to a Thursday. And I
often joke that, um, you know, I wasn't given this
(06:26):
talent for no reason. Kismet kind of came to it.
And then I did little athletics. And of course, the
premise of Little Athletics is that you do a whole
lot of different events. And I never really knew. I
was naturally good at sprinting and jumping and hurdling, but
I just never knew at state championships. And you could
only enter three events, and it was always a battle
for me to decide which ones I would do. So
(06:48):
I was drawn to quite a lot of different things,
but I also played quite high level netball and played
basketball as well. So I.
S1 (06:56):
Could.
S2 (06:57):
So I could throw. And so then learning when I
got the opportunity then to throw a javelin, then I
loved the javelin. And um, again, I think there's sort
of a number of things. So that happened. And you know,
my brother, one of my brothers, is four years older
than me. I was always allowed to play with him
and his friends because I could. Yeah. And so I
think that helped. And then when I that was that year,
(07:20):
there was an Olympic Games on and there was a
programme which is super. Anyone that follows sport in and
Olympics would know unbelievably groundbreaking series called Olympic Minutes. Okay.
And they were filmed by a guy named Bud Greenspan,
an American producer, and he was the official film maker
for the Olympic Games for years and years and years.
(07:43):
And his brother used to narrate these shows. And he
would start off with, I can give you a little
bit of a, a little bit of a take on this.
He would start off going Herb Elliott. 1960 Rome Olympic
Games Men's 1500 metres. And then they would run through
these amazing colored stories that would be, you know, ten
minutes to half an hour. Well, that show was showing
(08:06):
on a Monday night. And I was an eight year
old girl or a seven year old girl allowed to
stay up till 11:00 at night to watch that on
a Monday night with my father. So I learned about
the Olympics and I learned about not just athletics, but
I learned about people like, well, Paavo Nurmi, who's a
unbelievable Finnish distance runner. And indeed. Yeah. And, you know,
(08:30):
Lasse Viren and Dawn Fraser and Herb Elliott and Clark
and Landy, you know. So I learned about all these
other people and the Olympics, and it kind of led
a little bit of a fire within me as well.
So there was sort of those three things, the names
of the houses, the little athletics thing, the carnival. And
then this Olympic minutes Got me going. Yeah.
S1 (08:52):
You move into your career when you're in your prime.
You're a big name in Australian sport and a really
recognisable figure too. You had the the big blonde hair,
the steely gaze when you were out there competing. What
did you love about high level competition or maybe even what?
What do you miss most now that you're you're not
a high level athletic competitor?
S2 (09:15):
I was very single minded, and most people would say
that when they saw me on the track. Um, although
I laugh, one of my sons who's seen a photograph
of me with all that hair that I used to have,
and he goes when he was little, your mum, you
look like Simba. Simba's the lion from the Lion King. Um,
(09:36):
I loved competing, I did, and I felt it was the,
I guess, the mental challenge, the physical challenge, everything about it.
I did an event where there were seven different types
of event. And I'm an eternally optimistic person. Like ridiculously optimistic.
And always. I knew if something wasn't going well, something
else would go well, you know. And I was a
(09:57):
very hard worker, which I think, to tell you the truth,
in athletics can be a disadvantage. Okay. So I have
a theory that, um, you're better off being naturally lazy
than a natural workhorse in athletics. Because if you're a
natural workhorse, you generally get hurt and injured. So I
used to say, if I'm training and I'm not training, well,
(10:19):
then I want to keep training until I'm training well.
And if I'm training well, I want to keep training
because I'm training well and inevitably doing seven different events.
The load was very was high. I don't think I
trained harder than other athletes, but I had to train
more like longer hours, but to try and combine the
seven events of the heptathlon. So, um, so I think
(10:42):
that was, uh, that was a really big challenge that
my coach and I had to try and balance, and
I wasn't very good at stopping and in fact, at
the end of my heptathlon career came because I had
made a I had made a judgment in a moment
of rationality when I wasn't training, that if I was
doing a session for my 800m and I ran the
(11:04):
last 100 of any of the reps, I was doing
slower than 18 seconds, and I needed to stop the
session because I would become technically bad. And then, of course,
in the middle of a session, I did do that,
and instead of stopping, I just dropped a rep and
kept going. And that was when I finally hurt my Achilles,
which ended my career. Really. Um, so it's kind of
interesting to do that. And I think that that's where
(11:26):
it's a coach. Being present at a training session is
really important for someone who works really hard, because usually
they're the only one that can give you permission. You
won't give yourself that permission to take the session off.
And I often recall I was at a, um, actually
a post competition where I was commentating and I had
a conversation with Rob de Castella, our legendary marathon runner,
(11:50):
and he and I were talking around all sorts of
other things we were doing in life, and at one
point he said, people like us need to not do
things like Everest or other such challenges, because we don't
listen to the signs because we're so goal driven. Yes. So, so,
you know, I don't miss competing because it's a that
(12:11):
moment in my life was very intense, but I'm so
glad that I did it. And I still love the
feeling of running.
S1 (12:19):
Do you reckon he'd set you up with lifelong sort
of healthy habits as well?
S2 (12:23):
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. But the other thing that I know
myself quite well is that I've realised I'm quite goal driven.
But now what I did after that intense decade or
15 years is I changed my goal to try and
be more balanced because I know it's a healthier mentally
and physically a healthier way to to be. Yeah, completely. Yeah.
S1 (12:43):
Um, I just wanted to talk about one very might
be a minor experience, but it sort of stood out
to me. So you were an Olympian twice. Came seventh
in Seoul in 1988 and then went to Barcelona 1992. Um,
with all due respect to Cathy Freeman lighting the cauldron
in Sydney, the opening ceremony moment for me is the
(13:04):
lighting of the cauldron in Barcelona.
S2 (13:05):
With the arrow. The era.
S1 (13:07):
Were you there that night?
S2 (13:08):
I was, no, I wasn't, because I had had a
stress fracture in my foot and I had a very
interrupted lead up. And so we decided it was better
for me not to be standing around on my legs
for 4 or 5 hours. But I have to say,
those games were incredible. Yeah. And there is a real
difference between hosting a games in a country, because I've
now been to, I think, ten Olympic Games and a
(13:30):
Youth Olympics. Um, but the difference is between hosting in
a country that has a sporting culture to one that
does not. And so I've been to so for example, Seoul,
I competed in and it was fantastic and everything, but
it didn't have that atmosphere. And then I got to Barcelona.
I remember after I, I unfortunately didn't get to finish
(13:52):
competing because I got hurt in my warm up and
then but I remember going back to the stadium and
the men's decathlon was on and in the discus or
in the discus and the hammer, the cage, the arms
of the cage are movable, and they're supposed to be
on a particular angle or have a certain amount of
opening space for it to be legal. Okay. So one
(14:12):
of the officials kept moving the cage, and then the
decathlete who was in the circle would get out and
walk out of the circle and go and open the cage.
And then the official would put it back and it
was this sort of toing and froing, but the crowd
were booing the officials and they were cheering the athlete.
And to me, that's such an unbelievable epitome of this
(14:34):
nation that knew what was going on. And they were
so vocal. And I guess the Spanish or the Mediterranean
countries have this sense of passion about everything that they do. Yeah.
So the Barcelona Olympics because you think about the arrow.
You think about.
S1 (14:48):
The song as well. The song. The tenors.
S2 (14:50):
The tenors.
S1 (14:51):
Para siempre.
S2 (14:52):
You know, and we were sitting at the closing ceremony
waiting for it to start. And down came Placido Domingo
to warm up at the piano. He was literally like
ten meters away. Yeah. And we were saying, if you,
you know, the price that people pay and you know
that organizations now charge for an opening ceremony ticket and
the likes and the same thing for Sydney. But I
was saying to people, it will be the best concert,
(15:14):
the best live show you have ever been to because
we were there with Placido, with the Three Tenors. Yeah.
You know, like, how often do you get to see them?
Plus all the support acts? Yeah. You know, and it
was the same when you think about the Sydney Olympic
Games opening ceremony was just mind blowingly good from the
moment that horse came charging into the stadium. That was
(15:37):
special with the Lone Rider, with the waltz combination of
Waltzing Matilda, you know, being played in the background to
the lawn mowers being pushed around to the Hills Hoist.
You know, like the whole thing was the was, you know,
tap dogs tap dancing en masse up and down the stadium.
And the stadium was just rocking. And I think it
is the greatest show you can ever go and see.
S1 (15:59):
To switch gears and go to the the slightly lesser games,
the Commonwealth Games, that was where you had gold medal success. Yeah. Um,
Victoria famously pulled out of hosting, um, the games, uh,
and a lot of people in athletics, people who had
won medals at games and kind of gotten their start
or their foothold in international, um, competition at those games,
(16:25):
feel really badly about that. And, and they're worried for
the future of the. Com games. I mean, how important
was it to you, to your career and your life?
S2 (16:34):
I think just not me. I mean, I think back
to those Commonwealth Games in Auckland. Guess who we saw
for the first time there Hayley Lewis. You know, and
if you think back to all the Commonwealth Games, they
are the breeding ground, certainly for the sports that are
both common between Commonwealth Games and the Olympic Games. They
are the breeding ground for our future champions. Who else's
(16:55):
first games were those ones in Auckland? Cathy Freeman.
S1 (16:58):
Kieren Perkins.
S2 (16:58):
Kieren Perkins yep. Cathy Freeman you know, probably it was
probably almost Anna meares too. I don't know, I'm just guessing.
But they are absolutely the breeding ground because they seem
reachable when you're 18, 19, 20 and you're coming from being,
you know, usually a rock star in your own small
little pond as a junior, and you need to take
(17:19):
the step up to seniors. And I and I recall
speaking to my sports psychologist once, saying to him, I
need to be able to walk around the warm up
track like I did when I was a junior, and
I had this kick arse attitude and I knew everyone
was watching me warm up. Yep, yep. But to get that,
to take that from being a junior to into being
a senior is a big step. You know, mentally. And
(17:40):
I think the way you carry yourself, having the experience
and other things and the Commonwealth Games really helped provide that.
So the more than anything, I think that's of a
concern to those sports that that have relied on that
to be that transition phase from being a very good,
promising young athlete to making a career out of it. Now,
I don't think sport is the be all and end
(18:00):
all in life, but what I do think is that
there is hardly anything that a country or a community
that pulls together a community and brings that social fabric
like sport does. We don't have religion anymore as a
as a commonality, but we still have sport.
S1 (18:20):
Yeah, the opiate of the masses.
S2 (18:22):
There is and there is this platform for sharing. And
you know, the Sydney Olympic Games was a magnificent example
of that, not just those people that were in a stadium,
but everybody at an Olympics talks to anyone because they've
all got something in common for that period of time. And,
you know, I was in Paris six months ago and
my husband came over and someone asked him, you know,
(18:45):
was how were the Olympics? He said they were fantastic
because everyone in an Olympic city is happy, you know,
and I think they these are the things in a
modern world where we are disconnected in other ways, and
social media tends to disconnect us and disconnect us in a,
in a real term where sport plays this magnificent part.
And I think the Commonwealth Games are another manner in
(19:06):
which we can use that. And then when you think
about and it's interesting, we're coming up to an election,
and I think around the political understanding of the importance
of sport. So to understand that it is the country's
psyche that got changed and bought out of the depression
by Phar Lap and the Bodyline series. And then you
(19:29):
think around, everybody can recall what we were all doing
when we won the America's Cup and the Cathy Freeman
race and the Kieren Perkins. Dan, um, Dan Kowalski, 1500m,
you know. And so these are the things that pull
our country together. And to try and especially in harsh
(19:49):
economic times, to try and lift our psyche as a nation. Yeah.
I think there is such an unbelievable intangible value to sport.
And that's why I think things like the Commonwealth Games
are really important. And if I think around without being too, um,
negative around the Victorian economy and a whole series of
(20:12):
other difficulties that Victoria have had after the lockdown periods
and the likes, the Commonwealth Games could have been the
perfect antidote to have tried to lift Victoria up another
level in terms of the state's psyche. Yeah.
S1 (20:26):
Beyond sport. So we mentioned that you retired in 1997,
that it can be really tough for a lot of athletes,
not just ones who haven't made a name for themselves
and have a, you know, a bunch of gold medals
to sort of rely on. But even those ones that
have done nothing but win and win and win, but
they've done it for half their life by the time
(20:49):
they're giving up at around 30. What was that transition
like for you? Did you go through any tough times?
S2 (20:55):
I was so lucky. Can I just say, though, I
think it's worse for the gold medalists because one of
the things that happens is if you can imagine when
you're still trying to train, and then there are so
many demands on your time from media and sponsors, and
you're the hottest thing ever, and then you retire. First
of all, you usually don't have any sort of career
other than that, and there are only so many jobs
(21:16):
in inverted commas you can do in media, um, that
all of a sudden, first of all, your value drops.
You don't get paid what you used to get paid.
And secondly, you're not hot property anymore. Yeah. So I
think that's terribly difficult. And I managed a number of global, um,
Olympic superstars, and I had to try and explain that
to them.
S1 (21:35):
I was going to ask you about.
S2 (21:36):
That.
S1 (21:36):
Because you transitioned into management. Yeah I did. And these
weren't small figures. You were managing Sebastian Coe and Michael Johnson.
S2 (21:44):
Yeah. And Daley Thompson. Yeah, but you know what? It's
because I knew Daley from our careers and things. And
also the other thing I think I was good at
because I wasn't relying on the money. So I was
making long term decisions on their behalf or trying to
guide them that way. Um, but I think, you know,
I was so lucky, first of all, that I did
seven events. I always studied or worked when I competed.
(22:07):
And again, those that don't win gold medals still have
to try and progress a career or work or study.
So I think there's the difference in transition as well. Um,
and then I got I had an Achilles operation a
month before the Atlanta Olympics in 96. So I went
actually got on the plane to go to Atlanta on
a set of crutches to commentate, and I came home
(22:29):
and decided that I would move out of Canberra. So
I had been at the Institute of Sport for 11 years.
11.5 years training for seven events. Right. So very time consuming.
Training for seven events. Working part time studying. And then
I moved to Canberra, to Sydney. And I decided that
I would try and give 400 metre hurdles a go.
(22:50):
So all of a sudden I've gone the balance had
gone from seven events to one event. So that gave
me other time to do other things. And then the
Sydney Olympic Games were the most perfect place for was.
It was perfect for me to be there because I
had a whole lot of other commercial opportunities and opportunities,
full stop that those Olympics brought to me to allow
(23:13):
that transition to be almost seamless. And there's and I'm
so grateful for that opportunity because I have seen lots
of other people struggle. And then I started, you know,
I had sponsorship and marketing company and started managing people. And,
you know, I was super busy and I was still
in a world that I loved. So it was. I
(23:35):
was so lucky. Yeah.
S1 (23:38):
Fantastic.
S2 (23:38):
Yeah.
S1 (23:47):
In 2013, you helped with an initiative called Live Life,
Get Active, offering free health, fitness and nutritional education online
and in local parks. Yeah. That title reminds me so
much of the 1980s life campaign. You remember Norm?
S2 (24:03):
Yes I.
S1 (24:03):
Do. Hello, toes and munch and crunch lunches. Um, do
we need more of those kinds of initiatives or campaigns, um,
to combat things like childhood obesity? Like, how are we
doing on that front?
S2 (24:16):
Yeah. Well, so live life, get active was a is
a free community initiative. It still goes on. One of
the directors, um, and one of the the co-founder of
the of the initiative. And at one point, we were
offering 170 different venues around all different locations around Australia,
offering free exercise classes to anyone over the age of
18 on a on a week daily basis. So yeah. And, um,
(24:40):
with more than 100,000 members and the likes, and my
role really was to go and try and get councils
to let us use their land for free, to conduct
the classes on, and also to try and help bring
corporate corporate partners and the likes into the organisation. Um,
and yes, I have a real interest in community health
because I think that it is horrendously expensive. And we've
(25:04):
always joked that we have the Department of Ill Health,
not the Department of Health. And if we don't look
at that, and I'm also on a federal government board,
that's to do with health, what's called a primary health network.
And if we don't start talking more and acting more
in terms of a preventative nature, the economic impact is
just beyond horrendous. And, um, you know, it's funny, when
(25:28):
we first launched 12 years ago, a number of people
said to us, oh, don't talk to the government about prevention.
You need to talk about treatment. Okay. And I'm like going,
oh my goodness. And now, 12 years later everyone's talking prevention.
But we were kind of there 12 years ago. And um,
I do think that it's still, you know, the social
media thing, the lack of incidental physical activity our communities
(25:53):
have now, society, in fact, worldwide almost has is really
playing out. And it will get worse and worse and
worse unless we do something about it. So, you know,
I've come out before and said, I think that every,
every second class in school should be at a stand
up desk. Okay. You know, and we should have drop
off zones a kilometer from the schools. And, you know,
(26:14):
we can do a whole lot of things with a
built environment, with the way in which we build our
world and structure our world, not just physically, but society wise.
You know what's what's popular amongst kids? You know what
is the norm? Well, it used to be the norm,
didn't it? to walk to school. So I have twin
or my husband and I have twin 16 year old
(26:35):
boys and they we make them walk to school.
S1 (26:38):
Yeah.
S2 (26:38):
Okay.
S1 (26:39):
I started making my, um, 12 year old son walk
to school every day. Yeah. Loves it. And it's. I mean,
it's a two kilometer walk. Yeah.
S2 (26:47):
Our kids used to do the same from when they
were nine, actually, and they would pick another couple of
their friends up around the corner. So we'd either walk
or ride a scooter or a skateboard or a bike,
and I'd run next to them with the dog and,
and actually, you know, you think about the benefits, the
physical benefits, but it's those social benefits, which is, I
have to say, one of the magnificent things that Covid
(27:08):
has delivered, athletics, is that finally people have started to
understand what we all love.
S1 (27:16):
Yeah. About missed it.
S2 (27:18):
About. No, about running. And that's why run clubs have boomed. Yeah.
We know that when you run regularly and exercise regularly
with someone, you become really good friends with them, because
you have a whole series of incidental conversations and different
to swimming, or riding a bike or rowing a boat.
When you run, you can talk to someone. Yep. And
(27:40):
so it's become this social connection.
S1 (27:42):
What's the pressure free side by side? It is too,
isn't it? You don't have to be face to face.
You're just jogging along.
S2 (27:48):
And also, you know, if you're doing it 4 or
5 times a week with someone, then you do talk
about a whole series, actually, at times intimate things that
you don't even think are intimate. Only on looking back
at those would you think that's the case. And that
is what builds the fabric of a really good friendship.
And so we're so excited at athletics to now talk around.
That's why we've rebranded to Australian athletics. We think this
(28:11):
is a sport that Australians should own, that Australians connect with,
that everybody's done at primary school or now at a
run club, all the things we've known about it. And
it's not just in a stadium and it's not just
track and field, it's athletics. Yeah.
S1 (28:29):
I love that. Yeah. Australian athletics instead of athletics Australia. Yeah.
Didn't realise that. Yeah. Um, so you were appointed president
18 months ago? Well, um, what did you sort of
see as the immediate things you wanted to address or
what have you, um, been able to do, do you think,
or get underway?
S2 (28:47):
Yeah, I've been on the board for nearly five years now.
S1 (28:50):
And then vice president for four.
S2 (28:52):
Yeah. And then and then, um, president for the last
18 months. Last year we had two really two big goals.
And one of them was to do the rebrand and
to start to bring in to almost change the definition
of athletics. Like, we we like to say, if you've run, jump, thrown,
rolled or walk, then you're an athlete. Yep. You know,
so to try and broaden the definition of what our
(29:13):
what people perceive our sport to be. And then so
we did that that piece which has gone super well.
And then also to do a little bit of work
with the digital stuff. But um, when I first came
onto the board, the, the organisation needed some settling down,
which has sort of was done. And then and then
when I came in as president. Now we are honestly,
we are onward and upward. We are. We have very
(29:35):
big ambitions and big dreams and big visions, and we
have a fantastic high performance group within our organisation and
it's being played out. Um, I look back at some
of the things that we've done in the last ten years,
and I think one of the instigators of all of
this is we ran a coach mentoring program, and we've
(29:55):
had this great group of coaches in our sport for 20, 30,
40 years. And all of a sudden they started helping
out some of our younger coaches. And they are coaches
that coach Eleanor Patterson and Nicola Squires and um, uh, just,
you know, Kelsey-lee Barber and these coaches that were, you know,
(30:15):
really doyens of the sport had been previously either just
continued on doing what they were doing or lost to
the sport, and now they were back putting into these
young coaches. And those coaches are now ten years older
and have had this enormous success in knowledge bank and everything. And,
you know, we'll do the same thing with another group
as well. So our our sport is very coach driven
(30:36):
and I think that's been fantastic. We also have a
philosophy again driven through our high performance department, which is
around us getting the best performance on the day. It counts.
S1 (30:47):
Okay.
S2 (30:47):
So there's no point you doing a huge, massive performance.
You know, almost to a degree even at our domestic season.
We want you to do that at the Olympic Games
in the final or. Yeah, or at World Juniors on
the day that counts. Yeah. And it's been really incredible
to watch. You know, we've gone from Tokyo Olympics where
(31:09):
I was sitting there commentating to everyone in the commentary
area from other countries going, wow, what's going on in Australia?
We keep seeing your guys, you know, in finals and.
S1 (31:19):
Things. There were a lot of finalists.
S2 (31:20):
Oh well it was Peter Ball and but but you
know Nicola medaled. Yeah. You know, so we did have
some medalists, you know, and then it went from, from that.
And then if we kind of keep moving forward, then
the next World Championships were really good in Budapest, the
same thing, like people saying to me, what's going on
in Australia to the Olympic Games where we won seven medals,
which is our best performance since 1956, where in 1956
(31:45):
it was a six lane track and probably a third
of the number of countries that compete that do than
do now to, you know, our last year's Olympic Games,
as I said, second best and then a month after that,
which was just incredible. Our World Junior Championship team, where
we finished second in the number of medals that we
won behind the USA.
S1 (32:06):
Yeah, 2020.
S2 (32:07):
To 14 medalists, 28 finalists. Incredible, incredible. And then, you know,
we moved to the world indoors that were last weekend.
And seven medals there again second in terms of the
number of medals behind the US and the Sydney Marathon,
becoming a major. And athletics Australian athletics owns that event.
(32:29):
And you know, the announcement that was made three weeks
ago that you'll have Kipchoge, who's the greatest ever marathoner
we've ever had. He's the man that ran under two hours.
For those that aren't Athletics fans, you know he's coming
to run in Sydney. And so at the moment I'm
sort of going, here are the things you need to
go and watch as a sports fan, as an Australian,
first of all, if you get the chance to go
(32:49):
and watch YouTube Kipchoge, that's like watching Usain Bolt run.
S1 (32:52):
Absolutely it is. Yeah, yeah.
S2 (32:54):
And then I'm going and now we have this meat
on this Maurie plant meat that's a sellout. That'll be.
S1 (33:00):
The Saturday. Yeah.
S2 (33:01):
This. Yeah. It'll be the first time we've had a
meat sell out for more than two decades. And gout
gout's there. And I'm going. And my kids who don't
really follow athletics, all of them and their mates know
who gout. Gout is. People in the street know. I mean,
his name is is as such. But I sort of
do this analysis between where we are now before Brisbane
(33:22):
and where we were this time before Sydney. Yeah. And gout.
Gout is our Cathy Freeman. He's the star of the
show and I'm not putting pressure on him. But at
the moment that's how it looks. And that was Kath.
S1 (33:33):
There's an effect I mean.
S2 (33:34):
Yes.
S1 (33:34):
There is like kind of reminds me of when Ben
Simmons became the number one draft pick in the NBA.
It was like people talked about the Ben Simmons effect. Yes.
On Australian.
S2 (33:43):
Absolutely.
S1 (33:43):
And now there's there is the gout gout effect.
S2 (33:46):
But also it's not even just gout. Gout. The support
cast are amazing. So Cam Myers who's the world under
20 mile record holder Tory Lewis. You know who broke
the Australian women's 100m. You know there's you know and
then we've got the ones that we already know like
Jess Hull and Matt Denny and you know, Jemima montag
and Nina Kennedy. And so this support cast is amazing.
(34:10):
So we're further advanced than we were before Sydney. And
we haven't had the investment yet. Yeah. You know so
it's such like we are honestly the momentum is just
rolling for athletics at the moment. It's fantastic. And what
we don't want to do is we will not waste
this opportunity.
S1 (34:30):
Yes. I wanted to talk about a couple of the curly, um,
sort of questions in world athletics right now. So first, recently,
Lord Coe vowed to doggedly protect the female category in
world athletics, becoming the first sport to introduce DNA tests
with little. I think it's cheek swabs or perhaps blood
spots or something. Um, not just to sort of ensure
(34:52):
trans women remain kind of banned from competing at the
elite level, but also those difference of sex development or
DSD individuals like the Olympic boxers who won um, in
in Paris. Do you kind of where do you sit
on this. Do you sort of applaud that measure? Do
you think we need more study? Is it like the
nuance view where bans are really appropriate for the elite
(35:13):
level of sport? But we should still be, you know,
mindful of inclusion at grassroots level?
S2 (35:20):
Well, I.
S1 (35:20):
Think it's.
S2 (35:21):
A it's quite a complex issue and particularly for those
DSD athletes. But the only thing that I would say is,
first of all, that as Athletics Australia, we are governed
by the world, by World Athletics. So of course we
will do whatever um, the rules are. Yeah. And what
probably a lot of people don't know, and I certainly do,
(35:41):
is that in 1988, when I went to my first
Olympic Games, I had to do a buccal smear so
that what they're suggesting, which is on the side of
the cheek. And we were issued a femininity certificate.
S1 (35:51):
Okay.
S2 (35:52):
So this has all happened in the past politicised now. Yeah,
it is, but it was. But you know, we were
protecting the female category back then. Now if you know
the history of athletics, you remember there was a woman,
a Polish woman named Stella. I can't remember her surname
in the 20s. I think it was won the women's
100m later on proven she was a man. So, um,
(36:13):
so this has sort of been something that has, um,
challenged sport for years and years and years. Um, I
absolutely think the female category personally, this is I think
the female credit category needs to be protected. Every rule
in sport is made to give a fair playing environment.
And having elevated levels of testosterone in a human body
(36:38):
does not give a fair playing field. Okay. So and
then I would also suggest that it is challenging because I,
I believe everybody should have a place in sport. Everybody.
But that doesn't mean they should have a place in
women's sport.
S1 (36:55):
Speaking of women's sport and again of of Co um,
he was only recently rolled um, in the election for
the IOC presidency by former Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry. She's
the first woman in the role. The first person from
an African nation in the role and the youngest ever
leader of the IOC. What do you think her big
(37:16):
challenges are going to be immediately stepping into it.
S2 (37:20):
I think she has a massive responsibility, like the job
is a fully full on responsible role anyway. But because
of those three things you just mentioned, her burden is enormous.
So I hope and wish that she is very successful
in the role so that it opens the door to
(37:43):
more women, more African, more, you know, younger people to
do the same thing in the future. But that will
depend on the success with which she performs that role. Yeah, yeah.
S1 (37:55):
It'll be tough. It'll be interesting.
S2 (37:56):
It will be tough because. Yeah, and it will be
tough because, you know, well, first of all, global politics
is at an unbelievably interesting time at the moment. So
to deal with, with global politics, let alone dealing with
all of the, um, politics that come along with sport
at that level.
S1 (38:12):
Right. What happens in Los Angeles in 2028 if President
Trump wants to keep certain countries out of the games,
or if.
S2 (38:19):
Well, you know.
S1 (38:20):
He wants to keep Russia out of the game.
S2 (38:21):
Well, I think the LA games are going to be challenged. Yeah.
And I said I think they're going to be really challenged,
not for the reasons that you've just alluded to, but
nobody's really looked at it in terms of the impact
that those Los Angeles fires are going to have on
getting the games actually done. Sure. So we know in Australia,
from having lived through series, a lot of fires, that
(38:42):
there are inevitable consequences to that. So one is there's
a shortage of tradesmen. There's an increase in building costs. There,
you know, and in infrastructure costs, in everything that they'll
need to do for those Los Angeles Olympics is now
going to be so difficult and so expensive. And it's
only three years away. And no one seems to have
(39:04):
been talking about that at all. And I'm like, you know,
I know they're refurbing a whole lot of stadiums, but
it's really difficult. It would be very difficult for the
governor of California to be spending an enormous amount on
Olympic venues when they don't have internet or clean water
or sewerage or housing for a huge percentage of their population.
S1 (39:27):
From the other side of the world. Let's go back
locally here for a second. One of the issues that
I was really interested in last year, because I was
writing a lot about running and reading a lot about running,
was Olympic selection. Yes. Around the the Lisa Weightman issue
where she, she felt she had qualified and wanted to
appeal that decision and didn't ultimately end up being selected
(39:49):
for the Olympics. And there are all sorts of different
ways that selection could be done. Just for listeners who
aren't totally familiar with World Athletics. Yeah. The USA, for instance,
has a day of competition where you just you got
to you got to win or come top three or
you don't get on the plane. And we do it differently.
Are you happy with the way that selection works in Australia,
(40:10):
considering any changes to the selection process?
S2 (40:13):
Look, you know, when I came onto the into the
position as, um, president, one of the things that I
said at the board is that, of course, we want
to replicate the manner in which, as an organization, the
manner in which an athlete behaves. And we take expert
advice and we listen to that, and it's about us
getting the best performance we can out of the organisation.
And so we have a range of experts around the table,
(40:36):
around our boardroom table that have a huge amount of
knowledge that I have no idea about. So finance experts,
people and culture, a whole series of different skill sets.
So as an organisation, of course, we want to take
on and learn. And if we ever think we can
do selections better, of course we will adapt to that
and take take back, take in feedback. But what I
do want to say is that we have an independent
(41:00):
selection committee. Their job is to apply the selection criteria
that has been published. Every time we publish a selection criteria,
we have an open forum for athletes to ask our
chair of selectors any questions to clarify parts that they
(41:20):
may be confused about or that they want more clarity on. Further,
our selection panel. Our current selection panel has more than
200 years, a combined total of more than 200 years
experience in our sport. Yes. So they really have an
enormous amount of expertise that they draw on, and they
are from different aspects of athletics as well. So it's
(41:43):
not just a distance runner or a, you know, or
a track athlete or a thrower or, you know, it
is a vast array of expertise and experience that they
bring to the table. And I would suggest that that
is always used in terms of applying the criteria that
has been published.
S1 (42:01):
Excellent. All right. Just one more question then. Um, it's
a fun one. Yeah. The Murray plant meet is on
Saturday night. There are so many of the aforementioned athletes
that are going to be there competing. Not to mention that.
S2 (42:15):
I was about to say him. Yeah. World athlete of
the year last year.
S1 (42:18):
Athlete of the year. I was in the, um Stade
de France when he upset.
S2 (42:22):
No.
S1 (42:22):
Was it an upset do you reckon?
S2 (42:24):
No. So I'm not I mean, you followed athletics and
so have I. I mean, he won the sprint double
twice as a world junior.
S1 (42:33):
Yeah. Okay.
S2 (42:33):
Yeah.
S1 (42:34):
You know, we shouldn't have been shocked.
S2 (42:35):
No.
S1 (42:36):
All eyes were kind of on Lyles.
S2 (42:37):
Well that's because of his antics right. You know and
sprint sprinter. And I did laugh when I was talking
to the um CEO of World Athletics I said oh
I don't know about sprint. I said I couldn't watch
it after two episodes. I said, all of that carry
on by the Americans because it's very Un-australian of course,
to do all that. He goes, we don't make it
for you.
S1 (42:56):
You got to have a bit of swagger.
S2 (42:57):
Yeah I know, and sprinters do. Yeah they do. Although
Let's Seal is not as much like that, you know.
And um, and you know the greatest thing isn't it,
about sport and certainly it certainly is about athletics is
you win one week and you lose the next? You know,
there's not many that win week in, week out, week in,
week out. So it should keep you, keeps you relatively humble.
(43:17):
But I think the Murray plant made honestly, we're starting
off with the women's 100m at 6:04 p.m.. For those
that are lucky enough to have got tickets and that'll
be a great race, but at 612 we have the
men's 100m and that is going to be a cracker
of a race. So we've got, you know, Lachlan Kennedy,
who won the silver medal in the World Indoor 60s.
(43:39):
He's only 21 years of age which is young for
a sprinter.
S1 (43:42):
He's going to be great at um nudging gout gout
forward as well over the years because he's such a
good starter. Yeah. And gout isn't.
S2 (43:50):
Well. And then Sebastian Sultana, who's still a teenager and
he won our senior nationals last year. Rohan Browning ran ten, 12,
two weeks ago. So. And then Browning and gout. Gout
are not in the four by one. That just broke
our national record. Right. So I looked up the times.
And so the the time that the boys ran or
the men ran. A couple of weeks ago, when they
(44:12):
broke that national record with four athletes in the team.
So the four by one would have had them finish
fifth at the Olympic Games. But the Olympic four by one,
the Americans got disqualified, which is not unusual. There were
two teams that didn't didn't finish or got disqualified. There
was less than half a second between the six teams,
(44:33):
but the first five and then another a little bit
to the to the sixth team. So I'm going if
we finish fifth and we've got no gout, gout and
no rowing Browning in that. And that's with these other
young men that haven't improved yet. Yeah seriously if we
get our changes right in LA, can you even I
can't even. It's so hard to even fathom that we
could be in in the run for a medal in
(44:54):
the men's four by one at the Olympic Games, because
you can imagine gout running the back straight. Yeah. So
here's a.
S1 (45:01):
Bit of a wind.
S2 (45:01):
Up. Well, here's a piece of information that most people
don't know. You can see I'm getting very excited about this. Yeah.
So there's been an analysis done on the last 100m
of the top. Top 200 metre runners of all time. Okay, done.
So how fast have they been.
S1 (45:19):
After the turn, you mean? Yeah.
S2 (45:21):
The last. The last 100m. Gout's time in that company
is fourth.
S1 (45:27):
Wow. And he's 17.
S2 (45:29):
And he's 17. And I'm like, that is crazy. Yeah.
And so you put him down the back straight off
a fly. Yeah. Okay. And then we know what Rowan
can do. Or one of those other those young boys, like,
they're all their average age of those guys running the
hundreds is under 25. Yeah. And you know, sprinters mature later.
So we look at that with them. And then we've
(45:51):
got this pool of women in the 100m as well.
And every one of our relay teams at the World
Juniors finished in the medals. Two of them got disqualified.
But that's the depth that we've got going at the moment.
You know, like it's super exciting. And then you think
about there's a young kid most people don't know of,
a boy named Mason Magruder.
S1 (46:12):
Yeah.
S2 (46:14):
Mason Magruder went to the World Indoor Championships in Lima, Peru,
last year, his good AFL player. So we're trying to
keep him in athletics at the moment, which is good
because Gout's helping with that because I'll tell you about
that in a minute. But he became the youngest ever
world junior champion, world junior medallist for us at the
age of 15. He won a medal in the long jump.
(46:34):
You know, like that's like our juniors are under 20. Yeah.
So he literally fought a four and a half years
younger than everybody else in the world at that age. Yeah.
So you know, there's it's just it's very, very exciting.
But what I wanted to say to all those other
sports that keep stealing our talent or targeting our talent,
(46:55):
and I understand that there was a few of the
football codes or a couple of the football codes trying
to chase him as well, but were like the fact
that he is or, you know, or the the rumour
that he has signed a deal with Adidas for $6 million.
I'm going, that's way more than you're ever going to
make playing NFL or AFL. And we have a home
Olympics coming. And so our market is rising.
S1 (47:18):
Well, I was going to ask you what event you
were most excited by.
S2 (47:21):
I don't know.
S1 (47:22):
But I don't think you're going to be able to
answer that.
S2 (47:24):
No. And the men's 400, by the way, when you
want to have a look at this world athlete of
the year. Yeah. That's your Tobago. So just so you
know he won the 200 of course. And he's 100
200 meter runner. But his personal best for the 400
is faster than our Australian record.
S1 (47:39):
Wow. That's exciting.
S2 (47:41):
And he's got the other three from the 4x4 which
in Botswana where they won the silver medal at the
Olympic Games. The other three of his relay team are
running in that 400 as well. So you know like
we don't we won't even know where to look. And
the other person I should mention in all of this
for the Maurie plant meat, is that Matt Denny thinks
(48:01):
he may break the Australian record.
S1 (48:03):
Wow.
S2 (48:03):
In the discus. And Matt Denny won an Olympic medal.
So that gives you an idea. And and for the
kids out there, he's going to throw nearly 70m. Now
you need to at some point go and stand out
the front of your house. And if you've got a
regular sized front yard or house width in Australia, he's
(48:24):
probably jumping more than he's throwing probably four houses long.
It's just crazy to think when you when you look,
he's throwing a plate a, you know, a plate, a
plate down a shopping aisle. Yeah, yeah. You know, 4
or 5 houses down your street. Yeah.
S1 (48:44):
Well, you've got a very big year in athletics ahead. Yeah.
You've got a board meeting tomorrow. Um, thank you so
much for coming in. Yeah.
S2 (48:51):
That's okay. And and can I just say thank you
for all your support for our sport? You know, it's
really hard to get the sport out of your blood
once you've got it in there. So thank you for
your help.
S1 (49:01):
It's interesting. We're going to have a great ride over
the next decade or so.
S2 (49:04):
We sure are.
S1 (49:08):
That was Australian Athletics President Jane Fleming talking with Good
Weekend senior writer Conrad Marshall on the latest Good Weekend talks.
Coming soon we chat with Ellie Cole, the former Paralympic star,
star broadcaster and now children's book author. If you enjoyed
this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate and comment wherever
you get your podcasts and keep tuning in for more
(49:30):
compelling conversations. Good Weekend Talks is brought to you by
the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Proud newsrooms powered
by subscriptions to support independent journalism. Search. Subscribe. Sydney Morning
Herald or The Age? This episode of Good Weekend Talks
is produced by Konrad Marshall and edited by Tim Mummery,
with technical assistance from our executive producer Tami Mills. Tom
(49:54):
McKendrick is head of Audio and Greg Callahan is the
acting editor of Good Weekend.
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