Golden Moments: Kerri Pottharst

Every show in the lead-up to the Games in Paris, Christian is taking you back to some of the most iconic Aussie gold-medal winning moments and talking to the athletes themselves about what it was all like. It's guaranteed to give you goosebumps and get you pumped for the Games!

Today we heard Kerri Pottharst retell her amazing beach volleyball win in Sydney.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Christ Yeah, welcome friends to the Christian O'Connell.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Show podcast Christian O'Connell's Show. Now, today's golden moments were
counted down to the Games in Paris this weekend opening
ceremony Friday night in Paris early Saturday morning. For us
here in Australia, these golden moments are they just amazing
to listen to where an Australian gold medal winner takes
us back to that exact moment, what was happening in

(00:25):
the stadium and more importantly, they take us into inside
their heads what's happening in there? And before we go
to today's one, which is at the Sydney Games on
Bondi Beach and Kerry Potthast and a partner Natty Cook
winning gold, which I can only imagine what a defining
moment that must be on home soil on Bondi Sand
as well, which is incredible about you guys must have

(00:45):
remembered watching this?

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Yeah, absolutely, I remember them coming. You didn't know anything
about them ever, like no one ever heard of them.
Then within a week the entire nations behind them and
everyone's focused on this one game. It was crazy, So
you were watching it definitely It was one of those
things here. I never thought twice about beach volleyball as
a sport, but all of a sudden it's like, oh no,
we cared deeply about this and it's really important that

(01:07):
did you watch it passing? I absolutely did you.

Speaker 4 (01:09):
Those girls were a power force, amazing for six too
on my dad.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, Dad, you said that.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Not chat, No, that was stunning girls.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
No, but beach volleyball is such hard sport to play.
I played regular volleyball in high school and we tried
to do a beach volleyball tournament and running and jumping
on sand is another level of agility and energy that
you exert.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
We are the only in London twenty twelve. I left
it too late to get tickets and sadly the well
gladly actually the only tickets that I could get for
my family was to go to the beach Volleyball, which
still gets brought up quite a lot that there was
no other games. It had to be the beach volleyball
and they got quite bored after a while and I
ended up watching it by myself as my two daughters
and wife left. It's an incredible sport to watch the

(01:54):
prowess ye like you said, sad eh, it's very very.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
But creepy that one single doad on his owne if
they go.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
To you, if you're old TV, that was that guy
with three empty seats. Just a sport phane, guys, just
a sport phane. Anyway, let's go back to his.

Speaker 5 (02:12):
Kerry question you O'Connell's golden moments coming down to the
Games in Paris. Kerry Podthast on winning gold with Natalie
Cook in beach volleyball at the two thousands near Olympigs.

Speaker 4 (02:24):
Playing in front of Australians in Bondo Beach.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
It was a really weird feeling.

Speaker 4 (02:29):
So one minute you're up, you know, really high and
everyone's feeling great for you. The next minute you lose
a point. It was a struggle of emotion. I started to,
in particular, build this kind of cone of silence around
myself and my teammate Natalie. If you can imagine, you know,
a big glass cone where you could see out that
things weren't in focus, but I could hear the noise.

(02:50):
We were behind in both sets by a considerable amount.
On our faces you could see that we were just
not bothered by it.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
It was just like next point. What are we do?

Speaker 4 (03:00):
The second to last serve was in my hands, and
I knew I could hit a serve straight down the line.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
I'd been practicing it for years.

Speaker 4 (03:07):
I'd go through the middle between the two players and
then I'd crack one down the line on the line.
I decided to risk it. You know, we were down
by a point. The Brazilian girl that I served at
didn't move an inch. The ball landed on the line
for an ace, and Natalie turned around and screamed towards me.
We'd leveled it up. Now it was eleven points. We
were only going to twelve. So I made the serve.

(03:28):
It went through the middle. One of the girls took it,
she didn't make a great pass. Her partner tried to
save it, and in doing so, the ball was flying
over the top of Natalie's head. It was going towards
our sideline, and I'd chase towards the line, and as
Natalie turned around to look what was going on, she.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Was kind of like, no, don't touch it.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
And as that ball landed, every single emotion and every
single feeling that you could possibly have went through both
of our bodies, like we collapsed to the ground. I
couldn't lift my head out of the sand. I was
almost too scared to look up at the people in
the crowd. My cone of silence that I'd built sort

(04:06):
of shattered down around me, and I looked up. All
of a sudden, I could see the faces, I could
see where they all were.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
And Natalie was just looking at me.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
We couldn't have prepared for this moment in any way,
shape or form. Thinking about it now, twenty four years later,
it's an unbelievable moment. We were two ordinary people that
came together and formed a magic partnership, winning a gold
medal on our home.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Beach, in our home country.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
That was just such a massive dream.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well Christian Connell's Show podcast