The Country 08/04/25: Emma Twigg talks to Jamie Mackay

The Kiwi rower and Olympic gold and silver medallist is also the keynote speaker at SIDE. Her talk was about the synergies between being an athlete and a dairy farmer.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The keynote speaker here at Day one of the South
Island Airy Event was none other than five time Olympian
Emma Twig. Emma, you started your talk today about talking
about the synergies between being an athlete and a dairy farmer.
What are they?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Yeah, I mean, I think the obvious ones are just
how unrelenting dairy farming is and training to be the
best in the world at writing. I think, you know,
waking up every single morning and getting up when you
don't necessarily want to, and knowing that it has to
be done because it's if no one else does it,
then it's not going to be done.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
So are you Are you a mourning person like all
these dairy farmers here?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, I definitely like my mornings. I'm definitely early to
bed in the evening. Maybe not quite to the same
extent as these guys, but I've got I think there's
so many, so many things that are unique to just
trying to trying to be better every single day and
you know, doing something that I know these guys obviously
love doing.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Resilience is a word that I reckon today is way
too over years and it's like learnings, it's not a
very I don't favor the word at all, but it
literally sums up your career, like five Olympic Games, two
fourth places. I think your gold medal at Tokyo in
twenty twenty one, delayed by a year by COVID, was

(01:17):
possibly my favorite medal at those games. We were so
I mean, the country was so pleased for you.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, I guess it's one of those stories that you know,
people love to see, I guess a comeback, And I
think people knew my story and knew the heartbreak and
had seen it in Rio, and so to go and
finally do what I believe I knew I could do,
but to show everyone else that that was possible as
well was pretty special. And Yeah, there's been a lot

(01:45):
of people that since have said how emotional they were
to see me finally do it, which is a really
nice thing to feel. I guess that you've impacted people positively.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Was a wonderful silver medal to that really good Dutch shower.
The icing on the cake. Was it a full stop
or was it not?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
It was certainly the icing on the cake. It was
an Olympic cycle where I just wanted to enjoy having
the monkey off my back. I say that all the
time and I get grief for saying it, but I
think it really was a cycle of enjoyment and with
that I had an amazing result at the end of it,
Carolyn Florin from the Netherlands, ten years my junior. And

(02:26):
to be able to push here like I did in
that final race is also something that I'm really proud of.
Of course, as an a type personality and high achiev
you always wanted to win a gold medal, but I
think given you the age and stage in what my
career has been, it was such a cool regetterer And
is it a full stop that remains to be seen?

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Well, we know it's not going to be a full
stop because you're the current open water rowing champion. You
won that on Sunday up. I've forgotten where it was.
I saw it on the Telly so La twenty twenty eight.
Open water Rowing.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
It's a new discipline. I'm certainly looking at it as
an opportunity to help give something back to the sport
and develop a new sport and hopefully get some up
and comers into it. And the way I say is
that if I'm enjoying it and still doing well and
still able to compete with the best, then you know,
I'll hang in there, and I'm you know, I just

(03:20):
want to see the best possible for athletes in LA
and if that happens to be me, then that would
be a real privilege. But equally, if there's others there
that are kicking goals, and I think that would be
an absolute one as well.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
I spent someday driving back from Queensland. I spent a
wonderful nineteen minutes listening to your podcast with the guys
from Between Two Bears. Absolutely fantastic. So they were talking about,
or you talked during that podcast about your very close
relationship with the mayor of toll Wronga.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, Mahey, He's been a huge part of my career.
I've spent many many kilometers sitting behind him in a
by and looking at his rear end. But he's just
a guy that I've always admired and his work ethic
and how he kind of approaches his training, and he's
always been a really great sounding board for me. So
I think it's important that you have people like that

(04:15):
that can be role models and can also feel like
that they can kind of impart some of their knowledge
and their experiences, and I hope to be that person
for someone else into the future too well.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
I really enjoyed your address at the South Island Airy
event this morning, and I recommend to it, as the
boys from Between Two Bears did as well. If you're
your organizations looking for a very motivational speaker, they wouldn't
do much better than you. Thanks so much for some
of your time today.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Thanks very much.