Going For Gold And Sleeping In It With Beach Volleyballer Nat Cook

Nat Cook is an Olympic gold medalist in beach volleyball.

She became the first Australian woman to compete

at five Olympic Games in her sport.

When beach volleyball made its Olympic debut in 1996,

Nat and her playing partner, Kerry Potthast, claimed bronze.

But the dynamic duo are best known for winning gold at Sydney 2000

on the sands of Bondi Beach

and beating the number one ranked Brazilians to get there.

But her passion for the Olympic Games

has kept burning long after her retirement.

Nat is the founder of the Aussie Athlete Fund,

a body designed to help young athletes

pursue their Olympic dreams without financial burden.

She's also a director of the 2032 Brisbane Olympic

and Paralympic Organising Committee,

helping to create a lasting legacy for Aussie athletes like herself.

My name's Sophie and I'm the producer here at the Female Athlete Project.

Chloe caught up with Nat just before the Paris opening ceremony kicked off

as she sat in her hotel room just metres away from the Eiffel Tower.

And we're not jealous at all.

This chat is dynamic and full of what is an undeniable amount of passion

for the Olympic Games and unwavering belief in our Aussie athletes.

We hope you enjoy it and it gets you in the Olympic spirit

if you're not there already.

Nat Cook, welcome to the Female Athlete Project.

Wow, what an honour, Chloe.

Not only to be with you, who are an epic legend.

If I could high-five you from Paris, I would.

But to be on this show, I've watched the Female Athlete Project

and its growth and what you do for women's sport.

Epic.

So thank you.

Thanks for having me.

What an honour.

That really means a lot.

Thank you.

And we've crossed paths a number of times,

so it's really cool to actually get the opportunity to chat with you

and the fact that we're chatting with you while you are over in Paris.

Off-air, you were talking about where you are staying at the moment.

Can you tell us a little bit about the set-up?

Well, I'm really close, fortunately, to the Eiffel Tower.

Not quite as close as the Beach Volleyball Stadium,

which is sitting in the shadows of the tower,

which I'm sure you've seen the epic pictures.

I can't wait to watch the athletes perform in front of that iconic location.

Of course, the Olympic rings are situated on the tower,

so I think beach volleyball has the best spot.

I might be biased.

And I'm not far from that.

I can walk to the Eiffel Tower, I can walk to the beach volleyball

in 10 minutes and staying in an apartment here.

But what's interesting and what we're talking about is it's quite eerie

because I've never seen it so quiet.

And the reason it's quiet is because of the security getting ready

for the opening ceremony for Friday night.

And obviously, as you know, there's six kilometres of river

where the athletes will come on boats.

And it's going to be, I've got a Riverside ticket

with my daughter Jordan and my wife Sarah.

So we've spent, it's like actually going to an Olympics

as a spectator is very different to being an athlete.

Athlete focused, you're just in there, you get on the bus,

it takes you right there, you perform.

But as an athlete, it's like a big orienteering competition.

It's like how do you get to where you need to go?

Sometimes you've got a detour.

And so this, I feel like I'm my,

now I'm saying Boy Scouts because back in my day,

that's all there was, Boy Scouts.

And then Girl Guides.

I feel like I'm a Girl Guide trying to get to all of the Olympic venues.

But the Eiffel Tower is a lockdown area.

It's a safe zone.

And therefore, until Friday night, the closing of the opening ceremony,

it's not many people here.

But then they're expecting 11 million to flood in to Paris

to be watching the Olympics.

So pretty special.

How iconic.

I have to ask as well, you touched on the River Seine.

Have you gone for a dip yet?

Well, they won't let me.

I think I'd be pulled out like, you know, I now know you're in AFL

and they don't let streakers on the field.

So I'm sure I'd make international news as a streaker trying to swim in the Seine.

But it actually looks really clean.

The streets are clean.

The place looks amazing.

It is absolutely the best time.

It's the best time to be in Paris for an Olympics.

It's colourful.

It's vibrant.

And when you go outside of those safe zones right now,

there are people everywhere.

But I feel pretty happy to be kind of by myself under the Eiffel Tower.

It's very special.

Let's reflect on your career.

I just, because obviously that Sydney 2000 moment is so iconic.

But prepping for the episode, I think sometimes like even seeing

that you're a five-time Olympian, like you had such an incredible career.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Can we go back to pre-96 Olympics and what the prep for that was like for you

as a beach volleyball player?

Well, so long ago now, Chloe, so long ago that you can't even do the math

to get back to 96.

But if I go to 94, where my career first started, which is a 30-year span,

in 1994 was the time where I switched from indoor volleyball to beach

because it had been announced as an Olympic sport for the very first time.

So I feel a pioneer of the sport as you with women's rugby sevens winning the first gold medal

was very special and I still have goosebumps for you.

I mean, I am absolutely an Olympic junkie and I love every single sport because I started

as a kid at high school playing every sport looking for the sport I was going to go and

represent Australia in the green and gold in and I thought it would be swimming and

it ended up.

I got sick of the chlorine, the black line, eating my cornflakes at the pool with milk

and chlorine and I decided there's got to be a better sport.

Sorry, swimmers, no offence.

But I tried every sport and then there was a notice on the school notice board that said

volleyball trip to Canada and America and I was a grade nine Corinda High student

and I thought I want to go to Disneyland.

Yes.

And volleyball happened to be my vehicle.

I went and played volleyball.

I thought this is awesome and I know we don't have too much time because you've asked about

30 years ago but the reason I love volleyball over every other sport I did from taekwondo

to BMX to skateboarding to golf to tennis to basketball, track and field, I literally

did everything.

I even played Vigoro.

For those listeners that don't know what Vigoro is, go and Google Vigoros with girls cricket

because we weren't allowed to play cricket as a girl.

So I tried to dress up as a boy, I mean I still do sometimes, to get in boys cricket

and some kid outed me, she's a girl, get her off.

So I went to play Vigoro.

But all of that is why eventually my volleyball, oh back to my, so my volleyball, it was the

only sport that I couldn't play.

Now I don't say that to...

To sort of egotistically, curiosity of how to play that sport, when I went to bed at

night, I couldn't stop thinking about why everyone playing volleyball was so bad and

why you try to get the ball to go in one direction over the net, it's a good start, and it would

go left or right.

And so I started to think about why is this so difficult, a rebound sport, and team, six

of us trying to do...

Good, we couldn't.

If you could serve and get the ball over the net, you'd often win a point.

So I wasn't good at it, nobody was good at it, and that's why I decided to spend my life

mastering the sport of volleyball, which is sometimes the opposite of what most people

do.

They're either good at it or they love it, and that was neither for me.

It was how to get better at this sport no one could do.

So that's why I started.

And then once it became an Olympic sport, I got a call up from the best beach volleyballer

in the country.

Now, there were only two, and they decided to split up and choose a taller athlete each

for the quest of Olympic glory.

And a whole other story about how Kerry and I got together, because that's a different

part, and Kerry and I went to our first Olympic Games in 1996 in Atlanta.

And you finished those games with a bronze medal.

How did it feel representing your country in Atlanta and having a medal put around your

neck?

I've got a better story than that, because I'm the first ever athlete to receive an Olympic

medal for beach volleyball, because they gave out the bronze medal first, and they

gave mine out first, and they gave the women's out first.

So Kerry got the second.

I love that.

She hates it when I tell that story.

I imagine you've told that story many times.

I do.

I feel winning is important.

And actually, Chloe...

Winning is important, and it's not about the score all the time.

It's actually a mindset.

It's up here.

Winning's up here, between your ears.

And so I always find a way to win, which drives my family and friends and Kerry batty, because

I have a DNA, or like a missile homing device for winning.

And whether it's getting first to the Eiffel Tower to get in to get my seat, or whether

it's getting first to the river.

I'm a bit of an obsession with winning.

I don't know if you still do that.

Oh, yeah.

I'm very, very competitive.

It's funny, when you talked about swimming earlier, again, no insult to swimmers, but

you don't seem like a stare at a black line kind of person to me.

You just...

Well, that's why I'd often find myself turning from freestyle into backstroke to find the

shiny thing that went around the corner, right?

And I'd do my tumble.

And I'd tumble turn in freestyle and come out backstroke, because I'd rather look at

the sky, and the coach would just lose it.

But I won the under eight 50-meter breaststroke title for Queensland, and that's my claim

to fame.

That sits above the Olympic medals?

Totally above.

I think it's my first ever medal, and it was a badge.

It was a pin.

Amazing.

You know when we used to win ribbons?

Yes.

And then this is when it elevated to a badge, and I got a little...

A blue Q badge, and I came home to see my mum.

She said, where's your medal?

I said, here it is, on my chest.

So yeah, those are the memories, Chloe, that helped the foundation for us to be athletes.

And I've got an eight-year-old now, and I know she's not...

Don't tell her.

Not Olympic material just yet, right?

So...

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

I thought you'd really decided she was never going to get there.

No.

No, she's got...

She's loving her tennis.

She's doing great at tennis, because that's what we see on the TV all the time, too.

She doesn't want to play beach volleyball like mum, but that's okay.

That's probably because I beat her all the time, but it's all good.

I need to compose myself for this part of the story.

Sydney 2000.

So we actually...

You talked about our success as the Aussie Sevens team in Rio 2016, but we actually heard

about what you and Kerry did in the lead-up to Sydney 2000, and we adopted a few of those

strategies because we wanted to learn from successful people like you.

Can you talk through what that process was like?

You came...

You were together, obviously, in Atlanta.

You split as partners, but came back together about a year out from Sydney 2000.

Is that correct?

Yeah, that's correct.

When you come third at the Olympics and you have to wait four years for your next go,

you put all...

Kerry and I put all these plans together, and you expect to go from third to fourth,

and you expect to go from third to fourth, and you expect to go from third to fourth, and

you expect to go from third to second, and second to first, and I think we went from

third to 17th, and we weren't real happy.

So when there's only two of you, it's quite a compact environment.

There's no substitutions.

So if I get hurt, Kerry has to go and find a new partner and try and set up a new team.

And the coach can't actually coach from the sideline.

So in beach volleyball, you're not allowed external input from anybody, and still to

this day.

They've been trying to change it so the coach could interject and talk in timeouts.

But it's a bit like tennis.

We're not allowed to.

And so it was quite intense when we weren't going up and the results were going down.

And there's only focus on two of you.

So it was either my fault or Kerry's fault, and I'll let you work out whose fault that

would be.

But as humans, we feel better when we blame somebody else.

So high-performance sport is...

It's actually really about self-reflection and reviewing your own performance and reviewing

how that fits into the team and having a third-party look at that.

So when we put all that together, we decided it was better if we split up, and we did for

a little while until we realized we were a better team together.

We just needed to get our purpose aligned.

We needed to get on the same page and understand each other's differences, which I think we

do better in the world today.

Celebrating our differences and our uniqueness instead of trying to change each other to

be like ourselves, right?

Ultimately, Kerry and I were the best because we complemented each other and we had different

personalities and different styles.

She was the best server in the world.

She was the fastest and hardest.

She was the best spiker in the world.

And I was the strategist and the precision.

So I could put it on a 50-cent piece.

Not that we have 50.

50.

50-cent pieces much anymore, but if you imagine a small dot in the sandpit, I could put it

there with my eyes closed, whereas Kerry would blast a hole in you within five meters radius

because she was so powerful.

Now, when I tried to be like her and hit it hard, it didn't work for me.

So it's important, and as you said, you took on a few of our strategies.

We have lots of strategies, and it's important for each athlete to work out which one's

worked for them.

So when I spoke to the Rugby Sevens, girl, I think we came and talked to you about, and

you might have been in that squad, we talked about the biggest and probably most notable

one is surrounding ourselves with gold.

That's what it was.

And if you want, yeah, if you want something in your life, you've got to put it everywhere,

project it, start to live into the idea of what you're going for.

And gold, a gold medal isn't just about the shiny trinket, it's about the whole golden

journey along the way.

So as a symbol of that, I slept in gold sheets, I had gold shoes, gold sunglasses, gold Ugg

boots, gold car, gold watch, and I even washed in Palmolive gold soap and would sing the

national anthem.

I still do, actually, because it's now a memory.

Rather than a projection, Palmolive gold, 50 cents from Chemist Warehouse, real easy.

And you wash yourself in that and sing Advance Australia Fair.

We could both do it, Chloe.

We're good.

Not together.

If we're not on the podcast.

But I mean that 50 cents with inflation, it's probably a good way to go.

Yes, exactly.

Buy lots and then keep the gold bars in your suitcase under the bed like my nanny used

to do.

I love that.

So times have changed.

Times have changed, obviously.

But I just find with technology now, people aren't seeing enough of the goals and the

visions.

We used to have vision boards.

You should have vision walls.

You should get wallpaper with where you want to go in life.

And if it's not sports specifically or results, if you're an AFL umpire, if you're a pickleball

player and want to own a team, coach a team, you've got to have all of these visions around

you.

All the time, not just once on your phone when you click your pictures.

So we would surround ourselves with everything that was gold.

And it just kept us focused on what we were trying to do.

Yeah, it was quite incredible to learn from the two of you and your success.

And as you said, you can't copy and paste it.

We kind of took parts of it for us.

So we went into Rio in 2016 as world champions.

So we were the favorites.

And we felt the pressure of that.

But off the back of listening to the two of you, we made a really conscious decision as

a team to use gold in our language a lot of the time.

So we talked about the fact that we were going there to win a gold medal.

We weren't going to win any other color medal.

We kind of embraced the fact that we wanted to be the gold medal favorites.

And that's what we were setting out to do.

So it was quite an incredible opportunity and pretty special to kind of sit today and

chat to you about that moment.

Because I think even looking back...

I remember putting, I don't know if it would have been yours or Kerry's gold medal, wearing

it, but this is pre-Rio, and thinking, like, surely, surely we can't.

I'm not going to have my own one of these.

And to think now that I've got one that sits in the drawer that I can pull out and put

on whenever I want.

Like, it's a mind blank.

Do you still feel mind blank that you have an Olympic gold medal?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Exactly like you.

And I pretty much take mine everywhere I go because I run into somebody that's...

Says, I saw you.

I was there.

What does that feel like?

And I'll just pull it out of my pocket like a party trick.

And I'll go, here, you tell me what it feels like.

And...

Wait, so you seriously, like, have it in your pocket?

Yeah.

Because it's in my...

I need to start doing that.

You do.

Because no...

How many are there, Chloe?

How many...

There were 16 gold medals that were won by Australians in Sydney.

In Rio, there were less.

I'm sure it was like 14.

So you have one of 14.

Olympic gold medals from Rio.

How many people would have seen that?

Not enough.

Put it in your AFL backpack.

Actually, wear it under your AFL jersey.

And just...

Because yours are so much bigger than ours with inflation that it will hit you in the chin,

knock your teeth out.

So make sure it's under your jersey because otherwise it could, you know,

you could sue me for damaging your beautiful teeth.

We don't want that to happen.

Oh.

Oh, funny.

I need to...

I'm going to take that on board, I reckon.

I need to get it out because it's quite a beautiful thing.

Like, one of my favourite things, and I imagine you're similar,

is particularly taking it to schools and just seeing little kids try the medal on

and that moment of wonder and that dreaming that they have

when they try something like that.

I'm like, could I do this myself?

Yeah, and their eyes, the look in their eyes.

And they all try and grab it.

Like a seagull with a chip.

And it's the cutest little thing.

And I guarantee that the more we keep doing that, and we are...

The Australian Olympic Committee have an amazing program called Olympics Unleashed,

and the Paralympics have a program where they go into schools as well.

And with Brisbane 2032 coming in eight years, we have stirred the hopes and dreams

of the whole of Australia for the young athletes to want to be athletes.

But there are so many other ways.

There are so many other ways to be a part of the Olympics and Paralympics,

whether it's a volunteer, a spectator, a driver of athletes,

and you never know who you could get in the car.

I'm sure there's people all over the world saying,

I drove Usain Bolt or I drove Muhammad Ali to light the cauldron in 1996,

and they're still telling those stories.

So you can work in it.

You can be a physio.

You can be a sports scientist.

There are so many ways to be involved in the Olympic Games in Brisbane

and the Paralympic Games.

If you're not an athlete, dream about how you're going to get to Brisbane

for 2032 because it will be super special.

And I'm excited for this next generation of athletes that gets all of these

new adjustments to the Games.

Like here in Paris, there's a medal walkway.

So after you win your medal, you can come and strut your medal along the –

I wish I knew where it was.

I've got overload of all these Olympic venues.

But it's a champion's way, right?

So you can come and see all of the people and all your family

and friends can come there and you get celebrated again

at the champion's way.

So there's so many new cool things coming and I'm super excited

for what we might do in Brisbane.

Yeah, I'd love to touch on your role and your involvement in Brisbane 2032.

But before we get to that, can you just – can you take us back to that moment,

walking out onto Bondi Beach, Sydney 2000, for that gold medal match?

Yeah, for me it feels like yesterday.

It was Bondi Beach and the greatest iconic beach in the world.

The Brazilians try and argue that Copacabana is, but we, you know, we won

and so beach volleyball, Bondi Beach is now the greatest.

We've got our athletes here at the Eiffel Tower thinking Eiffel Tower Beach

is the greatest beach.

I'm like, no, no, Bondi is a real beach.

So the stadium –

The stadium was set.

There were 10,000 people.

We came underneath the tunnels at the pavilion.

So if you walked on the pavilion there and on the walkway,

the way we got into the venue was under the tunnels and under the stadium,

which has never happened before.

Usually there's a sort of a side entrance, but we were under the grandstands

where people were banging their feet and cheering because of the music.

We had Bondi Dave doing the wave and getting everybody ready.

So we were getting almost sand in our faces as we hid under the stadium

and we came in from the northern corner of Bondi and they said,

and welcome to the Olympic gold medal match, Natalie Cook and Kerry Potters.

And as we came out, like I've still got goosebumps, the place erupted.

I've never played in front of that many people.

I've never played in front of that many people that are Aussies

because usually they're foreign.

When you're overseas and you might find three Aussies that yell

out in an Aussie accent.

But to feel that literally do, we get asked a lot, does it lift you?

Does it help you?

And we'd created a story through our preparation where it lifted us.

We floated in there.

We just knew we had a five-point head start, not that the scoreboard

reflected that because that's not how the score went,

but we felt like we had a head start.

The Aussie chant, the famous Aussie, Aussie, Aussie.

Oi, oi, oi.

Good, Chloe, I was waiting.

I was seeing if you're trained.

The famous chant started.

And so the first, you know, you stand there in your bikini and your hat

and there's a billion people watching because volleyball is quite a big sport

in Europe and Asia and we're playing South America,

so they've got lots of people watching.

And they'd actually changed the rules six months before

about the rules.

And they said, oh, we're going to play in the South America.

And they said, oh, we're going to play in the South America.

And they said, oh, we're going to play in the South America.

And they said, oh, we're going to play in the South America.

And they said, oh, we're going to play in the South America.

And they said, oh, we're going to play in the South America.

The service, if you remember ever playing volleyball back in our day,

the serve when it hit the net was a fault, like tennis.

But for the Olympics, they changed it.

For the Sydney Olympics, they changed it to make it a live ball.

So that was one thing.

The other thing for the final is they changed the scoring.

Instead of one set to 15, they made it two sets to 12.

And so all of a sudden, well, best of three, we won in two.

So we had to change.

We'd never trained for that really.

It was quite difficult to train for that.

And so all of a sudden we're in a brand new environment

and that's what high-performance sport is about.

How do you adapt?

How do you focus on the next point?

How do you move through the disappointment of the last point?

Like if someone scores a try on you guys and then what do you do next?

It's like straight back to the centre line, let's keep going.

Even with 10 seconds to go.

So we got out there in front of Brazil.

Brazil was supposed to win.

We'd played them 17 times and only beaten them once.

Those odds are pretty bad.

Wow.

But we weren't looking backwards.

We were looking into our projected future, which was we were going

to win this thing, remember?

We'd surrounded ourselves with gold.

We'd done all of the hard work off the court, on the court,

in our relationship.

Our strategy was solid.

Here's our strategy.

You ready?

The Brazilian team, there's a bit of culture and history that you sort

of have to understand to know why this works.

But their only gold medal they've ever won for Brazil in the Olympics

ever was in 1996 in the women's beach volleyball, right?

That was their first ever gold medal.

So four years later, the pressure from Brazil,

is quite high for them to win again.

And remember I said they'd beaten us 16 out of 17 times.

So they'd almost printed the T-shirts.

They'd almost written the story.

And we knew all that.

The coach said, look, Coach Steve Anderson,

the best beach volleyball coach in the world, I had him for four Olympics.

He said, here's the plan.

You don't need to know about dig, set, spike.

You don't need to know about where to put the ball.

You just need to know that if you hold your shot,

shoulders up, and your smile up, and your positivity up,

that at a point in the match, the pressure of the nation of Brazil

will get on top of them and they will crack.

And when they crack, that's when you press the accelerator.

And this was our headline game plan.

Wait, hold on to the ladder when the storm's coming.

Don't try and climb in the storm and push for points.

Again,

against momentum.

Momentum's a whole other thing.

Hold the ladder in the storm.

Now, we were in storms the whole game because they were ahead of us

the whole game.

And we were holding, even to Kerry, I'm like, hold the ladder,

hold the ladder, hold the ladder.

No volleyball talk.

Hold the ladder.

And then all of a sudden there was a crack.

And here's where the crack happened.

My serve at set point on the first set hit the ladder.

Hit the net and dribbled over.

Could have dribbled back on our side.

It would have been a fault.

Dribbled over and they couldn't get it.

And that's how we won the first set.

The brand new rule of the new Olympics.

We held the ladder.

We won the first set.

We could see they were devastated and disappointed.

And then our skills and technique and will and crowd and everything else

just continued to take over.

And I still remember the look on their face.

And the commentator, as I watched,

as I watched back, as they got their silver medal, said,

they were crying, as you would, because they were supposed to win.

They were crying a lot.

And the commentator said, oh, tears of joy from the Brazilians.

And I said, no, no, they're not tears of joy.

They're tears of devastation because our plan and our spirit and our posture

and our belief that we'd worked on got us over the line.

And forever to this day,

I remember the spirit of the Brazilians.

I remember the spirit of the Brazilians.

The sand between my toes, the wind against my back,

Kerry's serve, calling the last point for her.

And, yeah, it'll go with us together forever.

It's like I just had goosebumps as you tell that story.

Like you talked about being like a real like Olympics fanatic.

Like that story is quite incredible.

It's kind of that feeling of like the Anna Mears, Victoria Pendleton,

London 2012, you know, that strategy piece that goes behind this success.

It's quite, it's just quite incredible.

Yeah, and I've watched Anna too, that amazing hold on the track.

But what's behind it is so incredible of why that makes Victoria feel uneasy, right?

And so some of the techniques and game and the skills we would use would make

some teams happy and they would kill us and other teams would put them under pressure.

Understanding the psychological, the cultural,

the environment as well as, which is why the big moments in sport are so big

because all of that adds up to the cherry on top.

And the last point for us, Kerry went back to serve.

It was gold medal point and I'm standing at the net and we give her a symbol.

Now we're famous for symbols behind our back because it's on our bum.

Lots of people like to focus on our bum.

They said, oh, your signals are good.

I said, you're not looking at the signal.

Um, the signals are numbers on where to serve and every team has a different one.

We used to have very generic ones and everyone did the same.

And so there was a specific one for Kerry and I, that was a thumbs up,

which was like a stick of dynamite, which was to go for it.

Giving her the free license to hit, uh, if you remember top of the show,

she was the best biker, best server, but it could hit me in the back of the head

or it could hit the spectator.

I didn't know.

You didn't know.

So the last point I've called the dynamite and I've said, you go for it.

Like just behind my back.

And I've sort of ducked a little bit cause I was worried about my head and she's hit

a great serve.

She's come off the back of an ace before that hit a great serve.

The ball's been over past.

So it's really tight to the net.

I've jumped up with the Brazilian girl to, to do what we call joust, which is both try

and hit the ball at the same time.

She's got it first.

And I have a bit of a math brain, physics brain, and I can tell the trajectory of the

ball, the speed of the ball that it's gone going to go out because she's gone over the

top of me.

And I've jumped, as you can imagine for Olympic gold medal point and got as high as I could.

So I knew this thing was going to go out.

Now, Kerry doesn't like sand.

Look at, think of that.

She doesn't like sand.

She's always trying to get it off her and she doesn't like to dive.

So when.

When I knew that it was going to go there, I'm like, she's not diving for that.

We've won this thing.

I've turned around.

She's running like, don't run.

You don't, you never run because she doesn't like diving and she's running because it's

gold medal point.

She's trying her hardest.

And so I remember coming off the net, yelling at her going, it's out, it's out, it's out.

Leave it, leave it all in slow motion.

And she got all the way to the sideline and pulled her arm back, whether she heard me

or whether she felt like it was out.

Um, and it dropped three millimeters out of the sideline and that's how we won the

Olympic gold medal.

So I do remember that point quite well as well.

Oh, it's just, it's just incredible.

I'd love to chat next about what your, there are obviously plenty of Olympics after that,

but what your transition into retirement from sport looked like and what your experience

was like, um, as an athlete.

And it's a team sport, but I guess the more individual element of the sport from a commercial

perspective.

Yeah.

Well, we sort of knew when we started that it wasn't, um, a high income generating sport.

When we got into beach volleyball, we'd come home as winners with a, with a water bottle

and a hat.

And there's only so, there's only so much you can do with 55 water bottles and 50 hats.

Right.

And, and then you do functions or you go to events and people would say, well, you come

and see me.

I'll come and speak at my function for free and I'll give you lunch.

And so that's, you know, the world, that's how the world started for me.

And I thought, great, a free lunch.

That's awesome.

I'll come and speak.

And then we realized, um, that we could earn some good money being a public speaker.

And both Kerry and I are corporate speakers at corporate MCs hosts.

And that's how we learned to make our money.

You can make it in one day for a week or for a month back in those days.

And so we work hard on our speeches and our storytelling and our engagement.

Um, and so that is what kept, it wasn't because of our volleyball money that kept us alive.

It was our corporate speaking.

And I did that.

I've done that now for 30 years.

So that's been my day job, but we've also known we've needed another career because

it's not going to, there's not many commentary jobs.

It's not like you can go into footy or cricket and try and get a job.

Um, Kerry now is the commentator for channel nine and the Olympics and does an amazing job

and has done that since she retired after Athens in 2004.

So we've always known we've had to have something else.

Um, and so that's made it a bit easier because we've been doing that along the way.

And you didn't have to show up to a job every day.

This is the difficulty for our athletes today is.

They're expected to perform on the field.

They're expected to perform off the field in social media, be high performing role models

and, and citizens.

And then they're expected to get a job and there's no time if you're a decathlete or

if you're in team sport where you're told when you have to train, um, and then you've

got to recover and getting to be the best in the world right now is harder and harder

every single day.

So we built a career as we went.

Um, and now I do a lot of ambassadorial work, uh, for businesses, more so, um, functions,

events, um, working on athlete employment programs to make sure athletes get the flexibility,

but not only the flexibility, Chloe, because flexibility is great.

Um, oh good.

You can have time off, but then no one's paying you.

So you got time off and you got to move out of your house because you're going on tour for two

months to represent your countries.

It just doesn't feel right.

So how do we get a flexible employer that pays for your service in the green and gold?

And I think that is something I'm working on with Deloitte who are an Olympic partner as well.

And we're getting close, um, to how do we compensate the green and gold pride that we give to the

nation, uh, as athletes trying to do.

Our best for the country, because it is a, it's a big responsibility and that that's really important.

Um, so we decided never to work for that because we couldn't show up to a job on time and we couldn't give them, you know,

my first job I tried to get, I said, look, I can work for two hours here and an hour and a half here and 35 minutes here.

And we couldn't do online either.

We have to physically go drive bus.

Um, so.

There's a bit more flexibility with online work and, and people are understanding a little bit more of why it's important, but it's still a long way to go.

Yeah, absolutely.

And was that part of what led you to start the Aussie athlete fund?

Yeah.

What?

Like I was okay.

Natalie cook was okay.

I'd built a good career as a public speaker.

I could have easily sat there and watched and had my own, um, my own economy and I've got built my own job.

And I, I, the reason I've been successful.

So successful as building quality relationships and networking, and I would go to every function and every event I was invited to, because that I saw as my work, I was never made to go.

I went to watch, see, learn, and meet people.

And then if I met people, they might ask me to come and do something for them.

So I was front and center.

Everyone said I was at the opening of an envelope and I would sit in the front row.

I would never sit at the back.

Cause no one can.

See you let's sit at the front row.

I get asked questions.

I'd ask questions.

I became very curious about business.

And so I was okay.

But what happened thanks to social media, uh, I would get messages every other day that said, my son has qualified for a trip to Thailand in the Taekwondo and I can't afford it.

My daughter has qualified to go and represent water polo.

And I can't afford it.

Do you have any ideas?

So I'd get a lot of requests to help.

And I had built a career in fundraise.

Literally.

I call myself, we used to call ourselves professional beggars, and then I call myself a fundraising expert.

Um, and we learned to fundraise now fundraising, isn't just raffle tickets and car washes, which is how I started.

It's building an economy and a fundraising.

Yeah.

Map that could involve work, whether it's 20 hours a week, could involve sponsorship.

It could involve donations for the Australian sports foundation page.

So I became a fundraising expert and I was sitting on the couch with all of these messages coming in thinking I have to do something to help the next generation prepare themselves on and off the field.

And I also know the fundraising strategies help on-court performance strategies.

Ironically, they cross over very well, right?

So relationship building is good in fundraising and relationship building in team sport is good.

Relationship building with the referee is actually quite good.

If you have, um, not a friendship with a referee, but if you're nice to the referee and there's a close call, you never know.

Right.

I'm sure you've experienced that.

Um, so I.

The reason I went into the Aussie athlete fund was to make an impact across the system because I was helping a couple of athletes in Queensland.

Um, but I thought, how do I make a big impact across the whole nation to teach anyone that wants to learn about building their athlete economy and a sustainable athlete economy to fund their sporting dreams.

Now that's the athlete.

That's the family.

We work with, um, people.

People that donate money.

We work with people that want to sponsor.

And these are about grassroots athletes, anyone that is representing Australia or anyone that has the desire to represent Australia and is in the pathway.

We will at the Aussie athlete fund, educate them, support them, network them, connect them, teach them, invite them to events.

It's hard to get an invite to events.

Some people come to me and say, how do I get to the CEO of Virgin?

Or how do I get to the CEO of Qantas?

That's hard.

Um, the easiest way is get to an event, but how do you get an invite to an event?

So we teach all that we've partnered with the Australian sports foundation who have the tax deductible, uh, fundraising pages, which, oh, that's a game changer.

So if I had that, I would have like knocked it out of the park, but I had to knock, knock, knock on doors.

I had to sell raffle tickets.

Um, but this.

Ability to digitize.

And modernize fundraising through the Australian sports foundation has just changed the game.

And so what could say, what could we do at the female athlete project to be involved with the AAF?

Are we calling it AAF for sure?

Yeah, AAF.

Well, that's what happens these days, right?

They shorten everything.

Um, so I'm glad you asked.

Thank you.

Um, what you're doing is sensational building awareness, changing the conversation, uh, about.

Female.

Athletes and here in Paris, ironically, I'm walking in a fashion parade to address the parody issue of pay and it's run by a four time us Olympian ice hockey gold medalist.

And there's 24 athletes from all over the world.

I was going to say marching, walking.

I wish I was marching in the opening ceremony, strutting my stuff.

Now I'm not a model.

I don't like doing all.

All of that stuff, uh, but I'm going to do it to build this awareness.

And I told the us, um, hockey player, Angela, I said, I'm not here to fight female, male equal pay because that should be a given.

I'm here to fight for pay for our athletes in the green and gold.

I love that.

Give us a preview of Brisbane 2032.

You're involved with the world Olympians association, and you're also involved with Brisbane 2032.

Give us a preview of what it's going to look like to have the games on home soil again.

Well, my purpose for being in Paris is with the world Olympians association.

We run, um, a venue called OLY, which are our post-nominal Olympic letters, which you have as an Olympian and it's an OLY house.

So the reason that's important is when we come to Brisbane, we'll have an OLY house.

We'll be able to invite Olympians from not only all over Australia.

But all over the world.

All over the world that are no longer competing to come and be part of the games.

So we're right at the heart.

We're in the heart of Paris, not far from the Eiffel tower as well.

OLY house will welcome thousands of retired Olympians.

We're not former Olympians once an Olympian, always an Olympian.

We're retired Olympians or non-active Olympians celebrating the Olympic spirit and the, um, event.

So that's what I do at world Olympians.

There are, um, a hundred.

Thousand living Olympians all over the world.

And our job at the world Olympians association is to celebrate, provide opportunity, provide education and insight and connection, uh, for those.

So that's what I'm doing here.

That will translate.

Of course, we will have an OLY house in Brisbane, 2032.

Put me on the list, please.

Yes, you absolutely.

You can be the door lady with me.

We can invite them all in, we can high five them all as they come through and, uh, we won't.

Have a venue like the Eiffel tower.

We'll have the story bridge, but we're great.

Maybe the story bridge pub could be, I'd love it to be at the pub.

That'd be great.

So, um, but my role in, uh, I'm on the board of Brisbane, 2032, and that means that there's 22 of us with the premier Queensland.

Who's the one that signed the deal for us to win the Olympic and Paralympic games to our city.

So that's pretty cool.

And 22 of us, big board, but there's lots to do.

Patrick Johnson, um, track and field, indigenous runner.

Uh, we've just lost Bronte Barrett off the board.

They will reelect a new one from this Olympics for a new athlete.

Kurt Fearnley, our Paralympic representative, uh, plenty on the board.

So our job is to make sure we steward the games to do the best for Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, uh, and to let people all over the.

World.

The world know where Brisbane is because here in Paris, we've got a Brisbane 2032 cafe.

So I'll be going to that a little bit.

We get to talk about Brisbane 32.

We had to talk about why Brisbane's games are going to be special.

Um, and we are the first games with the new norms to spread out a little bit and go to the sunshine coast, gold coast.

Uh, there'll be events in Townsville.

Um, and we can't wait.

Amazing.

Now, thank you so much for your time today.

Um, for taking time out of, from eating baguettes and going to cafes to talk about the Olympics.

I have a very much appreciate it.

Um, but on a serious note, it's, it's a real honor to sit down and chat with you.

And as I touched on, it was so special to learn from you and Kerry and to be inspired by you and to be able to carry that into my own Olympic experience with my teammates.

So thank you so much for, um, for everything that you've done and for everything that you continue to do in this board and Olympic space.

Well, I appreciate that, but right back at you.

You're amazing.

And you are wearing.

Your Olympic gold medal and your necklace around your neck.

So keep inspiring.

I was thinking, yeah, it looks like you're wearing it every day.

It's right there.

And yeah, keep inspiring.

Um, keep changing the world the way you're doing on and off the field.

And, um, I'm your biggest fan and I can't wait to see you in person and have the female athlete project raise some money for our athletes.

How good?

Yes.

Amazing.

Thank you so much now.

Thanks.

Thanks so much for listening.

If you got something out of this episode, I would absolutely love it.

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