Sliding The Slope To Success With Skeleton Racer Jackie Narracott

Like most winter athletes, Jackie Narricot fell in love with winter sports after watching the movie Cool Runnings.

But unlike most other athletes, Jackie grew up in Queensland, Australia, a place literally called the Sunshine State that rarely sees snowfall.

So it was actually a chance encounter with the Australian bobsled team that led Jackie on her journey to discovering skeleton racing,

a sport she described as going down an icy water slide with no brakes.

And let's just say it was love at first slide.

Welcome back to the Female Athlete Project.

I'm Sophie, the producer here at TFA, and this week, Chloe sits down with Jackie Narricot,

the first Australian to earn an Olympic medal in skeleton racing.

After recently announcing her retirement, Jackie chats with Chloe about the highs, lows and slippery slopes of her career,

including an almost career-ending concussion.

Jackie shares what it was like to finally achieve her lifelong dream

of becoming a professional skater.

Coming an Olympian and getting to do that twice.

We hope you enjoy this episode.

Jackie, welcome to the Female Athlete Project.

Thanks for having me.

I'm really looking forward to having a chat with you.

Thank you so much for making the time.

Can you kick us off with Jackie as a little kid?

Two very different sides to my childhood.

Okay.

Initially, as a young kid, I was super girly, super shy into ballet and dance and all those kinds of things.

And then kind of grade four hit and sport came into the picture and tomboy from then on.

Oh, that's quite a dramatic change.

Yeah, I kept dancing until I was 12.

Okay.

And then there was a choice between going to States for athletics or doing final rehearsals for end of year recital and States won.

How interesting.

Because I did ballet as a kid, I don't think I was very good.

But I so clearly remember I wrote,

mum made me do it.

And it made me so anxious as a little kid.

I had to write a card to my ballet instructor, teacher, whatever they're called,

to say that I was choosing to like play other sports, which I guess, whatever you want to call it.

But it's such a clear moment.

I remember of like stopping that and then going down another path.

Yeah.

I remember kind of like the last, definitely the last year of doing ballet and all forms of dance.

Going to dancing was getting to be more of a struggle.

Right.

No.

I want to run.

That's all I want to do.

And why was it running?

Partly history with Uncle Paul, but then also seeing Sydney because that all kind of happened around about the same time.

And running was just fun.

Yeah.

I was good at it.

I liked it.

Yeah.

It was just, it was nice to just kind of be barefoot and running as fast as I could.

Why barefoot?

I like that.

On the track?

No, grass tracks.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

I was going, wow.

Yeah, that hurt.

Tartan tracks and bare feet do not go hand in hand.

No.

I've learned that enough times, but yeah, barefoot on the grass.

Yeah, right.

And talk to us about your relationship with your uncle because he was a winter and summer Olympian.

Yeah.

First Aussie to go to both the summer and the winter Olympics.

Yeah.

It's good.

It was always good to have his backing and his support.

He's in Canberra.

I'm in Brizzy and then around the world.

So we're not necessarily as close as what we could be, but he's always at the other end of the phone.

And from the very beginning, when I switched, it was, right, you can do this, but when it stops being fun, that's it.

It's good advice.

Very good advice.

Yeah.

And so athletics, bit of footy in there?

Soccer.

Yeah.

Goalkeeper.

Goalkeeper for a bit.

Yeah.

That started as a, ideally going to be midfielder striker to keep fit for athletics.

And then I was the only one crazy enough to go in goals that have balls kicked at me.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, mom saw a ad in the paper for QAS's talent ID.

Yeah.

Tried that and got into that.

And that kind of escalated the footy side, but still doing athletics on the side as my main sport, the one that I loved and still love.

I find the talent ID things very interesting.

What characteristics did you have that they ID'd?

I probably should have asked that.

Yeah, did they even tell you?

The ability to read a ball, which is funny because my depth perception was out and we'll get to that later.

Yeah.

That was a concussion learning.

Right.

But my reaction, the ability and the willingness to throw myself around and do silly things probably helped.

Which probably makes sense about the career that you ended up in.

How on earth did you end up doing skeleton in the Winter Olympics?

Like, where did that all start?

I think it started probably younger than I realized.

I was growing up, obviously, the connection with Uncle Paul and the bobsledding side.

But then watching Cool Runnings, loved Cool Runnings, I can still quote Cool Runnings.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

One of my favorite movies growing up, which is really bad when you go into a bobsled, like the way they portray Calgary, which is the track in the movie, it's completely like none of the corners make sense, which until you've slid it, you don't kind of get that.

But then also watching Lydia Laszlo and Jackie Cooper and Alyssa do their cool things and seeing them win Crystal Globes and all those kinds of things.

On TV, women doing amazing stuff.

Yeah.

Got to uni, by that point, I knew I wasn't going to be an Olympian as a sprinter, but that should have been well and truly sailed.

Yeah.

If we're not making state and national teams at 15, 16, 17, it's not really going to happen.

Yeah.

Okay.

And right place at the right time to try bobsled, which I was training with a breakman and they needed a spare, so I jumped on a plane, convinced mom and dad that it was a good idea for me to go do bobsledding.

Spent two and a half months traveling around Europe in 2011 after I'd done my final exams at uni, jumped on a plane, missed graduation and all those fun things.

But before I'd even set foot on ice, our skeleton coaches saw me, we were at a World Cup and they took one look and said, you're too small to be a bobsledder.

Right.

What about skeleton?

So before you'd even done anything.

Yeah.

Wow.

Which is true.

Like, I'm more muscly now.

Yeah.

Than what I was bobsledding.

Yeah.

And like my deadlift improved just from picking up sleds.

It was, I was, it was not strong enough to be a bobsledder at the time.

Okay.

And even now.

And are we talking like, like glute quad strength to get that initial push?

Yeah.

But also just picking up, being able to move the sled and pick up the sled.

Right.

The thing weighs 160 kilos.

Whoa.

Yeah.

Like move it and pick it up, like before you start racing or like, so that's just like a.

Part of what you have to do is being able to just pick it up all the time.

Yeah.

Because.

I guess it's not something I have ever thought about.

No.

Some teams have, have wheels to, to move the bobsled around to make it a little bit easier.

Right.

But you've still got to flip it to get it up onto the stand so you can change runners.

And then flip it back the other way to get back on the track.

Move it to get it off the track.

Yeah.

Onto trucks, off trucks.

There's skeletons so much easier.

My sled weighs 30 kilos.

Okay.

So much nicer.

Okay.

We're going to get to the skeleton part.

And there's a lot in that.

I want to just go back to what you talked about.

That idea of being realistic that you weren't going to go to the Olympics in sprinting.

What do you think the balance is like?

Because I think for a lot of young people, they kind of get caught in like, do I persevere

in this or do I change and kind of risk it and try something completely new?

I think it's individual and whether you want it enough.

I, I knew I wanted to be an Olympian.

I didn't care what sport it was.

Yeah.

Would have preferred to have been a sprinter and a summer Olympian.

Yeah.

But as long as I got there and got the rings on my chest, I didn't really care.

I think, you know, intrinsically to whether, whether you're doing well enough, particularly

as you get to late teens, you know, from, from peers, whether you're close enough and

being elite at 15 doesn't mean you're going to be elite at senior level.

Quite often it's the reverse of that.

Yeah.

But you've still got to have some decent level of talent to, to then make the transition

into being a senior athlete.

And I wasn't close enough.

Right.

I think I was running maybe 12, nine for a hundred.

If I was being possibly quite generous, it might've only been 13, but like that at, that

at 15 is nowhere near good enough.

The, the top girls are running 12, one.

Wow.

So the big difference between what is going to become elite and what's just fast.

Got ya.

Okay.

Yeah.

I like that.

I like that perspective.

Okay.

Skeleton, Bez, who's my co-host on the Rap Our Weekly podcast.

Awesome.

She's pretty close.

Can you give it an actual insight?

I mean, it's kind of seems accurate, right?

It's very accurate.

So the way I describe it is basically take a bookie board, make it steel and fiberglass.

Okay.

Um, and take a running, like a running top and dive head first down an iced water slide.

That's basically the, the gist of it without any breaks.

Like my, my feet are my breaks.

Yes.

The no breaks.

Yeah.

That's the gist of it.

That's the gist of it.

That's the gist of it.

That's the gist of it.

That's the gist of it.

That's the gist of it.

That's the gist of it.

That's the gist of it.

That's the gist of it.

That's the gist of it.

That's the gist of it.

That's basically the gist of it.

That's the gist of it.

That's the gist of it.

Without any breaks, like my, my feet are my brakes.

Yes.

The no brakes part.

Yeah.

Let's not forget about that.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

So do I.

Wow.

Okay.

So you, the coaches see you and they're like, no, not big enough to do bobsled.

Skeleton.

This is it.

What goes through your head in that moment?

I want to try bobsled first.

This is what I came across to do.

Um, I've been here for about 48 hours at this point.

Let me get in the back of my mind.

Mark of us led, see if I even like going down the track full stop.

Yes.

It's a very different thing going down when you can't see

versus when you can see.

But that's still a feeling of going down,

basically a rollercoaster with your eyes shut.

And it's a unique feeling and you either love it or you hate it,

but it's fun.

I didn't want to let them down either.

They put a fair bit of faith in me to kind of come over

and help team and get them through.

And is that because you're the brakeman?

You can't see anything.

What about the person at the front?

Oh, they can see.

Other bobsledders probably can't see this.

They can see heaps.

Okay.

To give you an example of that,

we were standing in Beijing with one of our other sliders,

Brie, she's a bobsledder,

and we're talking through corner 13 of the Olympics.

And we were standing there and she's like,

oh, they've changed their signing on the exit of the corner.

This corner is like 100 meters long.

Whoa.

What do you mean you can see that far?

I can see kind of like maybe 10 meters ahead of me.

And you can see all the way around there?

Right, okay.

There's a big difference in what you can see.

They've got some good vision.

They've got some good vision, yeah.

Okay.

Okay, that's good to know.

I like that.

So how do you, if they say you need to do skeleton,

how do you get to the point of running and propelling yourself onto the ice?

I don't imagine they say, all right, off you go, go and do it.

Not quite.

So we had a development camp in March of 2012 in Lake Placid in the U.S.

And kind of got back, got home from bobsledding.

Got back in touch with them and said, yep, I'm keen.

What's the steps from here?

They let me join their camp.

Went across to the U.S.

And how sliding works for everyone is you start from halfway down the track.

So for us it was corner nine.

Oh, right.

And they say like that, don't move.

Yeah.

They push you off and someone catches you at the bottom.

Oh, my gosh, cool.

That's how you start, yeah.

I love that.

Okay.

So we were going about, I think maybe we hit 60K an hour max.

Which is still pretty fast.

Yeah, it is.

And it feels fast.

And then you start doing track walks and looking at where we were.

So we were going around the bottom of the corner and looking at where we would

eventually be going.

Right.

Like five meters higher up in the air.

That's full on.

You're looking up being like, what do you mean I'm going to be stuck to a wall

up here?

It takes a bit to get your head around.

Yeah.

What was the fear like knowing what was coming?

I couldn't wait.

Right.

Yeah.

I did one run.

Got off and went, that's it.

I'm switching sports.

Let me at it.

Wow.

It's just, it was so much fun.

I love the fact that I could see where I was going.

That just, I was in control.

I think that's probably a big one.

And being an individual athlete the whole way through, I was in control and longer

term that that then meant when I crashed, it was my own fault.

Okay.

When I went fast, it was because I went fast.

Yeah.

A bit more intrinsic control over the outcome.

And do you remember the first time you did the full run from start to finish?

I don't actually, I remember that's the one thing from that camp I don't remember.

I remember going, the next step up was from entrance to corner three and we were there

for about a week and our coaches ended up using us as bowling balls to try and have

the best start time.

So the start ramp from corner three, it's kind of like that.

So it's a loose start ramp.

Yeah.

And because we were doing well enough that they kind of trust us, they were running down

the start ramp with us, holding our feet, trying to give us, trying to give us the prep

to go up to the next start.

Okay.

But also because.

Because they could have some fun.

They were competing with themselves.

It was end of season and yeah, they could have some fun.

That's awesome.

I was very bruised for the first couple of years from hitting walls and.

How frequently do you crash?

Thankfully, not all that often.

Okay.

I think my first year I crashed maybe three times, like actually off the sled.

Not just like running into the wall.

Yeah.

Running into the wall happens all the time.

Wow.

It's just the.

The speed and the intensity of which you hit a wall that kind of changes.

Right.

Ow.

Yeah.

Particularly when you're hitting the same spot that everybody else is hitting.

You then start hitting concrete.

There's.

What?

Because the ice breaks down?

Yeah.

That's not good.

It's not.

And it hurts.

But usually it's the sled hits the concrete and then you hit the ice.

Okay.

But it's still pretty intense.

That collision.

It still hurts.

Yeah.

Sorry.

There.

But here's the best example.

The good of that is the, my first full season, we were in Calgary, um, and going around, uh,

we have corners called the core cradles.

This one's 270 degrees, but some of them are up to 360.

Yeah.

Wow.

Just the way it works.

Yeah.

My head's going to like a, a freeway entrance when you like spinning around.

Pretty much.

Yeah.

Some of them, some of them you'll start here and then kind of finish underneath.

Actually, that's usually how it goes.

Um, it's just whether they drop a lot or whether they're fairly flat.

Right.

Um, but yeah, it came around that and the, that one can be a bit tricky because there's,

there's not a lot of, uh, oscillations in it.

So movement in it, which makes it harder to steer and harder to feel where you are.

Right.

Which is a rookie.

It doesn't rode well for you for muscles came out and just slammed the left wall.

Every single run was black and blue from a shoulder down to my ankle.

You learn, you get better at it and you just keep going, keep going, do it again.

Whoa.

Yeah.

So.

As camp, what was your progression like and how did you get to the point to qualify for

your debut into Olympics?

Um, we had a program so that the AIS had a program thankfully for my first two seasons.

So 2012, 13 and then 13, 14.

Um, so I had went onto a AIS development scholarship, which was really handy.

So we had, we had coaching, um, went and did a full season on North America's cup.

So our lowest tier of sliding.

Um,

which we had a bit of coaching, but because we had three tiers of athletes who were all

trying to qualify for the Olympics, all the coaching, all the support went to them.

Right.

And we kind of were left to, uh, with, with, uh, with other development coaches from other

countries who we had good relationships with to kind of teach us how to slide on some of

the, uh, other tracks.

Hard work.

Yep.

And were they generous with their time?

They were.

That's really lovely.

We were, we were lucky with that.

Okay.

Um, still.

Rough, uh, I think world champs, junior world champs, our first year, we had some of our

own athletes coaching us because everyone else was on ICC or, uh, or at, at World Cup.

Yeah.

With the ones who were trying to go, go to Sochi.

Okay.

Um, Sochi happened and we lost all of our funding because the girls didn't perform to

expectation for variety of reasons.

Yeah.

And AIS went, that's fine.

We're taking all of your funding.

Right.

So everyone, everyone retired.

We lost all of our coaches.

And it was just me to what?

Yep.

I think, uh, John, John Farris, one of our male sliders, he kept going.

Yeah.

But on the girl's side, it was, it was me, no coach, no manager, no physio, nothing.

So what on earth did you do?

Made the, uh, somewhat naive call of going to work up having slid for two years without a

coach, without anyone, because I kind of figured that it was easier to hold a World Cup spot

than what it was going to be to lose it and then try and regain it for the Olympics.

But also these were the girls I wanted to beat.

So best way I thought to do it was to sit on World Cup and watch and learn from them

every day.

And what happened at that World Cup?

I got the absolute kick out of me.

Um, I also didn't help that I got concussion on paid training.

We have paid training and then we go into official training where we only have six runs

before we race.

Mm-hmm.

Paid training, first World Cup, hit concussion.

Um, didn't do, kind of hit the roof on the back end of the corner, came down, hit the

right wall, and then that threw me into the left wall.

Um, hit the left wall, finished the run, but concussion.

Really shouldn't have raced that weekend.

Okay.

But I think I did two runs of routine, managed to convince the race doctor that, yeah, I

was fine.

And raced, finished last.

Um, which considering as a team.

I'd had three runs for the week, or four runs for the week, probably isn't that surprising.

Um, but yeah, and it kind of just continued like that for a while where getting, getting

a second run was, was, was hard at times.

Um, there were a lot of tears and a lot of watching, searching sleds, running up, doing

my run, running back down, trying to watch as much as I could and take bits and pieces

from people that I was traveling with and begging and borrowing.

And then I was like, oh, I'm going to try and get video footage or to have someone hold

your sled on the line, come race day.

But what it is.

And then thankfully in 2017, so the Olympic season, the IBSF, so our international

Federation, made the call to have a development coach on World Cup.

Okay.

There were enough single, uh, small nations on World Cup that they were, okay.

We'll fund a small nations coach.

Okay.

Very thankful for that.

Yeah.

It meant that we then had someone that we could rely on and that kind of took some of

the stress out of it.

And also thankfully at that point we had a continental spot.

So the way the rules used to work for the Olympics was that every continent had a spot.

Um, so I knew going into Olympic season in 2018 that as long as I was fit.

Wow.

Pretty much it was going to be okay.

Yeah.

Um, which was fun when everyone was complaining then to me about other athletes who weren't

necessarily good enough to get the continental spot, who were then going to go to the

Olympics as that.

Right.

That's like, you guys realize that I'm the continental spot.

Were they talking to you about that?

Not realizing that was the case.

Yep.

Well, I think they, they knew that, but because at that point I was, I was pushing for top

15 most weekends.

Like, yeah, but like you're good enough to go.

Right.

Not the point.

Right.

Okay.

It's still the same thing.

Yeah.

Um, because we only had, we only had, we only had, we only had, we only had, we only had

had two single athlete nations as far as the quota goes for the Olympics in 2018.

And they went to the girls who were ranked fourth and sixth in the world.

Right.

So it was, that was always going to be a challenge.

Got ya.

Okay.

But yeah, got to go and amazing.

That whole experience where you talked about having to ask and beg and borrow and do all

of those things, that would have been pretty humbling.

And I imagine as an individual athlete, correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like there's a, there's

a level of ego that you kind of need.

You need to have as an individual athlete to kind of rock up to start lines and like

that's kind of the complete opposite end of the spectrum.

What was that like?

Uh, hard.

I'm not very good at asking for help.

I'm still not good at asking for help.

So having to do that and knowing that you've, I had nothing to offer.

I didn't have a physio that I could say, all right, well, they'll sit in corner one and

we can trade video, which is often how it works.

Right.

I didn't have any money to say, all right, well, I'll give you 10 grand.

And fill me for the fit for the year.

You really relying on people not seeing you as a threat, which was the big one.

And thankfully at that point I was as far from a threat as anyone could have been.

Um, and you're just, just relying on friends and people being nice and their athletes being

just going to race day, being far enough ahead of you on the order that they had time to

focus on them and do their job properly and then be nice and help you get, get your foot

to the line.

But sliding is very much a family, which is, which is nice.

That's really lovely.

It's a bizarre thought though, that because you weren't a threat, you could get help.

Yeah, it was, it wasn't a lot of help.

Um, and thankfully the, the Dutch girl that I was ladding, I was traveling with at the

time, um, we got thrown together that we could walk up and go, right, you've never met, meet

at the airport and travel together for the year.

Wow.

Through other, other contacts and other friends.

Yeah.

Just her, her knowing coaches and going, please.

Wow.

That's part of it.

Amazing.

So 2018 Olympics.

Yep.

How does it feel representing your country?

You made it.

The best feeling ever.

We got to try on our speed suits two weeks before we got to the games.

And I remember the first time I put it on and seeing the, first of the rings on the,

on that speed suit and then putting it on and seeing on my chest, like happy dance.

The stupidest like grin on my face because it was finally happening and then got there.

And we had, we were fortunate.

We, we had, we had enough time to kind of spend three days running a muck in the village and

just getting the, getting that excitement completely out of our system before we settled

down and went to training, we got to an opening ceremony and that, that experience is amazing.

Yeah.

The opening ceremony almost got canceled because it was so cold.

Oh, whoa.

It was minus 30 leading in to the opening ceremony.

That's very, very cold.

Plus the windchill.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

Winter sports, not for me.

No, thank you.

No, thank you.

Thankfully it walled up.

I think it was in the, maybe minus eight.

So it was enough that they were comfortable with having people sit outside, outdoor stadium.

Okay.

But we all had the option basically where we could walk in.

Yeah.

Did the lap, up the stairs and then straight down into buses to go back to the village.

Yeah.

Which we, some, some people did.

We didn't, we were close enough to the end where I wanted to see the torch come in and

hear Thomas Bach speak and do all those things that I'd seen on TV.

It's my one chance potentially.

Yeah.

I want to be here.

I want to see the cauldron lit and then we can leave.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then race day?

Opposite of what I was expecting.

Okay.

Partly my own fault.

Cause so my, my husband Dom used to compete for GB and his race was in the morning before

ours.

He won bronze, but did it the hard way.

So he was sitting in third, came down and was then sitting behind another athlete.

So that meant he was sitting in fourth overall.

Relying on the next guy to go down, who is world champion, greatest of all time in our

sport, um, to make a mistake.

And we were sitting there thinking, okay, he just, just lost bronze.

This guy never makes a mistake.

Sure enough, comes down the track and then he comes down in fourth.

Like, okay, cool.

Wow.

But now I've just spent all of my emotional energy watching on the day of your race.

Wow.

On the day of my race.

So by the time we got to compete, I got to the race.

I got to the race.

I got to the race.

I got to the race.

I got to the race.

I got to the race.

I got to the race.

I got to the race.

I got to the track and kind of felt a little bit flat and not what I was expecting.

Yeah.

Didn't then help that, I think the run one or run two, I can't remember now, absolutely

stuffed it up and slammed the left wall going into 12 and almost crashed.

I think I remember feeling my shoulder on the ice going to 12 and that completely ruined

any hope that I had of being top 10, which probably slightly unrealistic if I'm, if I

wanted to be where I wanted to finish, but that kind of happened.

Thankfully,

then run for day two, got to the track and the, the, like that excitement and those nerves

were there.

I remember saying to my coach, this is what I was expecting to feel like.

God, yeah.

Like excited, nervous, but that energy was back.

Yeah.

And then run, run spring forward were better, but yeah.

And did you walk away from that Olympics with a concussion?

No, that was, that was the two runs I did the first, first, first runs of the second, of

the next season.

The next season.

Okay.

Can you talk us through that concussion process?

Cause that was pretty big.

That was big.

It was long and drawn out.

Yeah.

Um, then it probably needed to be.

So first runs back, back in Calgary, um, and did first run of the season hit a bump in,

in Chrysler, always Chrysler, um, that is, is part of the track.

And it's one of those, it's on the line where if you do Chrysler well, you hit it.

If you don't, you miss it.

Okay.

It's just the way the concrete's designed and cause it's so old now.

Right.

Hit that, had a bit of a headache, got off track, like, okay, fine.

Not ideal.

Went again, hit it faster and hit harder in the second run.

Whoa.

And by the time I came out of the corner, swore, wanted to get off the sled, hated it

and got off track.

I was like, what is going on?

Why is this here?

Um, went home by the time I drove the 10 minutes home, I couldn't look at a screen, kind of

started to tick all the big things for concussion.

Just thought, oh, it's all right.

I'll, I'll have, I'll sleep.

I'll be fine.

Went back to the track the following day, track walked.

And by the end of the track walk, I had a headache.

It didn't slide.

We didn't have anyone there.

We had an IBSF coach who was, was, was helping out, but didn't have, had too many athletes

first of all, to try and like individualize anything, but also didn't have the concussion

side of it.

We didn't have a physio.

We had no medical.

So it was just me going, okay, I've had a concussion before.

Um, kind of working through things.

All right, I'll take the day off.

It also didn't stop.

So that was probably my own fault, but about kind of to me about a week to get back on

track, we were doing an ice hour session.

So the pressing start on an ice, on a ice push track, um, bent down to do a hamstring

stretch, got up, felt dizzy.

That was the end of that day.

I think 10 days later, went to Whistler, um, fastest track in the world.

Gorgeous.

And had to start scratch, went from lower down.

And as I said, managed to get through all that, um, sliding really well, got to Innsbruck

in mid of the January, so Austria, um, back on World Cup, thankfully I was sliding.

I was training with the Canadians.

So had the support of, of their team and their coaches, um, was unusually emotional

after a couple of training days and like Innsbruck and I had never particularly gotten

along very well.

It's super subtle.

I hate it.

It's boring, but the runs weren't bad enough for me to be in tears.

Yeah.

And they were, well, I was, um, I was talking to a friend who slides for the Dutch team

and she was saying that I was really slow to respond to questions.

So there was that, we decided not to slide that weekend and went to St.

Moritz, which is in Switzerland.

It's only a natural, natural track in the world.

Um, with the beauty of that is that there's no vibrations.

So because everything just kind of melts away, which is amazing, but I was dizzy sliding

that and again, slow to respond.

Um, and the, uh, Canadians went, we're not comfortable sending me down, went through

all of their concussion protocols, scat tests.

I tried to convince the chiropractor that I was fine because like my, my balance is

terrible.

My balance is always terrible.

So like, don't like, don't, don't believe, don't believe the balance test.

You're not sliding.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um, went back to the UK and then I couldn't walk around town without feeling drunk and

post-concussion syndrome hit and was what was eventually diagnosed.

Um, but I drove from St.

Moritz to Munich, the three and a half hour drive.

Glad to get home somehow.

Um, finally called our physio from the Olympic winter Institute and said, this is what's

going on.

Missing two races in a row.

They kind of needed to know at that point.

Right.

And I figured out what was going on.

Um, and they weren't particularly happy that I'd driven.

Right.

How also you expect me to get home from, from Moritz, um, went and saw a neurologist down

in London and yeah, post-concussion syndrome.

Um, couldn't fly until March, mid Jan, couldn't fly until March and came home and spent six

months of six months doing vestibular rehab to try and get better.

But even, even within that, we've got to, got to June and got, got clearance, but we

still didn't know how we're going to react to sliding.

Despite me doing the weirdest exercise in the world, spinning around on chairs and looking

at one particular spot and keeping my eyes to focus, lying on a vibrating platform.

With weights around hanging off my neck, looking at this string to try and work on my eyes,

see how that would handle things.

We didn't know how it's going to go until I got to the track.

Um, I remember having a conversation with my sports psych working through kind of plan

A, B and C.

Plan A being, yep, we're good to go get through.

We're trying to sport and no symptoms.

Beijing, here we come.

Uh, plan B was that if couple of symptoms, maybe it takes a bit longer to get through

that.

Um, we're still there and then plan C was that I got symptoms, run one and they were

clear cut and that was the end of my career.

Whoa, that was the conversation we had in about August or September before I went on

ice because we needed to have it then when I wasn't an emotional, just in case, which

is not fun to be sitting there having that conversation.

What are we two and a half years out from an Olympics thing?

This could be it.

But thankfully it all went okay.

How did you find the courage to throw yourself back down again with the fear of what you'd

been through and the fact that it is a brain injury that you've experienced?

Uh, I was very, very nervous.

I think aside from the first runs down Beijing, that's the most nervous I've ever been on

a sled because the consequences of it not going well were so...

For me, like in the grand scheme of things, they're not that big.

But in terms of where my goals were at, those couple of runs were going to determine essentially

the rest of my life.

And do you mean consequences around not being able to go to the next Olympics or nothing

to do with your future brain health?

At that point, no.

Just consequences.

Was that not a concern?

No, it was.

And that was why we'd had the conversations about if I had symptoms, then that was it.

Yeah.

Because third concussion.

Second concussion, last one being the biggest, any symptoms, we weren't putting me through

that risk because the rest of my life was more important than going to a second Olympics.

Yes.

But isn't it interesting when you're so focused on an Olympic dream or whatever that dream

is that that almost takes priority sometimes over your welfare as an athlete?

Yeah.

And it had.

And even as a sport, we've gotten a lot better at dealing with concussion.

In the years since, the second the track was bumpy, I stopped sliding.

Right.

The second I had a headache, I stopped sliding.

Right.

Because I knew one concussion is bad, three is really not good.

And I didn't want to finish my career and have all these symptoms and have the potential

long-term effects, which I still might have.

We don't know that.

But I wanted to finish healthy.

And a number of times I wouldn't slide.

And other people would say, oh, I've got a headache.

Then stop sliding.

Yeah.

You have, for the most part, control over whether you go down and do it.

We were in France.

Yeah.

Same thing.

I didn't slide at all because everyone else was saying, it's bumpy.

I've got a headache.

Good.

Well, you're saying that.

I'm definitely not going down the track.

But then they went and in one breath, they're saying, you're doing the right thing.

The next, they're going and doing it.

Right.

Guys, go on.

Yeah.

But each their own.

And I don't think until you've had a concussion that you really kind of understand the effects of it and what it actually means.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Fast forwarding to.

The 2022 Olympics.

How did you feel walking into that compared to 2018?

So much more prepared and a lot more focused.

I think the fact that it was COVID helped.

Yeah, of course.

No distractions.

Right.

We were fortunate.

We didn't have as many restrictions on us as what they did for Tokyo, which I'm very grateful for.

Yeah.

We could go in whenever we wanted to.

We just had the 48 hour.

You're done and on a plane back home.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We had we had the luxury of saying, yeah, we're going to come in on this date and go

from there.

But yeah, it was it was a very different region feeling.

It was it helped that I had I had Dom.

I had complete faith in him as a coach and what we'd been building the two kind of seasons

leading in.

But I didn't expect it to end the way it did.

Yeah.

I don't even know how we're going to.

Yeah.

Do you want to talk through the final?

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, actually.

Can I talk to you?

Talk through the whole race.

The whole thing kind of sets it up.

Go for it.

Sorry.

Day one.

We think race was at 1030 in the morning.

Got to the track.

This is a really cool photo of us of Dom and I walking in at sunrise.

So nervous.

I could hardly eat breakfast.

Wow.

But my dietitian and I had worked enough.

I didn't need to eat.

Get something in.

Something.

Yeah.

But as soon as we got off the bus at the track.

Everything just kind of melted away.

Right place.

I knew I.

Everything I touched.

Just went to plan and it was easy and I have no idea what everyone else was doing.

Just complete bubble.

Dom was super nervous.

I had no idea how nervous he was.

Right.

He hit it so well.

Wow.

Just.

I don't remember what.

I remember not seeing a lot of things.

Part of that was by design.

I didn't want to see times.

You didn't want to see anything.

Okay.

But yeah.

Run one.

Almost hit the wall coming out of the group.

Not ideal, but the rest of that run was good.

I knew it was good.

I didn't realize it was as good as what it was until one of our team managers said, yeah,

you're 200 is behind first.

I didn't want to know that, but okay, good.

Okay.

Yeah.

We're here now with the information.

Yeah.

I got to hang out for a bit.

Run two again.

Another good run.

I was happy with it.

I don't remember a lot of the runs.

And then yes, standing in the leaders walk.

Watching the Canadian come down and realizing, all right, now leading the Olympics, now comes

the hardest part.

Yeah.

We had 36 hours between run two and run three.

Mm-hmm.

That was always going to be the hard part of keeping distracted and not overthinking and

overplaying the runs for the next day, but also what could happen.

And that was the big thing.

I remember talking to Alyssa Campbell and after that, right, what do you need?

Like distractions.

Yeah.

Just distract me.

Whatever we're going to do, distract me.

We've got like Lego and puzzles and all sorts of stuff.

Yeah.

That's cool.

It was brilliant.

And then we avoided all of channel seven, anything live we didn't do.

Like we've watched enough Olympics to know what the, what the buildup was then going to

be like, which is amazing, but as an athlete trying to, that was the last thing I needed

to see.

Mm-hmm.

And then day, day two, we, we split it up.

So the plan was always to be because we were racing so late at night that wake up, go

through a normal day and then go to bed.

But like start the lunch, have a couple hours, hour nap.

Yeah.

And then by the time I woke, I woke up, then it was reset whole new day.

Wow.

And go have lunch or breakfast again.

Yeah.

And then go to the track and start, start from scratch.

Wow.

So nervous.

Not that, not that I felt it, but I remember, and I pointed it out to Dom the other day

that for the third run, my foot slips when I put on the ice.

Mm-hmm.

And that could have been the moment that kind of ended everything.

Remember, no, this is not happening.

Mm-hmm.

It's fine.

Mm-hmm.

Let's just go reset.

Yeah.

Ignore it.

Um, set track record, which was so cool.

It lasted, it lasted a minute and a half because.

Take it.

You still gotta take it.

Yeah.

We were walking into, to weigh my sled, which has happened.

That happens after every run, after the first one of every day.

And I know you heard that like, yes, thanks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think you still take it, still claim it.

Three tenths of a second, she took off my time.

Wow.

I'm like, oh man.

Wow.

But it was fine.

So what position are you in after run three?

Two.

Wow.

So I've seen second.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which I'm totally happy with.

Yeah.

To be honest, I was happy after day one.

Yeah.

I knew at that point there wasn't going to be another Pyeongchang.

Mm-hmm.

And we were happy with that.

Mm-hmm.

And then, yeah, run three, between run three and run four, we had about an hour and a half,

I think it was, a long time to just sit and avoid.

Mm-hmm.

Everyone, I went upstairs, we had this amazing start house, they did indoor, just sat on

our massage bed and ignored everybody.

Mm-hmm.

Sat and ate food and just pretended like the race wasn't going on.

And we were, and this really cool moment, there was me, Kim, who's the Dutch athlete

who won bronze, and then Hannah, who were the last three warming up in the start house.

Wow.

And I looked at Kim and went, same as in Moritz, so we went one, two in Moritz, and

she's like, well, maybe not one, two, but we'll take two, three.

Absolutely.

It's because Hannah was so far ahead.

Right.

Like, yep.

And then, yeah, went and did that.

And the feeling crossing the line, I knew it was a good run.

Mm-hmm.

And all I wanted to see, and coming up the outrun, I was searching for the clock.

Yeah.

All I wanted to see was number one.

Yeah.

And that meant that I'd held my spot.

Yeah.

I saw that, fist pump, screamed, and then the next step up the outrun, disbelief hit.

Like, hang on a minute.

Like, was that, did I, did I see that right?

Is that what I think I saw?

Yeah.

And then searching for the big screen, and yeah, saw green numbers, and oh my God, I

can't believe this has actually happened, even now.

Like, getting to celebrate with Kim is amazing.

We'd spent so long kind of traveling together, and just pure happiness and joy and disbelief.

Yeah.

Like, the progression to go from where you were at pre-20.

Yeah.

To 2018, going through the concussion, being in a position at that World Cup where you

went with no staff, or having to beg people for things, to becoming an Olympic silver

medalist.

What on earth?

Exactly that.

Everything happens for a reason, I guess.

The four years between 2018 and 22, the hardest, most transformative of my career.

Wow.

But, well, I, the goal of, you know, I'm not going to say that I'm going to say that I'm

going to say that.

And I did what I handled it.

I did what my tinha done perfectly.

Abroad, I've bought good construction materials.

I might never be able to put up with, you know, some

around the globe.

I'm not, like, aside from slightly on a comes the bull or what have you, I'm not an athlete.

Yeah.

I don't really even belong.

I spoke about that during the questions whatever I can see, people making fun of me.

Yeah.

I recognize that feeling.

I appreciate that.

I appreciate you.

You are awesome.

Yeah.

It's such a cool dream.

You just came here a year later on.

Yeah.

And you just got it done.

And it's just such a, it feels incredible.

got done most consistent wins i i never i never had the fastest fastest run they're all like second

third or fourth but when people are having the fastest and the 10th fastest and moving kind of

around yes that makes sense and that was what we'd worked on all season was consistency knowing

that over four rounds whenever we run counts the most consistent yeah we'll win i love that yeah

what is your favorite failure uh this one hurts um world champs in 2019 in altenberg

all right eastern germany was the my comeback season from the big concussion um and i crashed

one too um which that meant that in the end i finished 27th my by far my worst result

right world champs um and i felt like i'd let everybody

do it

down it's not what i was capable of um but

the i think that then provided a lot of the fuel to that i've never felt like that again

that was horrific i hated it how do we not make that i don't want to feel like that ever again

and so looking through that but then also being reminded of the goals for that season was just

to get through healthy yeah did that big tick right let's move on yeah um so kind of keeping

that process in the back of my mind

um

it was okay and then really looking looking for all the different positives of how far i'd come

in sliding and all of those things that i actually had control over um but then also working on the

mental side of things of being being afraid to crash not from the fact that it hurt but then

what that then said from a personal point of view particularly on world cup when you've got the best

in the world i there was always this thing back in my head about if i crashed then i wasn't good

enough to do it and i was like oh my god i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna do it

i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna do it

be there wow which is ridiculous when you try crashing part of it when you try new things

yeah it's gonna happen at some point so working on that um yeah i think that's whilst it hurt

a lot we think we gained a lot out of it yeah i like that you have recently announced your

retirement firstly massive congratulations on your career how does it feel and how did you

come to the decision decision will be a long time coming um had knee surgery beginning of the year

and then the the

rehab from that um taught me that i'd use all my emotional reserves to get back to the to the

elite level um olympic season took everything i had and probably 50 percent more that i didn't

realize and i just i didn't have anything left to go again and to put myself through the work

that i need to put myself through so yeah i pulled the pin i pulled the pin about officially about a

month before paris and then by the time i was ready to say anything we were close yeah

like we'll just hang tight and pull the pin yeah but the but it was weird i didn't expect it to be

quite so emotional when i did the video to try and say that yeah this was it but when you worked

for something your whole life it's hard to say to say like officially say goodbye even though

intellectually i know that thousand percent the right decision there's still that part of

but if only yes and worlds are my favorite track this year right and on my home track

it's the one medal that's missing do i no okay i'm healthy yeah this is this is the right decision

i'm home yeah it's time yeah i like i feel like you've gained some pretty good perspective

throughout that journey yeah yeah the the the biggest one is that i'm healthy thankfully

i love what you said about emotional reserves i haven't really like using that all up like i

probably haven't thought about that before from a sporting perspective and it's something like

through my injury process like that's what i've found to be the most important thing for me

the hardest like at this back end of my career is like when you get another injury it's the amount

that takes out of you is so full-on yeah the the training is the easy bit yeah but it's the being

willing to put yourself through the pain yeah and when i guess maybe having the medal helped

because i wasn't searching for that yeah um that's a whole other story in itself the journey to stop

wanting that medal so much um

but yeah that i think that's the side of it a lot of people say that physically they were done

physically i could probably keep going yeah it hurt but if you can't push yourself to that level

and you're not willing to do the hard things and the little things and on the days when it gets hard

and you're tired and sore that you know you've still got to do

six different things yeah that if you're not willing to do that then it's time yeah yeah wow

and how have you found the process kind of getting your head around letting go

sport and walking into this next phase of life uh it's been a process some days some days it's good

some days it's not so good i was still training with um one of my bolsteaders for for a while

which is which is lovely yeah they're trying to step back in but being kind of nice but walking

into the gym and go oh i don't have to push myself if a 60 kilo squat is all i've got for the day then

that's fine yeah i don't have to be 90 kilos yeah we're good great yeah yeah i don't have to be sore

you can just kind of be it can be fun and enjoy it so i think it's been a process and i think it's been

being enjoy watching sport as a fan again yeah that's what i've always loved it and now to go

back to that and also help our next gen and find them and see if we can make brissy better than

sydney and yeah i know what did for me i'm sure it's similar similar for you absolutely we've got

an opportunity to have that for our next for this next generation so it needs to be amazing and to

try and help and find the athletes um who are going to be there and be those rumbles for the

kids who are too young yeah it's pretty special i love that amazing thank you so much for your

time today and sharing all of the amazing aspects of your journey and a massive congratulations on

your incredible career thank you for having me thanks so much for listening if you got something

out of this episode i would absolutely love it if you could send it on to one person who you think

might enjoy it otherwise

you

subscribe give us a review and make sure you follow us on instagram at the female athlete

project to stay up to date with podcast episodes merch drops and of course news and stories about

epic female athletes