This is a really powerful episode, and I hope you enjoy it.
Holly, welcome to the Female Athlete Project.
Thank you.
It's good to be here.
I'm nervous.
First ever podcast.
I'm really quite honored about that.
Yeah, crazy.
It's a very cool opportunity to have you on.
Lots of interviews, but never a podcast.
I'm usually doing awkward things with my hands in interviews and stuff, so this is nice.
I use my hands a lot.
She's strapped her hands under the table.
Stay still.
Don't move.
Your northern beach is local, which is quite nice.
Not far away from here.
Can you tell us about, Holly, as a young kid, what you were like growing up on the beaches?
I was the youngest of three girls, which I think kind of sums up.
I had to be pretty tough.
My two eldest sisters bullied me so badly, but also protected me if I was ever being
bullied, but they just made me kind of try to chase them all the time, made me do very
dangerous and naughty things a lot of the time growing up, but it made me very tough.
I did nippers.
I was a really good swimmer.
I could swim without a bubble when I was 18 months old.
I just loved the ocean.
Yeah.
I just was obsessed with being in the water, being in the ocean.
Yeah.
I think our whole family's like that.
My dad's a marine biologist.
My mom is an incredible swimmer.
She's like a mermaid.
So we just spent our whole lives in the water.
I loved swimming, but I also found it boring swimming up and down that black line twice
a day, every day.
So at 13, when I got the opportunity to play my first game of water polo, I did and I fell
in love.
I fell in love with the sport.
Yeah.
That's really cool.
I've heard there was a teacher at your school.
Did she play water polo for Australia?
Was that part of your-
She didn't just play water polo for Australia.
So Debbie Watson, she won a gold medal in 2000.
Yeah, right.
The Sydney 2000 team.
Yeah.
They are iconic, right?
Yeah.
Actually iconic.
And kind of what we all, I guess, my hands are out, all wanted to aspire to.
Yeah.
And some people that really paved the way for us.
If it wasn't for them, A, fighting for us to get into an Olympics, because I'm not sure
if you know this, but before 2000, women's water polo weren't in the Olympics, even though
water polo, men's water polo was one of the first sports.
So it had this really-
One of the first sports in the Olympics.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was a really deep-rooted history, water polo, but women weren't allowed to go.
And it took a lot.
I mean, there's lots of stories about it in terms of people turning up in cozies, people
beating down doors at meetings, but it really kind of came to a head when Liz Weeks, the
Olympic goalkeeper, bashed down a door in Sydney and said, we need women's water polo
in the Olympics.
All the water polo girls turned up at the airport in Sydney in their cozies and caps
with signs.
And those women are the reason why I got to go to two Olympics, you know, and then you
kind of have to think about the history of what that means.
There was a lot of people before us.
There were women that were then too old to go to an Olympics and that had played world
championships and won gold medals and created this legacy that we then, I guess, play for
the women that could never, never do it and get to play at that level.
And I was really lucky.
Debbie Watson was one of my, my teachers and she came out of retirement.
To actually play in 2000 and she was one of the older athletes in the team, but she came
back and made this massive difference, especially in the, I think it was a semifinal against
Russia or quarterfinal against Russia.
And she was put in and absolutely killed it.
So having her in my corner and kind of as a support and a mentor from when I was really
young to even now, she's still a mentor.
I still see her talk to her, which is really, really lucky.
My parents met playing water polo.
And I watched my sisters, both my sisters play water polo as well.
So when it was finally my chance to do it, when I was in year eight at school and I got
to do it, it was the best.
I went home and wrote a contract to myself saying I'd make an Olympics, signed down the
bottom.
You wrote a contract.
Yeah, I do.
I had, I have a little book and.
And you've still got it.
I've still got it.
And the front page is things I'm going to achieve in water polo.
And it basically just is like a little paragraph saying I'm going to do whatever it takes.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
I can.
That's epic.
Yeah.
First game.
I just, I can't explain it.
It's just such a special sport for me.
And it really helped me growing up and going through some tumultuous times in my like teenage
years, I guess, into my adult life.
And I'm really grateful for the sport to help me in that regard.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
Can you break down the sport for people who might not know how it works?
It's often called rugby in the water.
Yeah.
Who?
Yeah.
It's pretty rough.
It's pretty physical.
But the thing is, we have the water kind of slowing down all the kicks and punches that
rugby players have to get.
Yeah.
So seven in a team, one goalkeeper.
So there's six field players in the water.
There's six different positions, depending.
You basically set up in a semicircle around the goal with one person in the middle.
There's so many rules, but you can only touch the ball with one hand unless you're a goalkeeper.
Oh, I actually didn't know that rule.
Only goalkeepers can touch the ball.
I mean, it makes sense watching it.
But I can't.
Yeah, right.
So if you touch the ball with two hands, it's turnover.
Yeah, right.
Each player gets three fouls.
And if you get three fouls, you're out for the rest of the game.
What's the one when you're in your little timeout?
In your corner.
That's an exclusion.
So you sit there for 20 seconds.
So if you get three of those, you're out for the game and you're not allowed to get back in.
So you untie your cap strings.
You sit on the bench for the rest of the game.
And you're out.
Yeah.
Which is awful.
Because sometimes it can happen like in the Olympics quarterfinal, our 2012 quarterfinal.
Some of our like.
Best players were all out on three in the like third quarter.
So we went into extra time.
Then we went into a penalty shootout.
And our coach who looked around to see who the five people were, who were going to do the penalty shootout.
Most of the players were on the bench out on threes and they can't take it.
So he was like scraping the bottom of the barrel to find people to shoot these, you know, to get into a semifinal.
You're either going to come first or fourth or you're going to come fifth to seventh to eighth.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah, if you get three of those, you're out for the game and you can't come back even for penalties or anything.
So, well, let's while we're there, let's talk about that.
That moment in London then.
So who then steps up?
Who took it?
I took one.
I took one.
Yeah.
And it was the scariest.
It was.
When I look back like in it, I was like, you have to be fine.
Right.
Yes.
It just is what it is.
Yeah.
But in London, especially the stands, like if you were on the bench, you were probably a couple of meters away from where.
Wow.
Where the spectators started.
Yeah.
And it just went up.
And when you do a penalty shootout, it's just you and the goalkeeper.
No one else is allowed in the pool.
Yeah.
Oh, no one's in the pool at all.
No one's in the pool.
Everyone.
So there's the people on the bench who aren't shooting.
And then the other shooters are sitting on the side.
And you've got the goalkeeper on each end.
So you swim in from the side.
Yeah.
And you go in, you sit on five meters by yourself.
I feel a bit sick just hearing about this.
So do I.
And you literally, it's just you.
You, the goalkeeper, and everyone else just staring at you.
No sound, like dead quiet.
And you just have to wait for that whistle to blow.
And you have to do it in one movement.
I actually feel like I want to vomit.
No, when I think that I actually did that.
I wasn't an outside shooter.
Yeah.
I wasn't an outside shooter, but I got put in that situation where I had to score.
And like I was lucky I scored.
We ended up winning that quarterfinal to make it into the semifinal, which unfortunately we lost in overtime again to USA.
Whoa.
And then we went to the bronze medal match.
And again, went into overtime.
So we played our quarter, semi and our bronze medal match all in overtime, which was crazy.
That's a lot of adrenaline.
Well, especially in our bronze medal match, we were all cheering because we were holding the ball for the last few seconds.
Everyone was cheering, hugging on the bench.
And we just hear our coach screaming, no, no, no.
One of the Hungarian girls had swum underwater up at our goalkeeper.
Another one had stormed in beside her.
Stole the ball.
And in the last second, it dribbled into the goal.
And so we had to come back together, like compose ourselves and go and play extra time.
So you were celebrating thinking you'd won an Olympic bronze medal.
Yeah.
While that was happening.
And then you had to go into overtime.
Yeah.
No, no.
There's video.
It's actually so funny because you look at videos and everyone's on the bench, hugging, cheering.
And my coach, you just see him like he's standing and he's like.
No, he could not believe that it was happening because it wasn't like it was a good goal.
It literally dribbled over the line.
And we just, we all came together and we were like, Maka, our goalkeeper, who is one of the best goalkeepers.
She's just incredible.
Loved having her behind me in goals.
We couldn't let her, that be her legacy.
We're like, we're winning this for you.
You know, like that's, we would never let, let us lose after and put that on her.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, we came out.
Yeah.
One of our girls, Gemma Beadsworth, she scored two goals in extra time and we won pretty convincingly.
But when that's your third game, it's pretty, pretty brutal.
We were all really tired and everyone's like, were you so happy when you won a bronze?
And I was like, the first feeling was relief.
I remember just like jumping in the water and just like laying on my back and being like, thank goodness we pulled that off.
Yeah.
Isn't that interesting?
That feeling of relief.
It's the exact thing.
It's the exact thing that I felt in Rio in 2016 when we won our medal.
What was the score?
24 to 17 against New Zealand.
And so we had a pretty convincing lead.
I think we were up 24-10 and they scored after the siren.
So we shouldn't have let them score after the siren, but it didn't impact the result at the end of the day.
And so 24-17 probably sounds a little bit closer than what it was.
And it was just, I think it was to me an overall feeling of relief, obviously that we'd done it.
But it was like, my moment was seven years old watching Cathy Freeman, right?
And like, I wrote it down.
And the scrapbook, I didn't write a contract.
I didn't have a signed contract.
Come on.
I need to be better.
I'll make sure my future children are better at that.
Get them to write their contract.
Sign it.
Sign it.
But yeah, it was that feeling of like, this is what I wanted my whole life and we've done it.
And it felt more like relief than joy.
Yeah.
And there was obviously joy that came with it.
But it's interesting, right?
Is it the level of pressure that we put on ourselves to achieve things like that?
Well, it's weird because I don't know.
I think it's weird.
Right.
Because people, we won a bronze in London and that felt like a gold medal.
Yeah.
Because we finished on a win.
Yeah.
Whereas the next year in 2013, we went to a world championships and we got a silver and
no one could understand why I was actually really upset that we won a silver.
And they're like, yeah, but it's a silver world championships.
It's better than last year.
It's better.
And I'm like, yeah, but I finished on a loss.
Yeah.
And when you're an athlete and when you get to that level, you have to, firstly, I believe
that you have to hate.
Losing more than you even like winning.
You have to hate losing so much that you just refuse to feel that way.
Yeah.
And also, yeah, do whatever it takes to win.
But for me, like I hated losing so much that when I got in the water in those situations,
like all I cared about was making sure we didn't lose.
Like I just want to win every game I played.
And so to get then a silver at world championships, like, yeah, it does look better.
It's a better color.
But I hated, I hated that I had to lose to win it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it just didn't feel right to me.
Yeah.
To finish on that.
Yeah.
To finish on that.
No way.
I would much rather win a bronze medal than lose a gold medal in that game.
Yeah.
It's interesting, isn't it?
Yeah.
Sport and athletes.
It's just crazy.
Weird units.
Yeah.
Weird units.
So true.
Fast forward to Rio in 2016.
We were there together.
Quarterfinal against Hungary.
Oh, I can't, I cannot even.
It took me a long time to process.
Rio, obviously so much, so much disappointment.
I think our biggest problem is all we ever spoke about was a gold medal.
And we didn't think about everything that it took to kind of get it.
We trained hard.
We had like an incredible team, but we needed to be thinking about game for game for game.
And I believe in our round games, we beat Russia.
Then we lost to Italy and there's eight teams.
There's 10 now, which is good.
They've added an extra female team.
There's 12 men.
There's 10 women.
Right.
So still uneven, but getting there.
Yeah.
So basically our round games, you have to win all of them because the crossover,
when you're at the Olympics, there's lots of good teams,
but there's usually kind of one, not a strong team on either,
on either side of the four.
So to top the pool means you're then playing a weaker team in the quarterfinal.
So we ended up, because we lost that game against Italy,
we ended up second on the table.
Right.
Which meant we played Hungary.
In our quarterfinal.
And if we'd won out, won that Italy game, we would have played China,
who were a lot weaker team.
Like we'd never lost to them.
Right.
You know, it's still always a hard game, but you're not playing one of the best
teams in the world to make a semifinal.
Um, our last rank round game against Brazil, one of our best players, our
center back, big, strong player.
She got punched in the eye, um, in the last few seconds of the game, even though
we were winning by about 10 goals.
And she was ruled out to play our quarterfinal.
So, whoa, yeah, it was Rio when you talk about it was one of those situations
where everything that kind of could go wrong was going wrong, like five days
before we left, we were playing, we were in Montenegro playing and I completely
tore the tendon off the bone in my thumb, right hand thumb, kind of important.
And I had to play the whole Olympics with local anesthetic injected into my thumb,
just so I couldn't feel the pain.
And because I was like, I needed all my hands.
I couldn't.
Strap it.
Like you can't strap it to make it better strap it.
So I just, that would just impact you pick up the ball.
So every time, like, I couldn't feel it, but obviously it was getting worse and worse.
And I got home basically and had to have surgery to just like reattach,
touch it all back to my phone.
Seriously.
Um, so like that happened, we had a case of gastro, so we weren't
allowed to go into the village.
Our flight to Rio got, um, canceled in Italy.
So we didn't.
We missed out.
Our flight got canceled after waiting at the airport for five hours.
We then had three hours of sleep and had to get back to the airport.
Everything just kind of our first training session.
We're meant to get to the pool with all this time to like visualize and have all
this mindfulness at the pool.
We ended up running late because our bus got lost.
It took us three hours to get to the pool.
And we ended up because there's training blocks.
So you only get an hour, an hour and a half to train because then the next
team comes in to train.
So like all these little things kept happening.
And then.
Hannah's, um, like our teammates, I, I got fractured and the doctor said,
if you get hit in the eye, like you could be blind and sports important.
But so it was being able to say, and she's now studying, she's almost a
doctor, but like that would have probably been her whole life and career
being a surgeon or a doctor.
She loses sight in one eye.
So she didn't play.
So it basically meant that we're playing our whole, our quarter final against
one of the best teams in the world.
Um, with one really important player down, but she played a position
that is, is unique.
There's only two in a team.
Um, and it meant someone had to fill that spot.
So that became my job to fill that spot, but also do my job.
And all my injuries, which I can go through.
I'll go through leading up to it meant I went to the Olympics, not as
fit as I needed to be, but I was going to be an impact player who played small
minutes, two other girls who played that position went out on free, got free
exclusions in the third quarter.
So I then had to play basically a full game of water polo.
And I used to like, I hate even admitting this, like my husband wants
to kill me because I'd be like that hungry game, that hungry game.
Like I would wake up in the middle of the night for years thinking about it.
It was really like, it was so horrible to like lose on that note.
And we went out and we were winning.
Like we were killing it.
We, we were so far ahead of them and slowly, slowly, slowly,
they just started getting us.
And yeah, we ended up losing.
In a penalty shootout and having to play for five to eight, which is awful in
itself and us.
And I think there's one other sport.
I can't remember.
I think only sports that actually have to play for that.
Every other sport doesn't have to play enough.
You're done.
If you lose it, having to train, having to train and play, it was so like, that
was really, really challenging.
How do you reckon with something like that?
Like you talk about the fact that there was years afterwards, like when's the point
that you've like, have you come to terms with it or something you never will?
I don't think I ever will.
And I think that's part of it is like just accepting that that was actually a part of
my journey.
Like it wasn't a nice part, but it's a part of my journey.
Um, yeah, it still makes me upset thinking about it, which seems crazy.
Cause it's been how long, eight years, it's been eight years, but I still think of that
game.
And I think a big thing for me is I, I'd never watched the games.
They were hard to find on YouTube.
So I actually.
I never watched the games from, um, Rio and plus like I was upset about them.
So I never watched the full games and my husband found it online and we watched it
together.
And I just like burst into tears because in my head, I let a goal that I never let, let
get scored off me.
I let a goal in and in my head, it was like the very last attack.
That's what made us even.
That's why we had to go into a penalty shootout, but it was actually like really early on in
like the first.
Fourth quarter.
And like so much happened after that, but in my head, I convinced myself that it was
my sole reason why we like lost the game, which is crazy what your head does.
Right.
Yes.
I was just so, and you would know as an athlete, like it's, I never focus on the good things
I do.
I focus on the bad things.
So I guess I then my whole career was based off that moment.
Wow.
And that was honestly like really hard to deal with.
And stomach.
So I think watching that really helped.
And also like training, how I've just been training the last few months also really helped
as well to kind of just like put me at peace.
Like I had unfinished business.
I lost a lot of joy for the sport because of that result.
And it's really sad that I based my whole career off that moment and that game that
we lost, but it literally erased everything else that I'd ever done, you know?
And I thought that was sad because I lost sight of that little girl.
That wrote that contract, you know, that loved it.
The sport so much that it saved her and it made her who she was, but it was all gone.
So I think coming back for me in this last few months kind of helped me find that, that
passion and that joy again.
And kind of, I guess, remember the really amazing times that the sport did bring me
because there were so many.
Yeah.
Right.
It's interesting because while I was prepping for this podcast, I was actually remembering,
I heard you speak on a, I think it was on a panel.
It was a rugby fundraising event.
This was years ago.
It was before I remember it.
It was before you guys even left for 2016.
Was it pre-rehearsal?
Yeah.
It was about 20, I reckon it was 2014.
Wow.
Okay.
So you were speaking on a panel.
Yeah.
And you talked about the fact that you actually hated your sport for a period of time there.
And I remember sitting there watching you talk and I just felt like I could exhale for
a moment because I don't think I'd ever heard an athlete talk about their sport like that.
Because you just, it's always this feeling of you get to represent your country.
What a huge honor that must be.
Yeah.
But there's so many parts of sport that are so brutal.
Oh yeah.
I'm probably honest to a fault sometimes because I think that's more, there's more beauty in
something.
If something's easy all the time and you're not going through this rollercoaster, then
the rewards aren't as good.
Like I say that to my kids now because Jake is like, I don't want to go to school.
It's not fun.
And I'm like, yeah, but you have to do the.
You have to do the non-fun stuff so that the fun stuff is amazing.
Yeah.
And I'm sure if your journey to win a gold medal in Rio was easy the whole time, it wouldn't
feel as good.
Yeah.
And it's not for the faint hearted.
And like we were just talking before, every, a lot of people, a lot of people have the
skill to go to an Olympics.
Yeah.
A lot of people, because once you get to the Olympics, everyone is skilled, but it takes
so much more than that.
And it takes fighting through those hard times.
Mm-hmm.
You know, I've, I played water polo at a high level from when I was 15 years old.
So I played with girls and trained with girls that get to a certain age.
You know, I noticed the biggest age was kind of 18 when they just start uni and they finished
school and they've got this freedom and they don't want to say no to parties, to going
out.
They want to be able to do everything.
And you have to realize if you want to be the best, you have to say no.
I missed every 18th, every 21st.
I've missed people's weddings.
I've missed people's baby showers.
Do I regret any of it?
No.
And then that's the things you're missing out on.
You think about the things like you're constantly sore all the time.
You're constantly have this pressure on you to score every shot.
You have people breathing down your throat, trying to take your position.
You know, like you have other teams in our sports, especially like physically beating
us up, literally beating us up, breaking noses.
Like it's these mental games and it's, you can't have, it's not like going to the gym
where, oh yeah, I'll have a slack session.
Today, I'm just not going to lift as much when you're working to be the best.
Every session, you have to try to be better every weight session.
You don't get to just be like, oh, I'm just going to do what I did last week.
It's like, I need to push an extra kilo.
I need to push an extra half a kilo sometimes, but I have to be getting better every single
time.
And it comes down to, and I say this, I go and speak at schools is that it's not about
motivation because if you're waiting for motivation all the time, you will never do well.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
If you're waiting to think, if you think that like, you're going to be stoked to wake up,
for me, I had to be at pool deck at five o'clock, horrific.
No thanks.
In the middle of winter, horrific, awful, but it wasn't motivation that got me there.
It was like a dedication and a goal that I knew I wanted to achieve and I was never done
with it.
It was never, I never settled.
I wanted to get better and better and better.
And even when I was really good and I was making teams, I didn't just think about making
that team.
I thought about, all right, if at an Olympics, I'm playing this team and this player, I need
to be the best.
I need to be better.
And that pressure on yourself, like that you put on yourself, that other people have on
you, letting your team down, you know, compound it into letting other people down.
If you're not successful, if you don't do well, it's huge.
And it's not like the injuries, all of that stuff.
It's not, it's not fun.
Yeah.
It's worth it a hundred percent, but it's not fun.
It's not joyful.
It's not fun.
You know, I remember like playing a training game and a Hungarian girl just out of nowhere
decided to punch me in the nose.
And break my nose.
That's not fun.
Like training and playing with in 2013 at world champs, um, six months earlier, I'd
ripped my rotator cuff apart and I had to play and train for six months.
And I was on so many anti-inflammatories.
I developed an ulcer in my stomach.
Whoa.
Yeah.
It was ridiculous.
You know, those things, that's not fun, but it's, it's crazy.
You can, I can look back and I actually did get joy out of that because I got to push
myself and challenge myself.
Every single day.
But when you're in it, it's the trenches.
It's not fun.
It was painful.
You know, like that six months I was in excruciating pain every time I passed the ball and in a
water polo world, you're passing a ball for hours every single day.
And that's what I meant when I said, you're going to hate it.
Sometimes you are, but you have to know that it's worth it in the end.
Yeah.
And even though I didn't, you know, win that gold medal for me, it was still worth it.
Like pushing myself past what I ever thought.
I was ever capable of in my whole life.
Like it's made me so strong and it's made me the person I am today.
And yeah, I have no regrets, but I stand by the point.
Like you hate it.
Sometimes you really do.
You really do.
How did you come to your decision to step away from the game?
Injury.
Yeah.
So I touched on it earlier.
I, so 2009, I had my first shoulder reconstruction.
It was my left shoulder.
And that period was probably one of the most important periods of my career because I was
it was make or break.
So I made my first world championships in 2009.
I was 20, 21 years old.
Um, the very last game I got my arm pulled behind my back and I subluxed my shoulder
fun times with joy.
And then I kept playing.
Um, and I just kind of got back from world championships.
I got named player of Australia at that world championships.
I was doing really well.
I thought this is just, this is it.
I'd been involved with the national team for a few years earlier.
Just.
Just to help.
I got to be around those 2008 girls.
I learned so much.
And then when it was my time to step into world champs, I'd stepped up.
I'd been named this, the player of Australia.
I like was so proud of myself.
Kept training.
Um, in 2009, Emma and I, my sister and I, older sister passed away and I was back at
training a few days later.
I needed to, I needed to train, um, try to just use that to kind of cover.
I don't think I've trained harder in my life.
And then two weeks later, I found out I actually needed.
A full shoulder reconstruction and I wouldn't be playing water polo for nine months.
Um, I wouldn't be able to swim for six months, which was the hardest thing.
So I'd been swimming whole life.
Um, I made a decision in hospital.
I ordered an exercise bike at home.
I had a sling on for six weeks.
I couldn't drive, but I'd spoken to everyone I needed to speak to.
Like when I was in hospital or right out of hospital.
So my gym coach would meet me at my local gym.
My mom would drop me at the gym.
I'd be, I remember doing thousands of lunges.
Just.
Holding with my right hand, a massive dumbbell.
Just, I just said to myself, if I can't play water polo, I'm going to make sure I have
the strongest legs of any player in the world.
Yeah.
And so that became my focus.
I really, I would go down to Canberra and live there for weeks on end and do intensive rehab.
Um, it was a really challenging time because.
Dunpa like our coach at the time, he, he had other players he had to worry about.
I was young, you know, like there were people trying to take my spot, take my spot, take
my spot.
So he didn't have, he didn't care.
Like he, I don't mean that in a bad way, but he didn't care that I was coming back.
Like if I didn't come back, he was like, oh, well, I'll just find someone else.
There'll be someone else.
So it got to the end of nine months.
I played my first game and I was allowed to play three minutes, a quarter.
We then do testing.
So at that time, our coach made us do swim testing, just five, four hundreds.
It was horrific.
A big test in the water swimming.
Is that a thing?
That's a swim.
No, that's a thing.
And it's horrible.
And strength testing.
So we had.
We had massive strength goals that we had to achieve.
So we did those three tests and I'd spoken to him during the testing and I was like, I
want to go to this camp on the Gold Coast coming up, like it'd be really good.
And he was like, yep, yep, yep.
And when the team came out and I wasn't on it and I called him and he was like, well,
I don't want you there.
You didn't do well on your beep test.
Why would I want you there?
Anyway, I was so angry.
I think I ended up hanging up on him.
They came back from camp and at the end of a three hour session, he was there.
And he said, Holly, Des, another girl, Ziggy, you stay in the water, you get 10 balls, Holly.
And he said, Des, Ziggy, beat the shit out of her.
Don't let her score a goal.
And I scored every goal and I got out and I walked straight up to him and he said, okay,
all right, you can come to this camp, this pre-world cup camp and you know, but you can't
get picked for the pre-world cup tournament and you can't get picked for world cup, but
you can come to this camp because you just did that.
I went to that camp.
I went there for a week.
And I got named in the pre-world cup tournament.
He's like, I'm picking you in the pre-world cup tournament, but you're not allowed to
be picked for world cup.
At the end of that tournament, I got picked for world cup where we won a silver medal.
And for me, for myself, I was like, hell yes.
Like I've proved to myself I'm tougher than I ever thought I could be because I backed
myself a hundred percent in what I was doing.
I actually knew that all my rehab was, I'd done everything right.
I'd done everything a hundred percent.
I wasn't going to let.
Let this guy tell me that I wasn't going to make it and I made it.
And I think for him as well, that's when our relationship really shifted as well, where
he got a lot of respect for me because he saw my personality and the type of player
and person I was like, I was willing to fight for what I believed in.
I was willing to work hard and kind of do what I have to do.
And so that was probably the pinnacle of my, that was the start of me really believing
in myself as like a player and what I was capable of.
Um,
but once again, like that was not fun having my shoulder ripped, ripped to shreds, um,
fast forward to my injuries and why, why we're actually talking about this, why I retired.
Where did that come from?
Why I retired was in 2013, I was going to retire after 2012.
I'd won a medal.
I'd played really well in London and that was going to be it.
And Dunper, our coach said, please just play world championships at our national league,
which is our local, like our Australian competition.
I was playing.
And I took a shot and someone hit my arm and I just felt my shoulder go, my right shoulder.
Anyway, I spoke to physios and they were like, we need to scan it,
but do you want to go to world champs?
And I was like, I want to go to world champs.
Really important for me that I get to this world champs in Barcelona.
So they were like, all right, let's not scan it.
Let's pretend it didn't happen.
Wow.
And let's just go and do what we have to do to get you there.
So I was modified for everything.
Like if I don't think since that moment,
I don't think I ever did.
A full session that wasn't modified in some regard,
but I was really good at none of my teammates would know, you know,
even my coaches wouldn't have known that I was modifying,
but I was just really smart.
I became smart after my injuries because I had to be, um, we, we went to world champs.
We got a silver medal.
It was amazing.
But I got back, saw the surgeon.
I'd literally completely torn my shoulder apart.
I was going to be out for 12 months.
My surgeon who did my left shoulder said that I'd never play water polo again.
He said that if I was a horse,
he would have put me on the water polo.
He would have put me down.
Whoa.
Savage.
Thank you.
Thanks so much.
I appreciate that.
But he was like, but I'll do this surgery.
It was horrible.
It was, yeah.
Couldn't swim for nine months.
I was out for a year and I don't think I ever got my confidence back because of how,
like to put it bluntly, like traumatic that experience was.
I couldn't, the pain was so bad that I couldn't walk after surgery.
I'd vomit from pain.
Because my pain management wasn't like managed well.
It was harder to get back.
I was older.
I was like a little bit, I guess, resentful that this had had to happen.
I kind of started to lose a bit of trust in myself and like my body that it had done this again.
My first tournament back, same kind of position my arm was in.
It got hit again.
I got scans again.
My surgeon wanted to do surgery again because I'd torn my rotator cuff.
But they said I didn't have enough time because at that time it was the end of 2014 or the beginning of 2015.
So I only had a year, so I didn't kind of get to do, to do that.
So it just meant I was playing once again in this excruciating pain for 18 months.
I made it to that world champs and I remember having the kind of Olympic year and that cycle.
I had so many, so many meetings with my coach Dunpa and just saying, drop me, drop me from the team because I was so injured.
Like I was just everything.
It was falling apart.
And he just said, no, like, I have so much trust in you.
I have so much belief in you.
I want you in my team.
Like, I really want you there.
And I'm really grateful for him for believing in me so much at times when I didn't believe in myself and also my team for believing in me and wanting me in the team and fighting for me to still be there and understanding why I couldn't do everything that they were doing.
You know, like I couldn't swim.
I couldn't do the swim testing.
I couldn't do the strength testing.
And a lot of my confidence came from that.
So I was like, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this.
And I was really looking for myself and a lot of us really saw you as a strong Excellence.
It was like in the past that I was a strong jump sliced person because my confidence was so much stronger out in the world than I actually was.
You know, like we can't, it's so much what?
What was my confidence.
Or what's the difference that there's.
So I had to really change how I saw myself and lean on other things instead.
And then about four months before the Olympics, we land in America for a training camp.
I do a step up on,
I'm like, you know,
a disc in my back. Couldn't walk for two weeks. I couldn't train or play that whole time. We get
on a plane to China, get back to playing. And I tore my oblique really badly. Get back to playing
after being out for that. And one of my teammates, like water polo is a crazy sport. I got kicked in
the head and got knocked out. So I was out for 10 days for concussion. And then I go to Rio,
go to Montenegro before Rio. And I tear the muscle off my bone on my thumb. So my preparation
was the worst preparation you could ever imagine in your life. And it was mentally
really challenging and not even so much for me. I didn't feel bad for myself.
I really felt like I was letting everyone else around me down. Like I was letting my teammates
down because when you're a team of 13 and you're playing games and just one person sits out,
that then puts pressure on everyone else. So everyone else had to pick up my slack when I
couldn't train and I wanted to train, you know, that's how I was confident. Like that's how I
believed in myself. Like that's how I could get out there in the water knowing I'd done the work.
But to go to an Olympics, knowing I hadn't done the work that I, that I needed to do,
that would make me confident was really, really hard. And so I kind of knew I was always going
to retire. I knew I wanted to have kids. My physio was like, if you come,
you'll be able to do one water polo session a week and the rest will be rehab, weights, swimming.
And so I felt, I guess it was kind of out of my hands anyway, if I was going to come back
or not. So that's what made me step away from the sport in 2016.
And so you've stepped away, you've gone through an incredible journey with your two little kids,
but there's also been a big part of your journey in the breast cancer diagnosis as well.
Can you touch on what that has been like for you?
So in 2022, I played, so I played a season in that eight years, in the last eight years,
I played for Sydney Uni for a season and then Dumper, my old coach was coaching
University of New South Wales and he asked me to come back to play. And as I said, like our
relationship is really nice that we had that real respect. And so I was like, yeah, I'll come and,
I'll come and play with you. So I was playing, we played a really rough game and I really hurt my
wrist. Anyway, I kind of didn't think much. I was like, I went and got an x-ray actually,
cause I was like, something's not right. Like I've had lots of injuries. This didn't feel right.
Got an x-ray. They found all these bone fragments had kind of chipped off. And so they said,
go and get an MRI. My coach and my old physio was like, go and get an MRI.
So I'm in the doctor. My mom had breast cancer at 49, quite young. I was 33 at the time. I was
going to have to start getting regular tests from when I was 35 in this really rough game. And I'd
been knocked about a bit and I had like a lump on my left breast, like up a bit higher. So just as
I was leaving the doctor for this referral for my wrist, I said, Oh, by the way, like I've got this
little lump. Do you reckon I get it checked out? And she just like, did she just really casually
was like, yep, go get an ultrasound. You have to start getting regular things. It'll be good to see
a comparison. So I book in, I don't have anyone to look after Isabel, almost cancel my appointment,
but Emma cancels work that day. So she can look after Isabel and I go, they ultrasound my left
breast and they say, there's nothing there. Do you want me to do you right? I say, no.
And she says, I'm going to do it. And she does it. And she's going over this spot over and over
and over again. And I ended up getting sent for a biopsy. Nothing showed up in the mammogram. The
mammogram came back clear, but then I was meant to have a phone consult with the doctor for my
results. And they called me as I got my 18 month old daughter out of her cot from her nap. And they
just said, you have to come in. So I get emotional. You have to come into the doctor's office. And
bring a support person. I went in straight away. My mom met me, my husband was driving home from
work. And basically I had my 18 month old daughter on my lap while I was getting told
I had breast cancer. And the next two weeks were just like a blur. And look, I was a lucky one.
I found it by accident so early that it hadn't got into my lymph nodes. I didn't need chemotherapy.
I opted to have a double mastectomy
because I just couldn't live with the stress and the anxiety of something happening.
So I had two weeks. It's the whirlwind. I had two weeks of an appointment every day,
trying to figure out the best things to do. Every specialist, every doctor, you name it,
scans to make sure things were working. Two weeks later, I got in to get a mastectomy and
reconstruction. It was over 10 hour surgery. And I was in hospital for a week. It was the longest
I did.
Ever spent away from the kids. And it was just like, I can't even explain that period. It's so
hard because I've done really hard things. That was the hardest thing. And I think because I had
such young kids and I also know, I feel guilty even complaining because there's people that
go through so much worse and people that get diagnosed before they have kids. And then it
means that they can't have kids. I was so lucky to have two beautiful, healthy kids. But it meant
that a blessing in a way in that.
I didn't have time to worry about myself because all I wanted was things normal for them. So I
couldn't lift Isabel for over six weeks because of the surgery. And anyone who's had an 18 month
old knows you're picking them up constantly. So I had a nanny with me the whole time. And I was
lucky that I had a friend that had some nannies that she said, take them, do whatever you need to
do. So I had them basically full time, but I wouldn't leave the kids sides. I had to be there
with them because I just wanted their life to be as normal.
As possible. But I think that was in some ways like to a detriment to my own like health and
sanity. Like I didn't worry about myself, but I actually needed to, like it was a time in my life
where I actually should have been selfish. But when you're a mom, like all I cared about was my
kids. And even like when I got that diagnosed, when I got the diagnosis and the kids went to
sleep that night, like I just remember so vividly like wailing on the couch, just being like my
babies, like my babies, that's all I cared about. And.
I guess it makes you really face life, you know, like makes you face, you know, I want to see my
kids grow up. Like I want to be at my kids' weddings. I want to see them through school.
They need their mom. And so, and so, yeah, like I just, I needed everything fine for them. And,
you know, the medication I was on was really full on, you know, like they, my cancer was estrogen
based. So I had to.
Get rid of all estrogen. And it made me go like crazy. I'd never had depression in my life. Like
I'm, I feel really lucky that I never had to, cause I watched my sister suffer mental health
issues. I never did, but I would say like for a week or five days of every cycle that I was having,
I would have full blown depression where I didn't know if I could get out of bed. Like
I never, I never wanted to, like, I never had suicidal thoughts, but like I would,
wonder how the hell I could get up the next day. And so that period of my life, like it probably
that, that went on for probably a year. And I just like, my kids were my biggest like motivation to
just like keep going. And then as my body's kind of adjusted to the hormones, I think getting to
a year post-surgery was like a huge, not even, not a relief, but it was like, I could close a
chapter almost like it was such a horrible year that I needed that, that chapter to close. So
once I went to like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't
my yearly appointment, I was like, all right, I can take a breath now and kind of just close that
chapter a little bit, put it back here. It's not going to be in the forefront of my mind all the
time. I'm not going to let it kind of like do what it's done to me this last year. But yeah, it was,
it was a horrible period. And it's still like, as you can tell, like I get emotional. I like
compartmentalizing, put things back there where I don't have to think about them. But when I think
about it, like,
it was just such an awful, awful time, but I'm just grateful that I found it because it was just
like this blessing. And it was this really, really aggressive cancer that six months later,
it would have been a whole different story. You know, like I would have had to have chemo.
I would have had to go through all of that. And after seeing my mom go through chemo,
that's what I was the most, I guess, scared of. And so the fact that I got that appointment
and I, I actually did it, that Emma cancelled work,
that I was playing water polo at that time when I thought I would never play again,
all these things just lined up that made me catch this, catch this cancer. So I used to look at it
as, oh my gosh, why would I get cancer? But it's like, all right, well, there's something,
maybe you're meant to be alive. You know, it's not trying to kill you. Like maybe you found it
because you're actually meant to be alive. And now you've got this spotlight on you pretty much
for the rest of my life. I've got this spotlight on me to be healthy and to have people I can work with.
If I'm worried about anything. And a lot of people my age don't have that. But it also means,
you know, I'm anxious about getting blood tests and I'm anxious about, you know,
like when I was playing water polo, I felt recently, I felt really guilty. And that's
something I had a conversation with our wellness manager, I'll call it wellness manager at the AAS
because I felt really guilty putting my body through, like, I want to be nice to my body,
right? Like I felt guilty that I was putting it through all this stress and
pain and I was looking at myself and I was bruised and I was beaten up and I was physically
stressed and exhausted. And I'm like, I shouldn't be doing this to myself. So with cancer, like it's
not simple. It's not just a diagnosis that you get on one day and then you finish your treatment.
It is with you forever and it changes you. And I wish it didn't, but like it does, it changes you
and you can't help it. It changes every part of your being and how you look at life. And that can
be in a positive way.
But it can also be in a negative way in terms of, like I say, like I get a blood test or
my arm was really hurting when I was playing water polo. So like my brain can't help it. It
goes automatically, well, I must have cancer. You know, like I was bruising really badly. So I was
like, oh my gosh, like maybe I have cancer and you have to take it seriously now. You know,
like they send me for scans, they send me for blood tests because they're scared too,
you know, that that could be the reality.
How did it feel for your body to get you talked about?
That feeling of wanting to look after it, but how did it feel getting back in the pool,
going back to that former life of being an elite athlete after becoming a mum,
battling something like cancer?
So I never thought I'd play water polo again. I really was adamant about it. I think my husband's
heard me say, this is my last game of water polo I'm ever going to play so many times.
Um, but my old teammate, Glen Cora, she, she was my,
my old teammate from 2005. We played juniors, Australian. We went to two Olympics together.
She plays for a Perth team and she called me up and asked me to play for her Perth team.
And I'd like, I've always stayed fit. Like I love swimming. I love going to the gym,
like such an important part of like my life and like my mental health and everything like that.
And so I was like, yeah, I'll do that. Two days later, I was like, oh, maybe I'll call back like
the new Stingers coach, the Aussie Stingers coach. And just like, see what she says. If I said,
if I asked to be involved,
I kind of didn't think that much about the fact that it had literally been eight years,
two kids, cancer. I'd played probably 30 club games in eight years.
I just was like, why not? Because I'd watched the girls play. I'd kind of thought about it in that
2022 season when I was diagnosed, I'd talked to a few people, a few people had talked to me,
sorry about, oh, you should go and, you know, can I have a conversation? Can this, that, the other,
but then I was diagnosed. So I just thought it would never happen. I watched the world champs
last year and I was like, oh, they could use like a big, strong player. Like they're kind of
missing that size element. So I just, I reached out to Beck wondering how it would all go.
I got invited to a camp in Brisbane as a training partner and I, the injuries didn't stop. First
training game we play, I dislocate my finger. Oh, so badly that I tore all the ligaments. It
popped out this way, tore the ligaments, but the tendon that runs from the tip of your finger down
here got caught in the joint. So I had to have surgery to remove that tendon, that to cut it,
reattach it. First training session back in the program. First, first training game. First
training game. So I see it was second day. So I made it through a full day and a half. Great.
That's a box. And so I just, I stayed there. Beck was like, we want you to stay here. Like we think
really good having someone like you around. So I just literally trained by myself.
I smashed myself swimming. I smashed myself.
Leg work. I just did whatever I had to do. Got home, had surgery basically straight away. I did
a week of only gym and then I was allowed to get back in the water. He wasn't happy about it,
but I was like, I need to just get back in as soon as I can. I don't have time. If I,
if this dream is even close to being possible, I don't have time to waste. I need to get back
in the water. Like the Olympics was five months away. Wow. So I would buddy strap and I just went
back to full training and like hurt like buggery, but it was fine. After three weeks, they said,
I just had to play for a splint.
And that's when I played my first games for Fremantle, Fremantle Marlins in two years,
since 2022. So I played four games with them. And then I had a conversation with the coach
and I was like, well, what do you think? Do you think I, can you see me like the projection being
like, maybe I could be involved in this program? And she said, yes. So she named me in the 21
Olympic squad for the Aussie stingers. It started with a camp in Canberra. And I remember looking at
the program and it was like three sessions a day, like in the pool for five hours a day plus gym
sessions. And I was like, oh my gosh, like, how am I going to do this? I haven't trained. What am I
going to do? Like I'd trained, but that's a whole nother level. And I said to Beck, I said, what if
I'm injured? What if that's like, you have to get through the first week, but you have to get through
the first week. And I got through the first week. I don't know. I cried at the end of it because I
was so tired. I was so exhausted. And one,
one of the girls looked at me and she said, every time I got tired that I just looked at you. And I
thought if, if Hulk can do this, I can do that. And I was like, that's amazing. Like she's like,
you should be so proud of yourself that you can do that. And I, I guess like I'm someone that
tries not to like, I probably should think more, but I don't think much. So I just would just take
it session by session. And then I'd in the, on the weekend, we'd have to go home and play. And
I'd be in bed at night, just like cry my eyes out being like, how am I going to get back in the pool?
Those conversations with my husband, with my husband, like on the, I'd be walking to a session.
I'm like, how am I going to get through a two and a half hour training session now? And we'd be
playing games with no reserves and it's a physical game anyway. And I'm so undercooked. It's not even
funny. So there was four weeks of that. And then I got named in a 16, 16 squad to go to America for
two weeks. Which once again, I hadn't played an official game for Australia in eight years.
And I, every time I hear the national anthem, I stand up, I picked myself in my robe and my cap.
And so after eight years, I got to cap up, put my robe on, sing the national anthem. I had tears
like streaming down my face. It was such an incredible moment for me and something I, I just
could not believe that I was actually doing. And I think it still hasn't hit me what it meant to be
doing that again. So I did America, I played two official games, came back. We had a three day
selection camp. I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. And I
played finals for Fremantle for our Australian competition. We actually made it to the grand
final and we didn't win. We got silver, but it was an awesome game. We were playing against a
Queensland team that had the whole starting seven was in the Aussie stingers team. So to only lose
by three goals was amazing. Like we stuck it to them the whole time. So it was really good. My
team's incredible, great coach, great group of girls. And then unfortunately I found out the
following Wednesday that I was not going to be able to play. So I was like, I'm going to do this.
I was selected for the Olympic team for Paris, but that sport, you know, like I was super at
peace with kind of whatever happened. It was a long shot to begin with. Of course I want to be
there, but I'm really, it's probably the first time I've ever been really proud of myself as
like an athlete and as like just a person in general, to be able to back myself once again
at 36, I would have been one of the oldest people to be, I think,
broadly not, who was an Aussie stinger. She was 36 in Tokyo.
Aliza Casanova, who was a Italian, she was 37, 38. And then Maureen O'Toole was 39 in 2000.
So us four would, you know, I would have been one of the oldest people to have ever competed
at an Olympics for water polo off of eight weeks, really a full training. So I knew it was a wing
and a prayer, but I just backed myself the whole time. And I can really look back and know I'd
did everything I possibly could. I have no regrets. Like you can't, I guess, like I can't
have regrets. There's no like, what if I threw everything I could in it? Like I said, would love
to be in Paris, but that's just not how life worked out at this time. We spoke off air and just
talked about how brutal sport is. Like it's a pretty huge journey you've been on to put your
body back on the line to do that. And then to not be selected to get on that.
That's hard to process. I think in the back of my head, I probably knew it was like 40. I will go
60. I won't go. And I was super at peace. And I also had a big part of me that leaving my kids,
I'd never left them for that long before that something always didn't feel, I felt like my
passion is at home with my kids. Yeah. And I'm a real passionate player. That's where
my talent came from is passion. And maybe I shouldn't admit that, but my passion now is my
kids and my home and being at home with my family. That brings me so much joy. And I'd call the kids
and every single time, like in Canberra, every morning I'd call them before I'd walk to the gym
and I'd have to just go sit by myself for five minutes and cry because I felt I just wanted to
be, it wasn't even guilt. Like it wasn't this mom guilt. It was a genuine yearning of wanting
to be at home, feeling like I was missing out on such precious years. And maybe that has something
to do with cancer, right? When I was faced with that thing of, oh my gosh, like I want to just
be there every second with my kids. And maybe that was kind of a bit of baggage that I had with me
through the journey of training that I kind of couldn't ever let go of. Even like one of the
last training sessions in America, I spoke to the kids like an hour before the session started and
I was still crying. I wore my glasses the whole time and I was still crying.
When I was warming up to train, like I just couldn't, my guts just didn't feel right being
away from them. And like I said, like it probably is baggage from everything I'd been through in
the past, but I really struggled with that. At the same time, it was amazing taking that moment
to be selfish for myself and realizing that I actually am allowed to do that. And that it's
super important for me to still have those goals and those challenges and be allowed
to have things that I still want to dream about. And it was a massive dream, but I can, I'm when
people are like, are you okay? You okay? I'm genuinely okay. I get, I think I have this
perspective being older, having been out, I get to go back to a beautiful life. It would have been a
fairy tale, but something else we were talking about sport isn't a fairy tale. Even if, even if
I went and as an athlete at that level, you're so hard on yourself. Like what I'd gone, what if we
win a gold medal?
I'd still be criticizing every bad thing I'd done in that game or at the Olympics. Like
if I go, we don't win a medal. Have I made the right decision being away from my kids? You know,
there's so, there's so many things that people think sport is, you know, this fairy tale ending
all the time. And I would say nine times out of 10, it's actually not a fairy tale ending. And I
think having that perspective and having that understanding because of hindsight, because of
my age, from things I'd been through, I'm like, it's okay.
There was no fairy tale. It doesn't, it doesn't exist. You know, like I get to just play a sport
that I love with all my heart. I got to find that joy and that passion again. I got to get cap up,
sing the national anthem. I got to do those things. You know, like how lucky am I? Not many people
after eight years out, we'll get that opportunity to ever do that. So I'm just super grateful for
that opportunity that I had to at least fight for it.
To wrap us up, I'm conscious of your time. We could chat for hours, but
literally.
Literally.
And touch on the fact that your sister, Emma, went to compete at the Winter Olympic. You guys
became the first Aussie siblings, I think, to have summer and winter Olympics. That is a cool
milestone.
Yeah, it is.
What has it been like having a relationship with your sister who you touched on the fact that she
took the day off work to come and look after your kids? Like she's a big part of your life.
What is that relationship like?
Well, she's with my daughter now, taking her to kidney gym.
Probably feeding her chips and lollies and chocolate.
Anyway, we'll wrap up quickly.
Out of sight, out of mind.
No, she...
So Emma and I's relationship, she's just like an amazing person just in general. Like I can't say
enough good things about her. But growing up, she would help me train. She would motivate me so much.
Her getting her first ever New South Wales uniform for running was the reason why I wanted to be good
at swimming was because I wanted a uniform like that. And through all of my journey, through
everything, she's always been someone I could just turn to.
And I know would give me good advice, but also understand what I was going through.
And we became really close when our sister passed away. Like she came up to me and just hugged me
and said, I'm your big sister now. Like I'll do whatever I have to do to protect you. And she does.
Like she really looks out for me. She looks after me. She has my back on everything.
And, you know, watching her at the Olympics, she always wanted to go to the Olympics.
You know, that was her dream growing up. She was the athletic one.
I think like I say to mum now, I'm like, did you ever think I'd be an Olympic medalist?
You know, when you saw me at 10 years old and mum laughs and she's like, no, definitely not.
Definitely not. Emma was always the Olympic athlete and I was always chasing her
and kind of following behind her dreams, I guess. And watching her in 2010, how she did it,
you know, Jess passed away in 2009 and she had to qualify for the Olympics after missing out
four years earlier by one sport. She had to find a way.
She had to leave our family, go overseas and compete and try to make an Olympics. And she did
it. And it coincided really well. I was out with my shoulder surgery. So I got to go over for the
full time to watch her. Otherwise I'd be having to stay back and train for water polo. But I got
to go and watch her and just realising what the Olympic spirit really, really is. And also that
the Olympics, once again, like it's not a fairy tale. Like everyone has these stories and everyone
has their reason why they do it. And I think that's really, really important. And I think that's
getting to know athletes and sitting down and having conversations with them. You know, a lot
of athletes who get to that level have a story of hardship, you know, and how they've used sport,
I guess, as a coping mechanism, as a way to escape. And that's what Emma did with her sport.
And that's what I found with my sport. And I think that's really bonded us. And we've always said to
each other, like, thank God for sport. Like if it wasn't for sport, who knows kind of what would have
happened to both of us? Because it really has helped us so much in our lives. And I think we
bond so much after that. And now she thought I was crazy doing what I did the last few months.
She was like, oh, a little bit impulsive. You've got to make sure you're doing this for the right
reasons, you know. But in the end, like it didn't matter. She would have her opinion. She'd have her
thoughts. We'd talk them out. But she'd be like, butthole, whatever you want, I'll do. You need
help with the kids, you let me know. I'll support you however I can support you. When it got hard,
she was still one of the first people I would
just being like, what am I doing? I can't do this. This is so hard. And she'd always write
back saying, you've got this, you know how to do it. She just always knows what to say,
I guess, because she's been there before and she knows me so well. I can't imagine not having that
support. You know, I've never not had it. She's always been like my big sister, kind of having
my back. So I feel really grateful to have that relationship with her. That's really beautiful.
Little teammate. I love that. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing today and for your vulnerability.
I'm pretty sure I cried about four different occasions. And yeah, you just had immense
strength and courage. And yeah, I'm just, I'm so grateful for your time and for your
vulnerability today. Thanks for listening. Any time. An honour to have you on for your first
ever podcast. First ever podcast. Here we are. Very special. Thank you very much. Good one to
be on. How good. Yeah. 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.
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