ROAR! Prologue The quiet is not a good thing as we sit around the table. Nobody really knows what to say. What do you say when you can see a dream disappearing before your eyes. There’s mum, dad and myself; my head is hanging, my shoulders are drooped and although my feelings are running rife I can hardly bare to share them. It’s September 1991, I’m 20 years old and it’s the day after the third race of the World Water Ski Racing Championships in Darwin, Australia. There’s one race to go tomorrow for the final outcome and I’m crapping it. Two years prior at just seventeen years old I had achieved a surprising second overall at my first World Championship in Italy, and after a gruelling two year preparation I went into this championship as one of the red hot favourites. But it’s not looking good. I’m sitting at the table with my parents in our rented villa, staring at the newspaper dad just picked up; at an article and large photo of me in the daily Darwin Gazette titled “Oh the pain of the World Ski Titles”. It was taken from a distance after my disappointing performance in the third race yesterday, which has me in a very dubious position for an overall win and my hoped for first ever World Title. In the picture, which I didn’t know was being taken; I am leaning into a seated hamstring stretch and staring straight into the long distant camera lens sporting a tortured mental grimace. Although I already know deep down what I’m feeling, this picture really brings it all home. I really thought that by this stage of the competition I’d be almost celebrating, not despairing over an article like this and practically conceding defeat. My two closest competitors, American Debbie Nordblad and Australian team mate Leanne Brown, would have to put in exceptionally poor performances in the final race tomorrow for me to get the title. Or I would have to do something amazing like win by a massive margin to score enough points to take it out. And that’s the worst thing; I know both options are almost impossible. I chastise myself silently, ‘Geez Leanne! This is not what a champion thinks. You haven’t got it’. Water ski racing is my whole world and here is my big chance crashing down. It’s a shocking feeling. I still had a chance in yesterday’s race to make a mark; I needed to win to gain some good points but just managed second. And now I really feel like I’ve lost it. Although in part I know, I say to my parents lamely ‘I’m going to have to settle for second again. I don’t think I can pull it off’. Sadly although I know they really mean it there is not much they can say except that they love me and are still really proud of me. It’s small consolation. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be. I thought I would have had it in the bag by now. ‘Why has it all gone wrong?’ I ask myself. Little did I know but I was going to run from the answers to that question for some time. It was going to take precisely twenty years actually, to truly discover and finally demonstrate it to myself. And it wasn’t just about water-skiing or winning; it was about a lot of things I needed to confront.
Posted on: Wed, 21 May 2014 08:13:55 +0000
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