Going The Distance

Adjusting to life after sport can be the ultimate challenge for elite athletes, as recent tragic headlines have shown. GeorGina Safe discovers how some of the country’s best-known former sportswomen have battled the turbulence of retirement and are now winning in their chosen fields

- GeorGina Safe

WHEN JANE FLEMMING was forced to withdraw from trials for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics due to an Achilles tendon injury that ended her sporting career, she was shattered beyond measure. “I always say I’ve had my heart broken twice: once by a man and once by my athletics career,” says the dual Olympian and 1990 Commonwealth Games gold medallist for heptathlon and long jump. “It’s part of track and field to get injured, but that’s not to say I wasn’t devastated. Most people retire at the age of 65 and have a whole lifetime of experience to deal with the challenges that involves, whereas an athlete has to do it aged 20 to 35 with no real life experience, so it’s very difficult.”

True to Flemming’s words, the recent arrest of Olympic swimming champion Grant Hackett and the tragic death of former Wallaby Dan Vickerman have once again shed light on how challenging it is for professional athletes to make the transition to a “normal” life beyond elite sports. Vickerman took his own life in February, just a few days before he was due to speak at a forum in Sydney about the difficulty of retirement for athletes. The former Wallabies second rower’s untimely death was preceded the same month by the arrest of Hackett on the Gold Coast, as part of his ongoing downward spiral including a Stilnox addiction, alcohol abuse and an altercation with a passenger onboard a flight from Adelaide to Melbourne, which happened shortly after his unsuccessful bid for a spot at the Rio Olympics. The negative headlines are a far cry from the positive stories Hackett generated as the star of three Olympic Games, highlighting how he, like so many other athletes, has struggled to adjust.