In June 2009, I remember rolling off the plane in Tokyo, when the city was at the height of pitching to host the 2020 Olympic Games. ‘Tokyo 2020’ was plastered everywhere. At the airport, on the trains. Lining escalators across the city. And of course, the city won the bid and was set to host the Games.
No one could have foreseen the pandemic that was to hit the globe 10 years later.
Tokyo 2020 was delayed and became a much different Games in 2021. Despite all efforts, much of the excitement, anticipation and community spirit that is synonymous with the Games was instead engulfed by COVID-19 tests, athletes being sent home and empty stadiums. Tokyo is an incredible city that deserved to be showcased and celebrated, just like all those cities hosting the Olympics before it. I can’t help but feel sad for what could have been.
Across our screens we’re seeing images of the Paris skyline sparkling behind the glowing rings on the Eiffel Tower. It feels new and different.
Fast forward another few years, and the Olympics is back in a big way. Across our screens we’re seeing images of the Paris skyline sparkling behind the glowing rings on the Eiffel Tower. It feels new and different. There’s a buzz in the air. In all essences, it’s a massive ‘FU’ to the pandemic of days gone. Sports documentaries are being dropped on the streaming giants like there’s no tomorrow and we’re back to receiving the headlines of the modern games, “Condoms for athletes but no champagne”.
With every Games that come and go, I’m taken back to being that little girl in the early 1990s, glued to the TV and in awe of the swimmers on screen.
Lisa Curry, the queen of the pool and my original ‘favourite’, winning Gold in the 100m Butterfly at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland. Cheering and shouting at the screen again when she returned to compete in 1992 at the Olympic Games in Barcelona as a 30 year old mum of two.
Then there’s Hayley Lewis. Just 15 years old in 1990 and won five Gold and one Bronze in the pool in 1990 in Auckland. She then backed that up on the world stage, winning Silver and Bronze in 1992 in Barcelona.
Already you couldn’t get me out of a pool (‘a fish’ my older sister would call me) but watching both Lisa and Hayley compete forever solidified my love of swimming. I wanted to swim and compete just like them. They were the inspiration for me to push myself in perfecting Butterfly at 8 years old. The inspiration for joining a competitive swimming club at 9 years old. For dedicating thousands of hours (and kilometres) of my young life, up and down a pool. I dreamed of wearing the green and gold and competing in the 100m Butterfly at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
But, I didn’t make it to the 2000 Olympic Games. As a teenager, I stopped swimming competitively, another ‘victim’ of teenage sporting dropout.
According to Clearing House for Sport, the participation rate in sport in 2022 for females aged over 15 in Australia was 32%. What’s interesting is that at age 14, the participation figure is closer to 60%. It’s no wonder then that people are curious as to the minds and rationale of teenagers when it comes to playing sport.
Research conducted in 2023 by Year13 into female participation in sport showed that lack of role models, body confidence and conflict with study were some of the reasons for girls to drop out. 60% of respondents said that they did not have a female sports star that they looked up to.
Even Nike weighed in on the conversation in the US on what’s been described as ‘alarming’ dropout rates in 2023, with Vice President Vanessa Garcia-Brito, saying “To get girls active and invite them into a lifetime of sport, they have to see it to believe it – and that starts with more female coaches.”
So, what does it take to keep going and pursue those dreams at an elite level, particularly when there’s not a lot of visibility (Sam Kerr aside) of female athletes? What does it take to break through those teenage years and continue to play and compete? I decided to take a bit of a look into one of Australia’s lesser-known sports – lacrosse – to answer the question.
Lacrosse is making its return to the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028, after a 120-year hiatus. The game was last officially contested at Olympic level in London in 1908.
Perth local and Wembley Lacrosse Club player and coach, Shendelle Oliver, was said to have been ‘born with a lacrosse stick in her hand’, started playing the sport at 9 years old. Representing Australia as an Assistant Coach for the Australian women’s team at the World Lacrosse Box Championships in New York, USA, this September, Shendelle says her long-term drive and commitment to a sport she has been involved in for more than 30 years comes from ‘the love of the game.’
Growing up, it was fellow Wembley player Sarah Forbes who was Shendelle’s hero, inspiration and role model. Forbes, inducted into the USA Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2019 and has represented Australia four times at the World Cup, was said to be the first Australian to play in the United States Collegiate Competition.
“Sarah always encouraged me to be the best I could be,” says Shendelle. “On the field she trusted me and everyone in our team no matter who we were playing. She still continues to mentor and support me to this day as I develop as a coach.”
What does a return of the game to the Olympics mean for Shendelle? “To know that the players I am coaching at club and national level now have the opportunity to play at the Olympics is still so hard to believe,” she says. “My goal is to somehow be involved in Brisbane in 2032, to coach or commentate the game I love on the world’s biggest sporting stage.”
Friday, July 26 is the Opening Ceremony for the Paris Olympic Games. I’ll be watching from the couch with my kids. I’ll still be feeling that fire in my belly when I’m cheering on the swimmers and I’ll bringing out the pom-poms for every Aussie across every sport. Across those fourteen days, I’ll be hoping that an athlete or two will ignite a passion for sport in my children and inspire them for years to come.
And maybe, I’ll head to the local pool for a few laps and break up the Freestyle with a much less elegant looking Butterfly.