Body Lengths

by Leisel Jones

  First? On the wall? I pull up fast, pant and stare. My palm presses the tiles and I suck in cool air. I am screwed, but I know I’ve swum a good race.

  In fact, I have blitzed it. I have won gold. After Sydney, after Fukuoka, after Barcelona and then Athens, finally – finally – I have got what I wanted: my first individual gold medal at the world level. My time of 1:06.25 is a Commonwealth record and relegates the Americans to second and third place. Jessica Hardy came in second in a time of 1:06.62, while Tara Kirk is in third with 1:07.43. I have missed Jessica’s new world record by 0.05 of a second. But who cares? At last the national anthem will be playing for me! I look to the sky. The grey blanket overhead is heavy with rain. I squint at the clouds, at the evening sky. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ I say. Because there, pushing through the clouds, are my lucky stars.

  I spring from the pool and meet the media head on. Finally, a gold! And I’m the second-fastest 100-metre breaststroker of all time. I won’t have to fake my smile for the camera today.

  But as I stand on the side of the Jean-Drapeau pool, something happens to me that has never happened before: I am lost for words. I grin apologetically. ‘I’m a bit overwhelmed,’ I confess to the camera. ‘I’m a little bit shocked.’ I shuffle awkwardly. I stare at my feet. And then, like the sky, I well up with tears.

  I do a victory lap after the ceremony to spread some of my joy. I seek out Stephan in the crowd and throw him my bouquet. Then I see Mum and I run to the edge of the crowd. I stretch up to reach her and I hug her hard. I owe her everything.

  Later in the week, having already proven something to myself, I go out and win the 200-metre event too. I smash it, in fact. I demolish the world record and leave my competitors more than six metres in my wake. I am body lengths in front. There is no-one else in the finishing shot. I have swum a new record of 2:21.72.

  Technically, this makes sense. My stroke is more suited to the longer event: I should be better at the 200 metres than the 100 metres. My stroke is flatter and smoother than a conventional stroke, so I conserve more energy than just about anyone else in the pool. But I’m still bloody shocked. The 200-metre breaststroke is similar to the 200-metre butterfly: they use most of the same muscles and both are hideously painful. By the final lap of the 200-metre final, I am burning. I want to stop and ask the crowd for a fire extinguisher. But I don’t stop. I don’t quit. I just build, build, build. And somehow, through all the pain, I’m the first to touch the wall.

  For me to win gold in this event – and almost a second under world-record time – is really something else. I am stunned. Thrilled! And it shows. For the second time this week, salty tears of happiness pour down my cheeks.

  This new attitude, this contentment thing: I decide I might just like it. In fact, with two gold medals clinking around in my bag now, I’m beginning to think that just maybe it suits me. The press certainly thinks so. ‘Leisel comes of age in Montreal,’ they say. ‘New coach and new attitude seem to have done the trick,’ they say. I’m not used to this happy relationship with the press. But, just like everything else in my life right now, I decide to go with it. To sit back and roll with it. If the media wants to forget all the things they’ve said about me in the past, who am I to bring them up again?

  But even though the press show signs of warming to me, I don’t dare hope that the Aussie public might begin to do so too. It will take more than one good meet to change their opinion of me. I know that.

  But things are helped later in the week when we win the medley relay. Our team of Sophie Edington, me, Jessicah Schipper and Libby Lenton manage to hold off the Americans in a time of 3:57.47. When we win, we jump, scream, hug and sing. We shake Parc Jean-Drapeau, Aussie-style.

  Our relay gold caps off an impressive fortnight for the Telstra Dolphins. It’s our best medal haul in eleven World Championship campaigns. We take home twenty-two medals in total, including thirteen gold. In fact, we win a gold medal on every night of competition in Montreal. And we are second only to the USA.

  Much of this can be put down to our new head coach, Alan Thomson. Thommo became Australian head coach at the beginning of the year when Leigh Nugent stepped down, and Montreal is his first World Championship as the boss. Under Thommo, things on the team are sweet. He fosters a great culture, a real team spirit; he knows how to bring people together. The first thing he introduces are compulsory team meetings. Each afternoon at about 4 p.m., before we head to the pool to swim in our finals, Thommo gets the whole team together to watch the TV highlights from the night before. There’s music and cheering. We all high-five and slap each other on the back as we watch each other’s races. There’s Jodie Henry winning gold! There’s Hackett in the 400 metres! It really fires us up, watching each other’s inspirational swims. I can do that too! I feel like shouting.

  It’s a totally positive vibe. There’s no blame, no disappointment. No-one is ever made to feel like they’ve done a poor job, and everyone is genuinely happy for their teammates’ victories.

  In later years, the culture of the Aussie swimming team will come under fire, and when it does, I’ll be ready to tell anyone who listens that we need to think back to Thommo and his compulsory meetings that fostered team spirit.

  But right now, in Montreal, during the reign of Thommo, Australian swimming is leading the world. We are so strong, in so many events. Libby is dominating in the freestyle; I have the breaststroke. We have the best women’s medley relay this country has ever seen. We are world-beaters and record-breakers. We Aussie women are just unbeatable and it gives me goosebumps every time I think about it. These are our golden days; it’s our time to shine. And so much of it is due to our amazing team spirit.

  I cap off my year by winning Swimming World magazine’s World Female Swimmer of the Year, 2005. I’m honoured to receive it, especially as a breaststroker. We don’t have the same glamour or glory as the freestylers, who swim faster than anyone else in the sport.

  I’m excited about being Swimmer of the Year, but I’m more excited about how well our team is doing right now. The Aussie team generally, and our women’s medley team specifically. We’re doing amazing things together. Awesome things. Together.

  That’s what I find really inspiring.

  14

  Commonwealth Triumph

  At the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in March 2006, I will be sharing a room with my arch rival, Brooke Hanson. My nemesis. Or so the media would have you believe. In actual fact, Brooke and I have no hard feelings towards one another, and whenever we see each other in the marshalling area we always get on fine. Sure, we wouldn’t have been each other’s first choice as a roommate, but having learnt that’s how it’s going to be, Brooke and I will be grown-up about it. Just because we’re competitors (we’ll be swimming in the 50-metre and 100-metre events against each other), doesn’t mean we can’t get along, right? Who knows? We might even enjoy it.

  I am swimming in the 50-metre breaststroke event in Melbourne, which I don’t normally do. I’m terrible at it because I’m only just hitting my stride by the time the race has been won – usually by somebody else. Plus, the 50 metres is not an Olympic event, so I don’t normally bother with it. However, I’ve qualified for Melbourne, so I will swim, even though I know I won’t win with Jade in the pool.

  Jade Edmistone trains with me at Commercial. She’s had a good year so far, starting with the Commonwealth Games trials in February, when she swam a PB in the 100-metre breaststroke to become the second-fastest Australian of all-time (just shades behind my record). She also improved on her own world record in the 50-metre event, setting the first world record at this new Melbourne pool. She’s in shape, she’s swimming fast and, what’s more, she likes this pool. Jade’s got this in the bag.

  The 50 metres is my first event in Melbourne. As I sit in the marshalling area, my fingers and toes are gradually turning blue. This Melbourne pool is cold and windy. One side of the complex is perpetually open to the elements, so by this time of the evening,
when the wind whips around and the cold, dark night floods in, it is freezing. Remind me again why I signed up for this crap? I think. I have been stomping around the pool complex all day saying this. Eventually Stephan told me to keep my attitude in check, but this has only made me madder than ever. I should channel this, I think. I should use my anger. That, or go and take a hot shower and climb into bed in my warm PJs …

  I am wearing my light-blue Speedo Fastskins tonight. Light-blue is my colour; pink is Libby’s. And no-one else is allowed to wear our colours. Fastskins have still only been on the market a short while. This is the second incarnation of the design, but things don’t seem to have improved much. The suit is as uncomfortable as all hell, riding straight up the clacker. You’ve got to make sure you’re wearing it right or you might flash the spectators your camel toe. You’re alright, I’ve learnt, as long as you keep your legs together, but this is difficult if you plan on swimming breaststroke.

  As I sit, shiver and try to pick out my camel toe without anyone noticing, I start to get mad. Really mad. And stubborn too. Who wouldn’t be feeling grumpy? I think. Who wouldn’t be stroppy about swimming in this stupid iceberg of a pool? Just because I have a job to do here doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.

  I’ll show you, Stephan! I think as I stand behind the blocks. How dare you tell me to keep my attitude in check!

  And I’ll show you too, Jade! I think as the whistle blows. How dare you be so good at the 50 metres!

  I am petulant when I swim and – my God! – I win gold? I swim out of my skin and somehow I win. I beat Jade, I beat my own record and I take out the gold in a time of 0:30.55. I’m shocked. It would seem I swim quite well when I’m cranky.

  Maybe I’m not so bad at the 50 metres? I think. And maybe, just maybe, this meet won’t be so bad after all. It hadn’t occurred to me before now, but it’s possible I could win three gold in one Games here in Melbourne: the 50-metre, the 100-metre and the 200-metre.

  I have a new goal, a fresh challenge. The besser-brick balancer inside me is back.

  My Nanna, my mum’s mum, has come down from St Huberts Island to watch me swim in Melbourne. It’s a really special trip for her. She is eighty-eight and in a wheelchair, but she has been determined to watch me swim at an international meet for so long, and now finally she has her chance.

  My auntie and uncle (Mum’s brother) are also here. They have travelled down in a campervan and are staying at the local caravan park, and the two of them take Nanna out for lunch one day.

  As my uncle tells it, they are waiting to catch the tram to lunch when my uncle hears: Ding, ding, ding!

  ‘What’s that noise? Lynne, can you hear that noise?’ he asks.

  His wife shrugs: she doesn’t know.

  Ding, ding, ding! The noise won’t go away.

  They turn to face Nanna, who is supposed to be waiting on the raised platform of the tram stop – and there she is, sitting on the tracks, her wheels stuck in the grooves, with a great big Melbourne tram looming down on her, dinging at her to get out of the way!

  Later, my uncle asked her why she didn’t yell out for help.

  ‘I didn’t like to be a bother,’ she replied.

  Nanna loves the Commonwealth Games. Because of her wheelchair, she gets special access and front-row seats, and she tells me that she feels like a princess.

  We don’t know it at the time, but this is the last chance Nanna will have to see me swim at an international meet. In 2013, she will be gone, at the age of ninety-five. After she dies, we will find a stash of newspaper clippings of my races, which she has kept for the past ten or so years, each one lovingly cut out and pasted into a scrapbook. Nanna’s scrapbook includes a clipping from Melbourne 2006, along with a photo of the two of us there together.

  Following my 50-metre victory, Nanna is back at the pool again the next evening, to see me repeat the trick in the 200-metre event.

  I swim this one on adrenaline, I swim it with purpose, and I come in almost four seconds ahead of Kirsty Balfour from Scotland, easily taking out gold.

  I am stoked: I’m on top of the world.

  So what comes out of my mouth in my post-race interview surprises me more than anyone else.

  ‘What is going on with you? You are a new woman!’ It is Nicole Livingstone from Channel Nine and we are live, straight from the pool deck. I am still huffing and panting, catching my breath.

  A new woman? I think. Yeah, I suppose I am.

  Even now, two years later, the Athens 2004 Olympics are still very much on my mind. My performance, the public backlash … Those Games were the single worst meet in my career and some of the worst days in my whole life, but I have tried very hard to put them behind me. I have focused on my sport; I have learnt to shut things out. I don’t read my press; I don’t listen to my detractors. Since 2004, I’ve stopped giving a fuck about anything else. I am here to swim; I am here to win.

  Most of all, I’ve changed my attitude. These days I’m trying hard to be positive, and to be a little kinder to myself. So yeah, I suppose I am a new woman.

  I don’t say all this to Nicole, of course. For one, you can’t say ‘fuck’ on television. Instead I smile graciously and thank her, and then I give my coach my most heartfelt thanks for all his help. I honestly wouldn’t be doing so well without all of Stephan’s help.

  But Nicole is not letting it go. She wants to know more.

  I shrug. ‘It has been a new year and … there’s been a lot of tough changes for me to make, especially with my attitude and how I swim,’ I admit. I try to think how best to explain it. In the end, it comes down to this: ‘I love racing and I think, through my swimming, it showed. So the changes have paid off. And I’m actually loving the person I am now,’ I venture.

  ‘You’re an absolutely sensational role model for the sport,’ Nicole says.

  At this, the crowd goes wild. They cheer, stomp, whistle and yahoo. ‘They love you!’ Nicole says.

  Do they? I wonder incredulously. I am stunned by the noise. I have always had wonderful support from the people closest to me – Mum, my coaches, my friends and my training partners. But beyond that? I could never tell. My brain is crowded with thoughts of Dawn Fraser, of the criticism I’ve received in the media, and of that woman on the street in Brisbane at the welcome-home parade.

  But Nicole is talking and I need to listen. ‘Tell me about the race itself. What were you trying to think about?’ she is asking.

  I tell her I was so nervous my stomach was churning. Then, before I know it, I’m telling her about my mantra. ‘Throughout the race you could probably have heard me saying, “This is my office, I know what to do. This is my office, I know what to do.” So I just trusted myself and let it go.’

  Perhaps she can see me opening up, perhaps she can see my guard is down, because Nicole leans in now and makes a grab for my heartstrings.

  ‘Let me ask you about your mum, a single mum …’ she is saying. ‘How much of an inspiration has Rosemary been?’

  ‘She’s been an enormous inspiration … Being a single mum, having to raise a swimmer and getting up at five o’clock in the morning is tough.’ I sit. ‘My family’s gone through bankruptcy, we’ve gone through everything, so it’s been tough on my mum.’

  I turn and grin and wave at Mum. She’s so thrilled with my win that she doesn’t realise she’s on national television. She doesn’t have time to get nervous or flustered. Instead, she looks relaxed and happy, just like she does in the kitchen at home. We’ve all got our guard down tonight.

  ‘And that’s some of the emotion that’s been behind you for the past five years, isn’t it?’ Nicole says.

  And now the floodgates open. ‘Yeah, and it was tough to deal with, especially as a fourteen-year-old at the Olympics. And I don’t think people realise that. I think they’re very quick to criticise and that has been really tough. But I’ve decided to … you know, people have their opinions and that’s fine,’ I say. ‘If I love myself it doesn’t
matter.’

  And that’s it. It’s a wrap. ‘We love you!’ Nicole says. ‘The crowd here loves you!’ They fade to an ad break, but before they do, my friend, commentator Duncan Armstrong can be heard in the commentary box upstairs saying: ‘She’s just matured so much into a beautiful young lady.’

  A couple of years ago, back in 2004, I held the 200-metre breaststroke world record for a staggering three whole days. Three days. That must be some kind of record in itself. On Saturday, 10 July 2004, I swam 2:22.96 at a meet in Brisbane, bringing the old record down by 0.03 of a second. It was the first time I had ever held the 200-metre record. Then, on Monday, 12 July, in Long Beach, USA, Amanda Beard swam 2:22.44.

  ‘Three days!’ I had complained on the phone to Mum at the time. I was gutted. I stormed around the car park at the Queensland Academy of Sport, looking for car tyres to kick. ‘I finally get the 200-metre record and she steals it away from me three days later!’

  My mum responded as only she can: ‘That’s what records are there for, Leisel,’ she reminded me.

  Great, thanks, Mum. ‘That’s what records are for.’ Are you serious? Who are you, the Dalai Lama? I hung up the phone to go and fume about my lost days of glory.

  This year, though, I have finally clawed it back. At Commonwealth Games trials in Melbourne last month I broke the 200-metre world record with a time of 2:20.54, shaving almost two seconds off Amanda’s record. And now at the Games themselves, and with Nanna in the stands, I set a Commonwealth record of 2:20.72.

  It feels like it’s all coming together. I’ve won the 50-metre and 200-metre events, so suddenly there is an awful lot to swim for in my final race.

  Triple gold is within my reach.

  The evening of the 100-metre final, the pool is sparkling; it’s crystal. It looks as though someone has sprinkled it with diamonds. Maybe Melbourne’s frost is finally melting? Or maybe I’m just seeing things differently now.