Body Lengths

by Leisel Jones

  She studies the floor, her nails, her gear bag. She looks everywhere in the room except at my face. ‘Huh? What do you mean?’ she asks impassively. Apparently she has no recollection of the last few months, no memory of making comments to the other girls about my weight, my clothes, the way I walk or the way I swim. She can’t remember bitching to my coaches about me or reporting on what I’ve eaten that day. What, she thinks I’m stupid? She thinks I don’t hear? Yeah, it’s small-scale, petty stuff, but it’s not what being in a team is about.

  I say all this to her and she leaves in a huff. But she cannot look me in the eye when she does.

  But if I thought the girls back home in Brisbane were bad, the behaviour of the boys here in London is ten times worse.

  Over the course of thirteen years and three Olympic Games, I’ve seen plenty of shenanigans among the Australian team. Piss-taking, practical jokes: our team has been there and done it all. And I am the first to admit to getting stuck in. I like a good practical joke better than anyone. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much as the time Skippy (Geoff Huegill) dared me to eat a spoonful of ‘avocado’ at a Japanese restaurant during one of my first ever television interviews. The Nine Network was filming a bunch of us during our ‘down time’ after training, and I was only fourteen and it was long before I’d ever heard of wasabi. It was hilarious.

  During the reign of people like Travis Nederpelt, Grant Hackett and Geoff Huegill – back when those guys were in the team and causing trouble – we all had a lot of fun. No-one got hurt and no-one got offended. But there’s a different vibe now: a nasty vibe. What some of the boys are doing in London isn’t funny: it’s bullying. They’re berating people. It’s brutal. They’re picking on anyone they identify as a weaker target: the newbies, the rookies. Anyone who can’t defend themselves. They are singling people out and then ganging up on them, three or four against one, and it is not cool. Not cool at all.

  One of their ‘jokes’ is to get in the elevator and press all the buttons and then, when the doors open on a random floor, they push someone out. When they do it to someone like me (which they do), I don’t mind. I get it. But in some instances it feels much more malicious. When they do it to the younger kids, the kids who aren’t confident and who don’t know their way around the village, kids who have enough to worry about without getting needlessly lost, I feel it stops being funny – it seems cruel.

  Their favourite target for this – and for all their other jokes – is poor Jarrod Poort. Jarrod is a 1500-metre swimmer and a newbie on the squad. He’s only seventeen, and this is his first national team, so it’s hardly a fair fight.

  Team management in the Aussie camp are aware of what’s going on, but no-one does anything to stop the bullying. The culture in the camp is rotten. Some coaches allow the issue to be swept under the rug, whereas previous coaches such as Don Talbot would have sent the offenders home immediately.

  I speak out in the press to say I won’t tolerate bullying, but I refrain from naming names. Everyone involved is still racing and nobody – bully or not – deserves that kind of distraction while they’re competing. It wouldn’t be fair. Instead I watch and wait for my opportunity, but all the while my fury is building.

  28

  Breaking Point

  London. 5 a.m. Four days until D-day. Four days till I race for the last time.

  ‘LJ? You awake?’

  I am now. I roll over and groan and consider throwing a pillow at my mate, Mel Schlanger, who is lying in the single bed across the room from me. She is holding her phone above her head, absorbed in reading something. The low glow from the screen casts an eerie light across her face. Schlanger is always on her phone at this meet; she can’t seem to find sleep no matter what she does.

  ‘LJ?’ More urgent now. ‘LJ, I think you need to see this. It’s important.’

  She has my attention now. ‘Is it Mum?’ My first thought, always, is that something has happened to Mum. ‘Is she okay?’

  ‘There’s a story, LJ. And it’s not very good.’

  ‘What story?’

  ‘Look, there’s some jerk saying some horrible things. But don’t listen to him. Don’t listen to any of them; they’re just jerks. You’re better than that, okay? You’re better than all of them.’

  So I crawl out of bed to read on Schlanger’s phone that the Herald Sun is running a story that seems to question whether I am too fat to swim. They are comparing photos of me over the years, under the headline ‘Leisel is relaxed, but is she ready?’ Alongside it is a terrible photo of me diving into the pool. It’s horrid. It’s taken from an unflattering angle, evidently intended to make me look bad. I am pale and leaning forward, gravity doing me no favours. In another image, I am standing completely at ease, back swayed, stomach relaxed. In reality I look exactly how lots of people would look in private, standing in front of their bathroom sink at home, say, in bad light and if they didn’t suck in their stomach for the camera. But I am mortified.

  The article quotes my press conference two days earlier, when I’d said: ‘I’m so relaxed and I’m just really enjoying everything about these Games and the lead-up.’

  ‘Some would say too relaxed,’ muses the reporter, ‘with coaches privately frustrated at her condition.’

  Really? Which coaches?

  Although the article doesn’t actually use the word ‘fat’, it says my figure is in ‘stark contrast to that of 2008’ and includes half a dozen photos of me to drive the point home. Oh, and they’re running a poll asking readers whether I’m fit enough to compete. The implication is clear. Bloody hell!

  ‘I thought you should hear it from me first,’ Schlanger says, and I am grateful in that moment that I have a friend.

  I have a sudden urge to throw up, but I swallow hard. I hand back Schlanger’s phone and my hand is shaking.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I say finally. And then: ‘Right. What do I do? What do I do? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do.’

  I want to cry; I want to laugh. I want to crawl under a rock and die.

  Who would do this? Who did this? I snatch back the phone and squint at the screen.

  ‘Paul Kent? Who is he?’

  I stare at the photos again. They truly are horrid. Is that really how I look? When was this taken? When did they do this? I feel violated at the thought of these photos being taken. And furious. Sure, I don’t look like my eighteen-year-old self, but I’m not eighteen anymore. I’m twenty-seven.

  My phone pings. A message. Then another, and another. I check my inbox and it is jammed with messages. It is mid-afternoon in Australia and everyone back home has had all day to pick up a copy of the paper and find me there. All of me. So much of me. I am mortified and distressed all over again.

  ‘What do I do?’ I ask Schlanger again. ‘What do I do?’

  I tell myself not to cry. I won’t give them the satisfaction.

  ‘I can’t go back to the pool today,’ I say.

  ‘You have so much support,’ Schlanger says to me. ‘Everyone is behind you. Look!’ She holds out her phone, but I wave it away. I’ve seen enough for one morning. Enough to last me a lifetime.

  ‘I don’t care, I can’t do it,’ I say again. How am I supposed to rock up at the pool today?

  But even as I say it, I know I have to. Today is Wednesday. On Sunday morning I swim the heats of the 100 metres, and in the evening, if I’m lucky, are the semi-finals. This weekend could be my last Olympic race ever. I have to train today. I have to get in the pool. I have to face the media dressed in my togs.

  And so I get on with it. I go to the pool and I walk out on deck, clutching my gear bag hopelessly across my stomach. It’s so obviously my defence, my security blanket, and I must look like a fool. But by this stage I figure I can’t look much worse.

  There are over 21,000 members of the media at the London Games and it feels like every one of them is on pool deck this morning. There are photojournalists, news teams and film crews galore, beaming my body
out to four billion people worldwide. Is this, I wonder, the most embarrassing moment in my life? I hear the clicks and whirs of the thousands of cameras behind me and, without a shadow of a doubt, I know that it is.

  I think about every time I have ever felt self-conscious in my togs, about every time I’ve ever had a ‘fat-day’ during competition, about every time I have felt people stare at me with recognition on the street. None of that has prepared me for this moment. Nothing could. It’s like that feeling when you strip down to your togs on a crowded beach and for one instant you feel like the world is looking at you. It’s like that, except the world really is looking.

  Here I am! I want to say. Dissect me now. Pull me apart and leave me here to bleed. But for God’s sake make it quick, would you?

  I glance around for a friendly face. For my coach or someone from squad. Even Stephanie Rice would do right now. And then I spy Lachlan Searle, the media manager of the Aussie swimming team. He is sitting on the pool deck with the head coach of the Australian swimming team, Leigh Nugent. I walk over to the two of them and dump my bags at their feet so they have no choice but to look at me.

  ‘Leisel!’ Lachlan says, as if the thought has just occurred to him. ‘Just so you know, there’s something about you in the paper today. But it’s nothing to worry about.’

  Behind me is the sound of ten thousand or more cameras clicking. A staccato of humiliation.

  I pause for a moment to consider what Lachlan has just said. Just so you know. There’s something in the paper. I kind of figured that out when I woke up to thirty new text messages and I thought my mother had died. It’s almost 10 a.m. now and I haven’t heard anything from the Australian swimming team management. I’m amazed they haven’t come to talk to me about this. I’m shocked.

  I nod slowly at him. ‘Yeah, I’ve seen the story,’ I manage to say.

  Then I put my head down and get on with my session. I swim my socks off in the pool.

  Just about everyone I know gets in contact with me over the next few days. If they didn’t read Paul Kent’s piece in the Herald Sun, then they read similar pieces in the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald or the Australian. My friends, my family, they all text or call or send a message. ‘We love you and we support you,’ they all want to say. That, and: ‘Paul Kent’s a douchebag’.

  ‘Who is Paul Kent?’ I ask Bohly. I still have no clue who the guy is, nor why he hates me so much.

  ‘News Limited journo,’ Bohly says. ‘But not one of our usual.’ I think of Nicole Jeffery, Jessica Halloran, Wayne Smith, Todd Balym, Rebecca Wilson and all the other journos who we deal with regularly. Journos who I trust and who have always supported me. Nicole Jeffery would never write a story like this.

  But Paul Kent? Never met him. No idea what he even looks like. The thought makes me paranoid as I wander around the village. Is that guy Paul Kent? Is that one? If I’d bothered to google ‘Paul Kent’ it wouldn’t have taken me long to discover that the guy has a history of criticising others. He’s had public spats with the likes of Anthony Mundine and Matthew Newton. He’s won a Wankley Award from Crikey. But I don’t google him. I don’t waste my time.

  I have a race to swim, so I have to put Paul Kent and his comments out of my mind. I have to be brave. I have to suck it up. I have to say, you know what? Screw you. Fine, I’m not in the best shape of my life but I will prove to you that I can do this. That I deserve to be here. A year ago I was lying on the bathroom floor in a hotel in Sierra Nevada, planning how to take my own life. I didn’t come back from that – from the biggest battle of my life – to get back in the pool and qualify for my fourth Olympic Games just to be put down by some journo I’ve never met.

  I am an athlete, an Olympian. I am a woman, and I am an Australian. I am all of these things. I am not just my thighs or my stomach. I am not just my BMI or my skinfold test result or any other number anyone tries to tell me I am. I am more than that. How dare you try to reduce me to this?

  Of course, I don’t say this. I don’t say much at all. I decide early on that I won’t fight back.

  I will be the bigger person. Metaphorically speaking, at least.

  This doesn’t make me a victim. I just make a conscious decision not to retaliate or take any kind of complaint action. Instead, I let my swimming do the talking. I go out Sunday morning and I swim my heart out. I give it all I’ve got. I qualify fifth, in a time of 1:06.98. This is a good time for me. And after the race I am interviewed by my buddy Grant Hackett.

  ‘You copped a bit of flak earlier in the week. That’s been tough. But it’s nice to come out and have a good performance first up,’ Grant says.

  ‘I have to say, it’s been hard to have journalists saying things – to have my own countrymen saying things about me – before I even start racing. That’s been a new challenge for me.’ I’ll say that, at least. ‘But I’d like to think I’ve proved them wrong by getting out here and swimming fast. It’s all I’ve got to do. I’ve got to get out here and do my best. Can’t ask for anything more.’

  ‘Does it make you angry? Does it make you want to swim fast?’

  ‘It’s actually the best thing that could have ever happened to me,’ I admit, and I laugh. ‘I have never swum faster in time trials in my life before that, so thanks a lot! You’ve just fired me up!’

  I grin and walk from the pool deck. I am fired up; I am ready to go. I may not be as young or as skinny as I was in the past, but I don’t think anyone can doubt my dedication. I will do this. I will fight tooth and nail. And I’ll need to if I am going to get a spot on the relay team.

  The women’s medley relay team is my final goal. It is the reason I am here in London. It is what matters. Deep down, I don’t care where I place in my individual event, as long as I qualify for the relay team. And that means beating new young Queensland swimmer Leiston Pickett. Leiston and I are in the same semi-final tonight, so the pressure is on. She beat me at trials, and she’s a real danger to me. Only one of us can swim the breaststroke leg in the 4 × 100-metre medley relay. But I won’t let her take my spot. That spot is mine!

  I tell Bohly this as we travel to the pool later that day for the semi-finals. It’s just hitting dusk as we approach the Aquatics Centre, with its undulating roof, which looks as if a big wave has just hit and the ripples are still being felt. Out of the window, I can see kids flying kites in the park, and I pause to enjoy the sight. Just to be. I have been chatting to Lisa in the last few days and she has reminded me to observe my surroundings, look out for simple things – like the goats in Sierra Nevada – and enjoy them for what they are. Just be in the moment. I look at these kids with their colourful kites. I could be one of those kids. I still feel like little Leisel from Burpengary.

  ‘I don’t care what happens tonight,’ I say to Bohly. ‘I’ll give it a crack, and I’ll try and get that relay spot.’

  ‘Well, you better swim bloody fast,’ he replies. That makes me laugh, and I think of Ken.

  I will swim bloody fast tonight. I will beat this kid. If Leiston thinks she’s taking my spot on the relay team – my spot for the past twelve years – she’s got another thing coming. I know this game; I know it well.

  Actually, Leiston reminds me of myself. Myself from a very long time ago. She’s a plucky little thing, skinny and brave. A great kid, actually. I have a lot of time for her. But she hasn’t yet learnt to put it together mentally, and I know how debilitating that can be. Leiston is half my size; she is so fit it makes my eyes water. But I have it over her in terms of racing experience. I am weary with the weight of all the experience I have. And if there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that racing comes down to mental strength. If only the likes of Paul Kent realised that. The mind is the thing, not the body.

  So I get to the pool that night and I beat Leiston Pickett. I come second in my semi, qualifying fifth-fastest overall, in 1:06.81.

  Immediately after my race, Mum texts me with the best message ever: ‘Job done’. I love it.

  Jo
b done. Job bloody well done. This is my job and I know what to do. I’m in the relay team and I’ve qualified for the finals. This is huge. I am stoked. Halle-bloody-lujah!

  As for Leiston, she got a time of 1:07.74 in the semis and, while it’s not good enough to make the finals, I have no doubt Australia will see more of her in the future.

  After my race, I face another barrage of questions from the media about how I feel about my weight being discussed. But nothing can touch me tonight. I am floating on air.

  ‘Look,’ I tell them, ‘I have been around this game for a long time. I’m not shocked by anything. It’s pretty hurtful, sure. But I’m here to swim. And I swim in the pool, not in the papers. I’m here to do my job and I know what that is and I just hope to do it well and to make Australia proud.’

  ‘I’ve made myself proud just by being here,’ I add.

  And I have. I feel I have triumphed just by turning up today. For me to rock up to these Olympic Games – for me to face each new day when the sun rises – is an achievement right now. I know that. Even if no-one else does.

  I still say nothing to the press or anyone else about my depression or my intended suicide in Sierra Nevada. I would hate for anyone to think I’m using it as an excuse. I am here and I’m alive: that’s enough for me. And if Paul Kent had any idea what an achievement that is, he would never have written that article.

  Of course, there’s a silver lining: if it hadn’t been written, I would never have realised how much support I have. Ever since that article was published my phone has been ringing, buzzing and pinging with messages of love and support. People are getting on Twitter, Facebook and talkback radio and saying all sorts of lovely things. It’s pretty overwhelming to hear how much everyone cares. I have never had so much encouragement in my life and it touches me deeply.