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028-035_Emma Snowsill.indd 28 8/09/14 2:42 PM Feature Story | REFLECTIONS ON A CAREER HARD WON IT WAS A TUMULTUOUS ROAD TO THE TOP OF THE PODIUM FOR THE NOW-RETIRED EMMA SNOWSILL ,WHO OPENED UP RECENTLY TO TMSM ABOUT HER LIFE LESS ORDINARY. “LIFE IS A JOURNEY, NOT A RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

DESTINATION.” WORDS: SRR MEDIA | IMAGES: DELLY CARR

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028-035_Emma Snowsill.indd 29 8/09/14 2:42 PM EMMA’S TRIATHLON CAREER STARTED ALMOST BY ACCIDENT. IT WAS AN Above: the three ‘Emmas’; Jackson, INVITATION TO DO THE SWIM LEG FOR A TEAM AT THE NOOSA TRIATHLON IN 1996 Moffatt and Snowsill THAT WAS THE SPARK OF WHAT ESCALATED INTO AN AMAZING SPORTING CAREER. celebrate

iewed through the filter of the sports media, Emma decided to go for it, he was my number-one supporter and Snowsill’s hugely successful career can be seen that has never changed.” as a montage of high-profile races at glamorous Emma’s triathlon career started almost by accident. It was an destinations around the globe. These include three ITU invitation to do the swim leg for a team at the Noosa Triathlon World Championships, an Olympic triathlon gold medal in 1996 that was the spark of what escalated into an amazing (Australia’sV first and only), a title, a sporting career. number of big-dollar Hy-Vee titles and a clutch of wins on the “A girl in my swim club asked me to swim for a friend’s team. ITU circuit. Running parallel to all this – and often obscured by Before that I was completely driven by my swimming and the confetti and camera flashes – is the amazing journey of a dreamed of being an Olympic swimmer, but racing in Noosa young girl from the Gold Coast. sort of threw a small spanner in the works.” The headlines always focused on the ‘Olympic and World Emma had a strong background in cross-country running Champion’, her happy smile and ruthless performances, but thanks to her school run coach Brian Chapman (Melissa when you tap into the private world of Emma Snowsill, you Hauschildt’s steeplechase coach), but she credits Jenny soon learn how much she valued her team, their dedication, Alcorn from Surfers Paradise Tri Club with bringing the three conviction and belief in her. sports together. “I have always needed that support. Obviously I have put in Her friend Luke McKenzie introduced Snowsill to coach Bill the physical work but there have been plenty of people putting Davoren and his squad in 1999 and she quickly broadened her me back together, keeping me in one piece and those helping circle of friends and learned more about the professional side with the business side of things,” she says. of her new sport. It was Mum and Dad – Maureen and Garry Snowsill – who But it was in 2000, while as an age grouper racing in gave Emma and sister Amy every opportunity as kids and Mooloolaba, that Emma met a very charismatic up and coming provided them with the environment in which to flourish. But professional triathlete, Luke Harrop, whose unrivalled passion while the girls were passionate and talented swimmers with for life was to have an enormous influence on Emma’s entire ambitions, sport as a career was never really part of the plan. life. It was also in Mooloolaba that year that Emma pocketed “Dad was always supportive of me doing everything, but in her first national age group title, qualifying her for the 2000 ITU his generation you went to school and went to university to World Championships in Perth, where she picked up the 16-to- get a degree and you got a job. But once I took the risk and 20 age group world title.

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028-035_Emma Snowsill.indd 30 8/09/14 2:42 PM 028-035_Emma Snowsill.indd 31 8/09/14 2:42 PM ttracted to Luke’s personality, his attitude towards life, his devilish grin and a shared love of triathlon, Emma was “I WAS LIVING IN inspired and her world was quickly changing. A WORLD WHERE “Luke was very unique, as anyone would have said who TRIATHLON met him, and he had a love of life that stood out. He wasA like a sponge and he was super-passionate about wanting DIDN’T EXIST to see and enjoy the world and it just intrigued me. There was AND I DIDN’T a whole new world opening up, of travelling and doing what I loved, everything was coming at me fast. WANT TO SEE IT. “It was all very exciting, new and it felt like the world was IN ANY STAGE OF my oyster. Then all of a sudden if felt like that same world was ripped from under my feet,” she recalls. GRIEF YOU ARE On 12 January 2002, Luke Harrop was critically injured in a hit DEALING WITH, and run while on an early morning training ride. Two members of Col Stewart’s training squad were hit by a female driver of a PARTICULARLY stolen car in the Gold Coast suburb of Robina. Harrop sustained AT SUCH A massive head injuries and was rushed to Gold Coast Hospital and was put on a life support system but died the next day. YOUNG AGE, YOU The loss of Luke in such tragic circumstances left Emma REALLY WANT devastated, lost and questioning everything about life. TO DISTANCE “There were so many aspects that were so hard to deal with. Especially the fact that a life wasn’t lived, the nature of the YOURSELF FROM accident, how it occurred and the freakiness of it, I guess. There WHAT HURTS AND were so many question marks for me and there was a lot of hard processing and things to come to terms with,” she remembers. AT THAT STAGE IT Emma’s initial response was a reaction against triathlon and WAS OBVIOUSLY she even recalled thinking the sport should be ‘blacklisted’. “I was living in a world where triathlon didn’t exist and I TRIATHLON.” didn’t want to see it. In any stage of grief you are dealing with, particularly at such a young age, you really want to distance yourself from what hurts and at that stage it was obviously triathlon.” But Emma wasn’t alone, she was sharing her grief with the Harrop family and especially Luke’s twin Loretta. “Loretta was the only person who was instrumental in getting me back into the sport and she took me under her wing. If I look at it now, I was just the girlfriend of her brother. We had met a few times and I had spent time around the family and I obviously knew what she did and her status in the sport, but we didn’t know each other well. It was quite remarkable the strength she had to take me on the way she did.” Emma recalls Loretta encouraging her to look at what Luke was about and his life. “She said we had to move forward in life and there really is no other option. Every day the sun was going to rise and set and it was our choice what we do with it. “Rather than focusing on the negative about what had occurred, how would Luke see our lives? Would he be happy to see us throw away the sport that he loved so much? Would he be happy for us to live a life in mourning about him. “It was all about what we could learn from him, his personality and his view on life. It wasn’t an instant thing, it took a long time to turn around and come to terms with. “I was learning a heck of a lot and at a pretty young age and I honestly, truly didn’t realise how much I had learned until later on in my career. It was then that I was able to draw on that strength and mental capacity,” she says. Emma’s triathlon career had literally stalled because she was “really spooked to ride on the road” and living on the Gold

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028-035_Emma Snowsill.indd 32 8/09/14 2:42 PM you put in is what you get out. He was by no means scientific – but neither was I – so that didn’t bother me at all. I was at a point where I just wanted to put my head down and work hard and not think a whole lot about it, other than learn about what we were doing and understanding the sessions.” Emma recalls that when Sutton was at the important sessions, it was mental training as much as it was physical training. “That is where I really learned that stuff about mind over matter. That was absolutely instrumental to me.” While Loretta and Emma benefited so much from their time together with Sutton, the ‘Doc’ also recalls it being an inspiring time for him. “It was a life experience for me, to watch mentor Emma,” he says. “I remember advising Loretta that one day the student will defeat the teacher. Her answer and her actions will go down in my memory as one of the greatest acts of selflessness I’ve ever witnessed. Make no mistake, Luke Harrop was Emma’s inspiration just as Loretta was the boot in the arse Emma needed on many occasions to make the best out of her unbelievable natural gifts. Without either, the Emma Snowsill story would not have been written,” Sutton says. Sometimes it pays to just trust the universe and right on cue another important piece in the puzzle arrived at Sutton’s training camp – this time in the shape of the world’s best non-drafting triathlete and uber-biker Craig Walton. “I actually met Craig when he was training with Bill Davoren during his lead-up to the Sydney Olympics. I knew who he was and that he was going to the Olympics, but that was the extent,” says Sutton. But in mid 2003, Craig was looking for a change in his training and he approached Sutton. Under Sutton’s guidance, Emma’s progress was rapid, so much so that at the ITU Worlds in Queenstown, New Zealand, Emma turned the triathlon world upside down, convincingly defeating seasoned competitors Laura Bennett, and Barb Lindquist to grab her first of three world titles. Immediately the media had her ear-marked for a position on the Coast, she had a constant reminder of the accident. Australian team for the Olympics, but Emma didn’t see it “Loretta suggested that perhaps it was a good idea to that way. get away from it and distance ourselves from the constant “Brett had made me peak for Queenstown and a world title reminders in order to help me move on.” because he didn’t see me in contention to go to the Olympics Part of Loretta’s strategy was to take Emma with her to in 2004; he didn’t think I was ready. Europe, to train under her mentor , a man known for “I remember being asked about the Olympics straight after his unique, passionate and hard-core approach to life and sport. the race in Queenstown and it was a shock question to me because I hadn’t even considered it. I had never competed t is with a wry chuckle that Emma recalls her first experience in a senior team, I’d had one race in Japan, Noosa and come of the ‘Sutto’ way of doing things. “I remember seeing Brett away with wins, so I didn’t automatically expect to be in an at the Worlds in Edmonton in 2001, when I was competing in Olympic team.” junior elite, when won the world title. I had heard of Brett and that was it. But I recall seeing this guy on the er training partner, mentor and good friend Loretta Isidelines of the course. There was a 20-metre gap between all did get the call-up for Athens and won a silver medal the spectators and there was this guy pacing back and forth, after being run down by a flying . At the time, back and forth, just shadow boxing. At first I thought he was Emma said Loretta’s defeat was a very emotional time homeless and crazy because he was talking to himself and for her. having a monologue. I thought there was something not right H“I was so disappointed for her. I was extremely upset watching there until Siri came past and he was screaming at her and that knowing how much she had been putting into the training that’s when I put it together.” and how much she put into the race itself. For it to be taken Emma found working with Sutton very different to what she away like that in a few seconds was extremely hard to watch. It had been doing, yet it was somehow very simple. was sad, I really thought she had it and I wished she had.” “He had a very strong work ethic and he believed that what The memory of that race was etched into Emma’s psyche

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028-035_Emma Snowsill.indd 33 8/09/14 2:42 PM and would play a major role in her performance in He told me I needed two days rest and I had Beijing four years later. never done that in my whole career, except at the Just when things seemed on track and stable, end of the season. I didn’t listen to him and I still Coach Sutton threw a curve ball at his squad went for a little jog that afternoon. by calling it quits at season’s end in 2004. The “It was one of those ‘Ah-ha’ moments. I news meant Emma and her then boyfriend Craig remember running from North Burleigh to Nobby’s Walton were forced to restructure their plans for along Mermaid and I remember looking at the the coming years. ocean and thinking, ‘If I come away with a gold “Brett said he was going back to horses and medal or if I come away with any medal, what is he couldn’t deal with athletes anymore. That was going to change? If I come back to this very place Brett and I thought, ‘whatever’. For sure, it wasn’t in two weeks time, I am still the same person, I what I wanted but he was that sort of person and am going to have a roof over my head, my family he wasn’t going to change his mind. is still going to love me, my friends will be just the “I would have loved for Brett to continue same and my dog isn’t going to care if I have a coaching me but I felt I had learned as much as I medal or not.’ I had a realisation that I was putting could with him. So, I went about writing out what so much pressure on myself and all I could do was we did for training, and how we did it.” the best that I could do and I had to let go of all this Together, Emma and Craig regrouped and pressure and expectation. I started to break it down refocused and the next few years were some of to life and the things that I had learned from Loretta the most lucrative. Using Sutton’s structure and and Brett and remind myself that it is just a sport. some valuable additions contributed from Craig’s vast experience, Emma went on a winning spree picking up the ITU crown in Gamagori in 2005 and Lausanne in 2006, as well as the Commonwealth I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO HAVE Games gold in . WALKED AWAY WHEN I WANTED TO mma and Craig continued to travel the WALK AWAY BUT I HAD TO COME world and did what races they could together, but their focus changed TO THE REALISATION THAT IN dramatically after Craig’s retirement in March 2008. RACING, AS IN LIFE, THINGS DON’T E“Craig had been getting really sick and his ALWAYS GO HOW YOU PLANNED. immune system had suffered and I had been with him and seen what he had gone through. He needed to change something and made the I think that was what saved me; I shouldn’t say I decision to retire. think, I know that is what saved me.” “Because he wasn’t training, Craig offered to From that point on Emma relaxed in a way help me as much as possible in the five months that she would never have imagined leading leading into Beijing and we had a talk about what into an Olympics. “I became very at ease with had happened to him at the Sydney Olympics, everything. So much so, the morning before the where he went right and where he went wrong, race, I remember going for my little morning jog what he would have changed. He helped me lift and running around the venue and looking at the for the Olympics, and gave me every opportunity Olympic signs and flags and I remember having to have the very best race possible.” a little laugh to myself and going, ‘Oh my god, we Warren Lowry, Emma’s masseur, and his wife are at the Olympics.’ and training partner Liz Blatchford were also a “I had taken away all the things around the vital part of Team Snowsill, but if it hadn’t been Olympics and broken it down to: ‘You know what, for advice from Denis Cotterell, things might have I know how to swim, bike and run. What am I been very different. getting so uptight about?’ I remember being on “I think my lead-up was close to perfect, but the pontoon and laughing and smiling in the last in saying that, three weeks before the Games, I few moments before the gun. I looked out at was training with Denis and I was cooked. I was the first buoy and thought, ‘Cool, we are at the absolutely overtrained and Denis told me to get Olympics, let’s do this.’ out of the pool. I was beside myself; I knew I was Emma may have been relaxed prior to the race overtrained but I didn’t want to accept it. I didn’t but once she got onto the run, she admitted to want to listen to it because I hadn’t factored that ‘running scared’. in. It was like I had peaked a couple of weeks too “That replay of Loretta and that race played on early and Denis said to me, ‘You will not be on that my mind all the time. I felt like I could not let up for start line if you keep going the way you are going.’ a second. I had to push and I had to make sure

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028-035_Emma Snowsill.indd 34 8/09/14 2:42 PM but it was how many times can you go over it? That is the question. I got to a point where being a triathlete was not even important anymore; just being a normal, healthy, functioning human being was the number-one most important thing to me. “Last year alone I was sick seven times, so I could pretty much get a few days of low-intensity training at about 50 per cent of what I was doing and I could get by for a week and I would get sick, or get a sore throat, a sinus infection or a chest infection. Then I would get three weeks of fatigue that followed. There are a frightening number of athletes in a similar situation and more and more athletes I talk to have similar conditions or symptoms and things that they may not have known, or attributed to training through their career, but are suffering through now is ridiculously high. And a lot have had to end their careers because of it. “Do I see all those instances as preventable? Yes. To me this is a thing that I am really passionate about because I truly don’t want anyone to feel like where I have been in the last couple of years.” Retirement was something that didn’t come easy to Emma and it was something she thought about for a long time. “There is not one athlete in the world who wouldn’t imagine the dream retirement and that is to walk away at the top. I would have loved to have walked away when I wanted to walk away but I had to come to the realisation that in racing, as in life, things don’t always go how you planned. “Triathlon is something I love and I am passionate about but it wasn’t making me happy anymore because I was sick all the time and I wasn’t happy being sick. I knew I eventually had to voice that decision and let that change happen. This is the only body I’ve got, it has been pretty damn kind to me and let me do the things I have done, so I thought, why I am continually being unkind to it?” The most recent member of Team Snowsill to join her on everyone was accounted for. At every turnaround I was making her journey and help to regain her health and to deal with the sure that there wasn’t someone coming through the field that impact of her forced retirement is her husband and fellow I hadn’t seen. I was running scared and giving it everything I Beijing gold medallist . could,” Emma says. “Jan literally met me at my worst in terms of my health. I After Beijing, Emma was swept up in the post-Olympic look at it like I had a little bit of petrol in the tank, then it was homecomings but she was determined to race Noosa and give vapours and then it all evaporated. He met me in the worst something back to the event that had started it all for her as a period for me as an athlete, when I was going through my 16-year- old . biggest struggles. “All the adrenalin afterwards and the amazing fitness carried “Jan was really the first person to help me to understand the me through to Noosa. It was the most rewarding race and whole process of where I am at and celebrate what I had done. experience I could have had post Olympics. It was such an He has intrigued me from when we first met, with his view on life. important race to me and I wanted to give back, but I knew It reminded me about the importance of life, that triathlon is our after the end of my four weeks off I didn’t feel it was enough. I sport and we have to be thankful for the time that we get to do it. knew I needed time out, a rest. “He was instrumental in helping me get back to life and “I don’t have any regret, anger or frustration to the post finding my other passions in life and what I am good at and Olympic period but if I could do it again, I would do it differently. finding the positives in life. He was somebody who just saw me One hundred per cent I would have allowed myself to enjoy as Emma, the woman, not Emma the triathlete – a label I had myself more, allowed myself to do more of the special things put on myself. He was always there, lifting me up and reminding that only happen once in a lifetime and I now know it will only me of how important it was to be me.” happen once in a lifetime.” So, what would the 16-year-old girl who did the team swim at While Emma still recorded some great results post Beijing, it Noosa almost two decades ago think if she was told then about became increasingly difficult to not only maintain her standard, the journey she was about to embark on in the sport of triathlon? but at times it became impossible to get to the start line. “She certainly wouldn’t have believed it was possible,” Emma “My dad said that to me so often, ‘You are on a knife edge, says. “Her eyes would have lit up and it would have been ‘Wow, you are on that fine line.’ Even so, I needed to be there at times do you really think I can do that?’”

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