Lydia Lassila Jump
By Lydia Lassila with Andrew Clarke
Published by P101 Pty Ltd at Smashwords.
Copyright 2010 P101
All rights reserved. Material from the book cannot be reproduced in any format without the prior written consent of the publisher. Lydia Lassila and Andrew Clarke assert the moral right to be recognised as the authors of this book.
Discover other titles by P101 and Andrew Clarke at http://www.p101.com.au
More information: andrew@p101.com.au
Contents
Foreword
Chapter 01 - The Jump
Chapter 02 - The seed is planted
Chapter 03 - Gymnastics, my first love
Chapter 04 - Learning to love... again
Chapter 05 - One battered rookie
Chapter 06 - Salt Lake City
Chapter 07 - Right Side-itis
Chapter 08 - Torino and the big blow
Chapter 09 - Returning to turmoil
Chapter 10 - The A Team and the Silent Partner
Chapter 11 - Game On
Chapter 12 - In the moment
Chapter 13 - The future
Foreword
by Lauri Lassila (Husband and former professional skier)
Aerial skiing along with mogul skiing and ski cross are the three disciplines of freestyle skiing. It has never been, and will never be, a mainstream sport. In aerials there is no room for errors, miscalculations or half-measures: you are either fully committed to launching yourself off a 4-metre jump at speeds in excess of 65km/h 19 metres into air, or you don’t do it at all. It’s that simple really. It’s all or nothing.
Aerial skiers prepare and train like most other elite athletes in the world. They put in multiple training sessions a day; they spend countless hours lifting weights, running, hopping, jumping, flipping and twisting. They do this every day, month after month and year after year with the dream of one day winning at the Olympic Games. It is a sport that requires enormous sacrifice and mental strength.
The Olympic final in aerial skiing consists of two jumps that are both judged and counted. Overall the performance lasts for six seconds after which it’s all over. There are no second chances, no other distances, heats or medleys. It’s just those two jumps and one medal.(1) If you are not ready and focused on the day when it all counts, your next opportunity is four years away.
Talent and natural ability play an important role in professional sports and in many cases it guides people into a certain sport. Lydia was born into a family with three older brothers. She was born to compete.
Being naturally competitive was not the only advantage Lydia had on her side in becoming one of the greatest female acrobatic athletes in the world. With a remarkable combination of Sicilian-Cypriot heritage from her parents, she is very passionate and determined with whatever she sets her mind to. Before I met Lydia, her passion was gymnastics. By the time we first met, her passion had become aerial skiing.
In professional sports, as in most things in life, passion, talent and competitive mind count for nothing unless you are also willing to work very hard for your own success. Lydia started working hard at the age of nine.
Many people believe that to succeed as an athlete, you must have a certain sense of selfishness and egotistical nature. This couldn’t be further from the truth with Lydia, as I have never come across anyone who is more thoughtful and considerate of others. This is something that also runs deep in her family. Her positive nature has made her a very popular and respected on the World Cup tour and Lydia has even become great friends with some of her international rivals.
On the outside she is a fierce competitor, a workaholic who is driven to excel in everything she does. She oozes intensity, focus, desire and determination, and when you add the fact that she has a very short fuse and absolutely no patience, it makes living with her anything but ordinary. What still amazes me is that even with her incredible coordination and sense of body awareness; she can easily become lost in traffic as her sense of direction can’t always keep up. I think that’s where we complement each other quite well: I have all the patience in the world and I try to be there for her in case she ever feels lost.
On the inside though, she is much softer. She just cares. She cares about people, her team-mates, her family and friends. She cares about her sport, both worldwide and in Australia. She cares about being a role model and an inspiration to others and gets a big kick out of helping people. She is my own kulta (‘kulta’ in Finnish literally means ‘gold’, but it’s also a term of endearment, like ‘honey’).
Lydia often says that winning gold in Vancouver was a team effort. I have always found it funny that Lydia is often required to thank so many people for her success when it comes to different ceremonies, awards and presentations. Naturally, elite athletes at her level receive support from the government and from various organisations that make the aerial skiing program possible and allow her to do what she does. But, at the end of the day, it’s all about her.
She has fought hard for every piece of that gold medal. She is the one that works hard day in day out. She is the one that has endured injury and pain and come out of it all with a passion and hunger to keep persevering. She’s the one that has endured the sacrifices and accepts all the risks with courage. She is the one standing at the top the in-run, staring down at a four metre jump, alone, bearing full responsibility for whatever happens next. I am proud that she is my wife, and I am proud to have been a part of and a witness to her journey.
Lydia Lassila Jump is about dreaming of what could be done and setting up a plan to make it happen. It’s about internal drive towards excellence, where second best is unacceptable if you had the opportunity to do better. It’s about bouncing back when you are down. It’s about commitment to life on the move, away from loved ones, which has no concept of 9 to 5 work hours, no paid overtime, no national holidays, no sick leave and no work cover. It’s not about money(2) fame or publicity, but of something truly priceless: reaching your ultimate potential.
(1) Since Aerial Skiing was first introduced to the Olympic Program in 1992, Lydia’s gold medal was the sixth Olympic gold medal ever awarded in women’s Aerials. In comparison there have been 80 Olympic gold medals awarded to female swimmers in the same timeframe. (Source: Wikipedia)
(2) In 2010 the average income of an Aerial Skier was AUD3,064 (prize money is the same for both men and women). In comparison, the average income of an Australian footballer is AUD227,000 (Source: International Ski Federation, Wikipedia)
Chapter 01 - The Jump
My eyes scan down the in-run and I stare at the jump. I don’t see or focus on anything else. It’s just me and the jump. My breathing is slow and calm. I hear the crowd, but they don’t come into my thinking. I know what I have to do. All my focus is on this jump, one final jump. The rest is irrelevant.
I can feel my nervous energy and my heart is pounding, but, I am calm. I am ready. I am committed. I believe. I’m not nervous, but I’m not confident. I’m in another place – a different zone. One more jump for glory... or oblivion. Either way, I am not leaving anything on the table tonight. I will not hold back. ‘Breathe Lyd, breathe.’
The take-off is all I think about. ‘Just hit your take-off.’ Everything else will fall in to place. Other thoughts I force away. To do this, I have a phrase that I say to myself ‘water under a bridge’. With this I expel all thoughts that are irrelevant to this instance, to my jump. The judges are ready and my coaches clear me to go. I clap my hands twice, I’m not sure why, and turn my skis down the in-run. ‘Make it happen.’
My speed picks up as I cut through the fog. The jump is before me. An icy big white wall four metres tall that will throw me into the air as high as a four-storey building. I’m not scared of it and I squeeze my body tight and hold my position up and off the jump. ‘Yes, that felt good.’ I am airborne and on autopilot, flipping and twisting into the air through the nights’ sky.
The jump felt just as I had visualised it at the top. It was just as I had seen it the night before and the thousands of other times I had rehearsed it over and over in my head. Lay-Full-Full. I can see the landing through the entire jump, like an eagle honing in on its prey. Everything seems like it’s in slow motion. I hear my coach Mich’s voice, directing me through the air. But, my body knows what to do. ‘Eyes down the hill. Chest forward.’ I land effortlessly, so light and with ease, it felt like I was floating. This time, it’s not a dream. It’s not imagined, it’s real.
I scream with excitement as I ski to the finish area, my arms pumped to the sky. I felt instant relief that it was all over, relief that I did what I came to do. My score came up and I was ranked number one. All the sacrifice and pain was worth it for that one moment. My plan had worked perfectly. I wait for the final competitor to jump. She’s in the air, but it’s going wrong. She crashes. I’ve won.
I had two jumps to perform that night at Cypress Mountain on February 24, 2010. No more, no less and both jumps counted. Each jump takes about three seconds, so that’s six seconds in total. Six seconds does not leave a lot of room for error. There are no second chances. There is extra pressure at an Olympics because, not only is it the most important event of an athlete’s career, it also only comes around every four years. This is the biggest stage in the world of aerial skiing, and I wasn’t looking for a podium that night. I was jumping to win.
Chapter 02 - The seed is planted
In many ways I was destined to do something like aerial skiing and as a young girl all I wanted to do was jump, somersault and twirl. I was fearless and I was a show-off and I liked impressing people with my skills – I liked getting the reaction of ‘oh my God, what are you doing?’
I was forever climbing and hanging off anything I could and when we had friends over for dinner, Mum would get me to put on a show to entertain our guests. From a very young age, I was an entertainer. One of my best tricks when I was about two years of age was to lift myself up and do a flip when I was walking along the street holding two peoples’ hands. Whoever was holding my hands at the time would freak out because this tiny girl had just hoisted herself up and flipped over. I was just happy that I’d entertained them. I loved shocking people more than anything else. I loved the reaction I got and it was addictive. I’m still doing it I suppose, although now, there’s no one holding my hands anymore.
I was born on January 17, 1982 as Lydia Sara-Marie Ierodiaconou and I was the youngest of four children, me being the only girl. George is my oldest brother and he was born in 1976, so he’s got six years on me. Daniel is two years younger and we share a birthday – January 17. Every birthday he reminds me that he had wanted a train set that year, but instead all he got was a baby sister. The next one down is Peppi, his name is Joseph but we’ve always called him Peppi, and he’s two years older than me. Peppi has always been a natural athlete with loads of talent, but he never wanted to take sport seriously. He just enjoyed playing sport.
I don’t remember childcare or structured programs being available before kindergarten age when I was growing up or at least it wasn’t as common as it is today. Today, there are all kinds of play centres and kinder gyms and I probably would have loved that as a kid. However, I don’t remember being bored growing up. We used our imaginations and played; we were forever building cubby houses, playing in the park and kicking the footy or hitting the cricket ball in the back yard. We also had a big rumpus room downstairs where we were used to roller skate or skateboard, play tennis and table tennis.
I had an uncle who I loved dearly who passed away when I was five. His name was uncle Peter. He was a real stirrer. My family grew up in Sunshine, a working class suburb in Melbourne’s west, where a lot of immigrants migrated to after the World War II. From when I was a two year old, he would stir and joke with me and say: ‘Lydia, even in Sunshine you need to speak posh’. So, every time uncle Peter came around during his regular lunchtime run he would say ‘Hello, Lydia’, and I’d pout my lips, hold my hand out limp and put on this posh accent from the top of the stairs and say, ‘Hellooo, Uncle Peterrr’. I distinctly remember waiting for him every lunch time to say, ‘Hellooo, Uncle Peterrr’ in my best accent. It was all part of an act. I wanted to impress people and for him it was trying to speak posh, or at least that’s what I thought.
Mum and Dad although active, didn’t come from a structured sporting background, never competed seriously and I guess didn’t realise that I had talent and was destined to be an athlete of some sort. Dad wasn’t into sport and his real passion is the ocean. Still to this day, he is a keen diver and fisherman. In his youth, he was an excellent swimmer, not in technical terms, but he had incredible lung capacity and could easily swim the length of a 50 metre pool without taking a breath. Mum on the other hand, was a non-swimmer, but an excellent all-round athlete in her school days. She liked competition and still competes in ladies weekly tennis tournaments.
Nevertheless, they both agreed that their children should learn to swim at a young age especially because we spent all our summers at the beach in Lorne, a coastal town in Victoria. It was obvious even at age three that I had an interest in acrobatics, so Mum took me to the local church hall in Sunshine every Wednesday for calisthenics, which involved flips, twirling batons and rods. Before long, Mum and I were tired of the make-up and the shows that you had to put on – I can remember Mum sewing the sequences on my costumes till all hours of the night. She hates sewing. Somehow dressing up four-year-old kids with sequins and packing on the make-up was a little too much. I was also progressing really fast but they wouldn’t advance me to a higher group because I was too young. So I got bored and we stopped going. Ultimately calisthenics wasn’t going to last, it just wasn’t me.
Mum: ‘When I took Lydia to calisthenics for the first time she was the child that didn’t come running to mummy every 5 seconds. She was at the front, eyes glued to the instructor trying to copy her every move perfectly.’
OK… so I was a little intense then.
I was a bit of a parrot too as a child. By the age of two, I knew my street address, my phone number, who discovered Australia and who was our Prime Minister. My brothers would say, ‘Say this’ and I would. ‘Do that’ and I did. At times they used that to their advantage and I fell prey to a lot of their tricks. A classic one being, ‘Lydia, I’ll time you to see how fast you can run and get me a snack from the fridge’. I’d run off as fast as I could eager to know if I was fast or not.
Before I could read, I could recite my favourite books word for word. I’d follow along the words as Mum did with my finger and pretend I was reading the book. The Hungry Little Caterpillar was my favourite. I amazed quite a lot of people with that, most thinking I could actually read.
I was very monkey-see, monkey-do kind of a kid and was a very visual learner and I think that has helped me through my career. If I can see something, I can replicate it, and maybe that’s why I’m a quick learner. I think one of my best attributes as an athlete is listening to feedback and making immediate change to improve.
I grew up in a male dominated family but I wasn’t a tomboy, I loved pink and wore dresses. After calisthenics I told Mum I wanted to be a ballerina so she enrolled me in ballet classes. But instead of classical ballet it turned out to be jazz ballet, which is not what I had in mind. At the age of four I knew what I wanted and jazz ballet wasn’t it. After a few lessons I was told off for doing cartwheels and my phase of wanting to be a ballerina was over. It just wasn’t stimulating or challenging enough.
Mum had four kids by age of 30. Times have changed I guess, but looking back, it was wonderful growing up in a big family. There was always someone to play with and we always had excitement of some sort in the house. My extended Greek Cypriot/Italian family was huge. On Mum’s side, the Italian side, we had three first cousins, but on Dad’s side, the Cypriot side, we had fourteen. My fondest childhood memories were the summers we spent at Lorne with all my cousins, aunties and uncles and grandparents Yaya and Papou on my dad’s side. I never met my Nonno (Mum’s dad), he passed away before I was born, but have fond memories of my Nonna and her garden, chickens and Chihuahuas.
Mum was amazing in how she could cope with pressure. Unexpected nappy changes, screaming kids or people dropping over for dinner were all handled without complaint or any sign that she was under stress. Mum would often have unexpected guests at the dinner table and she was able to put on an amazing spread in a matter of minutes. It is perhaps the most important skill I learned from her – the ability to deal with pressure and to cope with the unexpected. She thrived on it and she is amazing.
Our family spent summers holidays in Lorne and we all used to bunk in our grandparents white weatherboard house. As the family continued to grow, eventually all the aunties and uncles bought their own lots of land in the same block and built houses. We all still spend our summers there and I’m sure we will for many generations to come. I’ve travelled to a lot of places but Lorne is still my favourite place. I have so many great memories from there and I love the sound of the ocean, the smell of the bush and the feeling of salt water on my skin.
Lorne offered an abundance of activities for everyone. We went fishing, diving, surfing, swimming and played beach cricket and soccer. We bathed in the sun, collected seashells and enjoyed fish and chips on the beach. We explored the bush, built elaborate cubby houses with Dad’s building materials and tools from Papou’s shed. At night there was more fishing on the pier and board games till all hours of the night. Competition among the cousins was rife. Who could build the best cubby house? Who caught the most fish? Who was the best at Monopoly? All I wanted to do was measure up to the boys and beat them in whatever I could. Being one of the youngest cousins, winning against the boys was rare.
Bouncing on the trampolines on the Lorne foreshore was my favourite thing to do and I never got tired of it. Mum had to peel me off or bribe me with an icy-pole to get off. The manager, Carl, did spectacular tricks and was the first person to teach me how to flip and that really fired my desire for acrobatics. He didn’t mind me bouncing all day and even encouraged it because I often drew a crowd, which was good for business. Flips and acrobatics on the trampolines was the only thing my brothers or cousins couldn’t match me in. That was my special talent and mine only.
When I was six, we went on a summer holiday around Europe for three months. Other than it being an amazing, adventurous trip, it coincided with the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and it was my first recollection of an Olympic Games. I was watching the swimming, the athletics and all sorts of other sports, and I remember following it all and thinking, ‘Wow. There’s something special about the Olympics’. I didn’t know what sport I wanted to do because it all looked pretty awesome, but I knew from that time I wanted to be an Olympic athlete; that I too wanted a shiny gold medal around my neck.
I was good at most things I tried, but with three older brothers there was no chance I was ever going to the get a big head, and they are the same today. If ever I started to get too big for my boots, they’d just give me a reality check.
All of my brothers enjoyed playing sport, but none of them took it as seriously as I did. I was always tiny, but I had biceps when I was three and I was a really strong little kid. I was also very feisty and the boys used to really push my buttons. They used to rev me up and I’d get into a rage, I’d get so angry because all three of them plus Dad were poking fun at me. Being a girl as well they were always tormenting me about what I could and couldn’t do. That was like a red rag to a bull for me.
Their favourite torment when I was young was playing the Michael Jackson’s song Thriller. I had seen the film clip by mistake on the TV and was absolutely petrified by it. Just hearing the tune would send me into a wild panic and I would beg them to stop playing it. They thought it was funny. Another thing that used to send me right off was the story about ‘where I came from’. My brothers and my Dad used to say that I wasn’t really from their family. They were driving along one day and they saw a little pink pig (me) on the side of road at Old MacDonald’s farm. Apparently Old MacDonald didn’t want me, so they picked me up and brought me home. I used to get so worked up screaming ‘I’m not a pig, I’m not a pig’, but they laughed... even Mum couldn’t contain herself. Still to this day my nickname is Little Miss Piggy, Piggy or just Pig.
Then there was my gender that they thought was limiting. Dad is a concreter by trade and the boys occasionally went to help him at work and I was left behind. ‘No, you can’t come, you’re a girl,’ they would say. But sometimes I’d get to go and Dad could see I wanted to work and I wasn’t afraid of getting my hands dirty. I really wanted to do the same things as the boys and I wanted them to see me as an equal but they never did. Or if they did, they didn’t want to accept it and certainly would never admit it.
I learnt a lot about internal strength from Dad at that time without realising it. He taught me that nothing was free in this world and you had to work hard if you wanted to be successful. That mentality was instilled in me and I applied it to everything I did. I wanted success but knew that it would involve hard work and no half measures.
It didn’t worry me too much being small because I was winning running and swimming races. I was a great athlete throughout school. I could sprint, run long distances and jump. At every athletics day at school I’d put my hand up for everything – except the throwing events. Swimming was the same. At one stage, I really wanted to do little athletics, but Mum wouldn’t let me because she didn’t like all the ‘pushy parents’ involved – mine were the exact opposite.
I suppose I was hunting for a sport that would satisfy my urge for competition. I tried swimming, and while I enjoyed the training – it wasn’t stimulating enough for me. And I wasn’t the best at it so I lost interest.
When I look at little kids today, I can spot the potential athlete in them straight away. A family friend named Liam is into cycling and obsessed with all aspects of the sport. He is winning races and I can see in his eyes the same intensity I had when I was little. Liam wants to be the best and idolizes Lance Armstrong. I remember looking at other kids when I was little and recognising that they weren’t the same as me. They just wanted to play, they lacked focus or they gave up too easily. They just wanted to have fun. I was definitely the odd one out in that regard in my family. I took sport seriously, I loved competition and I loved to win. Sure I had fun doing it all, but I didn’t do anything half heartedly. I did it with intensity.
Mum also put me into Young Talent Time, a singing and dancing school. My oldest brother George did it because he loved Michael Jackson and was always trying to mimic his moves. The only problem is he’s tone deaf and lacks rhythm, which is why he didn’t last long. Mum said ‘Lydia likes to dance and show off’, so she should also try Young Talent Time. We quickly realised I couldn’t sing or dance very well and wasn’t very talented in that area. It was a bit of trial and error for Mum. She could see that I was a bit of a performer and that I was showy – I wasn’t a shy kid and I was pretty confident. But Young Talent Time didn’t last, I got bored and I don’t remember ever looking forward to going. So we stopped that too.
And that is when Mum finally put two and two together and enrolled me into gymnastics. I was eight when I started and finally we’d found something that was perfect for me. It was challenging in so many ways, I had to work hard, but I enjoyed the outcome. I enjoyed the results. I could run, jump and flip – and best of all, I could compete.
So after years of torment from my brothers and struggling with Mum to find something I really wanted to do, here it was. I was a gymnast at heart.
Chapter 03 - Gymnastics, my first love
Mum took me to Footscray City Gymnastics Club when I was eight, partly because my oldest brother, George, went there when he was younger. He was a really scrawny kid, he looked like his arms and wrists would break all the time, so she took him to gymnastics to try and get him a little bit stronger.
When I first started, the coaches took me through a series of tests to assess my level of strength and aptitude and work out which squad they should put me in.
I remember there was a huge rope hanging from the roof about 20m long – it seemed 50m to me at that age. One of the tests was to see how far you could climb up that rope. Mum had gone off to do some errands but just as I reached the top of the rope, Mum walked in the door. I saw her and immediately started to wave frantically holding the rope with one hand to get her attention ‘Hello, Mummy, look at me!’ Poor Mum nearly had a heart attack.
Little did she know, it wouldn’t be the last time I was going to scare her. Nevertheless, I was lucky she let me return to gymnastics.
The coaches that assessed me put me straight into Level 4 with my first coach Samantha. From there I progressed quickly and gymnastics became my new obsession. I loved everything about it. I loved the smell of the gymnasium and the chalk on my hands. I loved training and pushing my body hard. I loved competing, not only in competitions but against my team-mates and for the coach’s attention. I loved my team-mates and the friends I made. I loved the discipline. But mostly, I got a real kick out of improving. I always wanted to be better and that remains my motivation today.
I really pushed Mum to get me to gymnastics; I wasn’t like some of the other kids who were being pushed by their parents. I just loved it and I really wanted to be there. I remember sitting in the front window of our house after school, watching the street and waiting for Mum to get home so that she could take me to gymnastics. After, school she also had to drop my brothers off at music, soccer or tennis and if she was a minute late I would start to get really anxious. I hated being late because I felt like I was missing out on training. But, unfortunately for me, I was always late. It is understandable now, given the run around Mum had to do. I was that paranoid about being late that I would sit in the back seat in the middle and stare at the clock on the front console of our car. I would say ‘Mum! We’re now 5 minutes late. Don’t you know what I can do in that time?’
Every minute at gymnastics counted for me. Even more so because my parents had restricted the amount of training I was allowed to do. I wasn’t allowed to train on weekends and holidays because that was family time and when we would go to Lorne or other destinations. I tried to bargain with my parents and so did my coaches. They would say ‘come on, she’s really good, and she’ll be even better if she could do Saturday training’. My parents wouldn’t budge, they had strong values and they stuck to them. If I didn’t like it, they would pull me out of gymnastics altogether. So, I didn’t have a choice. They always put family first and I didn’t get any special consideration. This made me focus harder on training. I didn’t waste a minute and I never cheated on an exercise. I really wanted to make the most out of every single training session and always gave 100 percent.
My parents and brothers didn’t understand, and even today I don’t think they do. They knew I loved gymnastics and I was good at it but they didn’t know it consumed my every thought. They didn’t know I went to sleep every night visualising my routines over and over in my head.
Missing training and knowing I could be better ate away at me. During the holidays away from the gym, my coaches prepared a special program for me. A training program with exercises I could do everyday and then I’d add a few more of my own. When we were at Lorne I’d lock myself in my room for hours and do the exercises. Then I’d go for runs up the hills and through the bush. On the beach and trampolines I’d practice my flips. I pretended the floorboards were a balance beam and I’d practice my beam routine over and over.
I was nuts! But by the time I went back to gym after the holidays, I was so strong and fit that I was raring to go. I didn’t really lose any fitness and I was often fitter than all the others who trained throughout the holidays.
At the time gymnastics was all I wanted to do and nothing made me happier. Of course I had other interests. I loved being at Lorne at the beach with my family, I enjoyed playing music and I swam in a squad but that was all on the side. What I really looked forward to was going to every single gymnastics session – there wasn’t one that I didn’t want to do.
I also loved the structure it gave me. I would get home from school and put on some two-minute noodles and mix a couple of eggs into it. That was one of my favourite snacks. I’d eat my noodles and head off to gym for four hours. That was my routine and I loved it.
By the age of 10 I had progressed to Level 6 and was in a higher squad with a new coach Nikki. I remember our gym was hosting a competition and there were some elite gymnastics’ scouts there searching for talent. I wasn’t competing in the competition but I knew the elite coaches were there and started showing off with one of my friends. One of the coaches spotted me and spoke with Nikki. They asked if I would like to join the elite program which is the squad you go to if you ever want to make it to the Olympics. It was a no brainer for me, of course I wanted to go and normally parents jump at the opportunity to have their child coached by the country’s best coaches, but not mine.
Back in those days, there was an elite program in Cheltenham (a south-eastern suburb of Melbourne) or the other option was the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra. A lot of families relocated their entire family so that their child could have the opportunity to train for the Olympics. Some children moved away from home and boarded with other families either in Cheltenham or Canberra. Often parents changed jobs and other siblings were just dragged along all in the hope that their child was going to make it.
We still lived in the western suburbs of Melbourne and so the commute to Cheltenham every day plus the schedule of my three brothers was going to be difficult. My training would need to be increased to two sessions a day, before and after school. I would train on weekends as well school holidays and I would need to change schools. I didn’t mind. I understood that was the sacrifice I needed to make. I was prepared to move away from home to Cheltenham or Canberra and give it a shot. But there was no way I was allowed to go. My parents were not prepared to sacrifice my whole family and they didn’t want me being raised by anyone else. I can understand it now but at the time I was completely shattered.
I tried to reason with them explaining that ‘this is my only chance to make it as an Olympic gymnast’. In fact, other gymnasts started elite gymnastics a lot younger than I was but Mum and Dad were firm with their decision. I cried and I cried. ‘You don’t understand what this means’ I was spitting out as a 10 year old. It didn’t help, they didn’t change their minds.
In many ways I was jealous of the kids whose parents pushed them to do gymnastics. They would jump at the opportunity for their child to join the elite program. Mine were the complete opposite and at the time it seemed like they were doing everything to hold me back. I was 10 and I wanted to go to the Olympics and that was all that mattered. There were gymnasts competing at the Olympics not much older than me, so the world didn’t seem fair at the time.
Nikki, my coach, was from Romania. She trained at the same gym as Nadia Comaneci, and while she was older than Nadia, she had stories of their times and training in the same gym. I was so fascinated with her stories and the conditions they trained in that Nikki lent me videos of Romanian gymnasts that I’d watch over and over. I knew all the gymnasts names, I knew the tricks they did – I was pretty obsessed. I’d watch all the Olympics, World Championships and any other international competition footage I could find. My bedroom was plastered in posters of my favourite gymnasts. I knew all the top competitors by name and what was in their routines. I also knew what their training regimes were like. So, the fact that I wasn’t even going to get the chance to be like my idols was really disappointing.
These days, the only remnant of my gymnastics past is a framed quote by Nadia Comaneci.
‘I work on a certain move constantly then finally the move doesn’t seem so risky to me. The move stays dangerous to my foes, but not to me. Hard work has made it easy. That is my secret. That is why I win.’
I can’t count the amount of times I’ve recited that quote to myself. Still to this day, it’s with me whenever I am afraid or if a task seems impossible or out of my reach.
Nadia was the best of her time. What she did at the Montreal Olympics in 1976 was out of date when I was a gymnast, but to me, it was the image of her that I was overawed with and the concept that perfection exists if you work hard enough. She achieved the ultimate, perfect 10s, and she changed the face of her sport forever. I suppose, I’m still trying to live up to her standards. I’m trying to be the best of my time, and essentially, I’m trying to break the mould and push the boundaries of women’s aerial skiing.
Gymnastics is an intense sport, but, like many sports, I believe it’s a sport that can empower an individual with a skill set that they can apply to the rest of their lives. It teaches discipline, time management, planning and goal setting, and among other skills, it instils work ethic. The elite program was not an option for me so I had to settle on continuing gymnastics through the national stream program. As a Level 7 gymnast, I made my first state team when I was 12 and represented Victoria.
I then made the switch to Niddrie Gymnastics Club which had a really strong team at the time. I had outgrown Footscray City, and Nikki, my Romanian coach, had taken me as far as she could. I needed to be around stronger gymnasts that would push me a little harder. Tracy Hortin was the coach at Niddrie and I liked her. She had a strong squad of girls a little older than me and in a higher level so it was good for me to be around them and be challenged more. Under Tracy I developed quite quickly and I won every overall Victorian Championship from Level 7 through to highest level in the national stream, Level 10. Beyond Victoria, I was Level 8 and Level 10 overall National Champion. I was runner up for the overall in Levels 7 and 9, not to mention all the individual apparatus victories I had. In simple terms, I couldn’t have had better results in the national stream and it was all on 14 hours a week, which was the maximum I was allowed to train.
I made the most of the training sessions that I had and I was very productive in them, and while other girls were training twice as many hours as me, they weren’t
training at the same quality. They were often tired and stale, whereas I was always fresh and raring to go.
As I progressed through the national stream, the elite program remained out of the picture for me, a distant dream. The national stream is a different ball park to elite gymnastics. Elite gymnasts train from 35-40 hours per week, I trained 14. They trained on holidays. I was a Lorne on the beach during holidays. It was serious business and I would have loved to have had a taste of it. Although I was a very good national stream gymnast, I always had a feeling that I wasn’t becoming the best gymnast I could be. I always felt like I was chomping at the bit and being held back. I had plenty of heart and passion, I was tough and I worked hard. I had all the elements of being a great gymnast, the only bit I was missing was the time required, and there was nothing I could do about that, I had tried. So I just did the best with what I had.
Beyond winning Level 10 national championships, there was nowhere for me to go, other than repeat Level 10. Then something very rare happened. At age 15, after I had won Level 10 nationals, I was approached by Michelle De Highden and asked to join the elite gymnastics program that had been set up at Methodist Ladies College in Kew, one of Melbourne’s top all girls’ schools, where she was a coach. After all these years, a second chance!
My parents knew what it meant to me and after years of trying to make them feel guilty, they didn’t object this time. We had moved to a farm in Diggers Rest when I was 12, and the drive from there to Kew was pretty daunting. I was also going to have to switch schools and leave my friends and team-mates at Niddrie gymnastics. At the time, I went to Westbourne Grammar School in Werribee, a private co-educational school. My brothers also went there, I had great friends and I was an A student, but with the increase in training load, it made sense to move to MLC for school where I would be training twice a day. Schooling wasn’t a part of the scholarship, but it certainly made it easier to get into the school and for the school to understand the requirements of my training.
I knew it was going to be a tough challenge ahead because I had a lot of catching up to do, but I would never have forgiven myself if I didn’t at least give it a try. My training went from 14 hours a week to 35. I was doing two sessions a day and in the beginning I was absolutely exhausted. With time, my body adjusted and adapted and the training sessions got easier. In addition to Michelle, I had a Chinese coach named Derui Qu. He was a phenomenal coach and while he worked me hard, he was kind at heart and funny.
My daily routine was completely different now. I was out of bed at 5:30am and on the road to MLC by 6am for training by 7am. The morning session went until 10.30am when I’d shower and start school at morning recess after a snack. I’d go to school until 3:30pm and then be back in the gym until 7:30pm. Mum would pick me up and I’d go home and do my homework, eat dinner, have a shower and then do it all again the next day. Mum went out of her way to support me. She was my personal taxi service, as well as a super mum who still had time for the rest of the family.
I suppose growing up as kids, you don’t realise the financial burden you often place on your parents. Mum and Dad had four kids in private school all at once, plus extracurricular activities. We all played musical instruments and we all did sport after school. Mum was a stay at home mum, made our school lunches every day from primary school through to high school, was our personal taxi, kept an immaculate household and took my Dad lunch at work every day. Never once did she complain.
My dad worked as a builder and he worked hard. As kids we never felt like we were deprived of anything but we were not spoilt. Instead of Nintendos, we played Scrabble and Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit. We always went on holidays and picnics, we had a good education and were allowed to play sport and music and follow our own individual interests.
Their choice to not allow me to go to elite gymnastics was not for financial reasons, but moral reasons. They didn’t want me to give up my childhood, they didn’t want me to miss out on school and they wanted me to stay part of the family. I can understand that now.
The first thing to suffer after I had started elite gymnastics was my schooling. I’ve never taken school as seriously as my sport, but still, I was an A student throughout high school and no dummy. But by missing classes, I inevitably fell behind. I had to drop subjects like Japanese that I loved, and music because I couldn’t keep up. I had to simplify my curriculum going into VCE so that I wouldn’t fall behind.
I also struggled socially. I was in Year 11 when I started school at MLC. I went from knowing everyone at Westbourne Grammar with loads of friends to knowing no one at MLC. Not a single sole. I was from the western suburbs in a year level of 300 girls. I didn’t know where I belonged – other than in the gym or who to hang out with during lunch times. It was really hard to fit in at first and I missed my friends. With time I met some lovely girls and developed some good friendships but it was definitely difficult as first.
My whole life had been about the gym. My best mates were from Footscray and Niddrie gyms, but I wasn’t there anymore. I was in an elite program with girls at least four years younger me, most obsessed with the Spice Girls, at a school on the other side of the city. I often felt alone and it was emotionally pretty hard at times. But I kept reminding myself, I was there for the gym.
In terms of gymnastics, things were going really well. I adapted to the work load and I was a strong, ripped unit. A powerful gymnast and was picking up new techniques fast. My goal was set on making the 1998 Commonwealth Games team and if all was going well, Sydney 2000 Olympics. No easy task by any means, but with the way I was improving, I was in for a chance.
Other gymnasts my age had already competed at the Olympics, and had been in elite programs since they were six, so I had a lot of catching up to do. But every day, I gave it my all. I gave myself the best chance I could to improve. It was a different routine than what I was used to, not just for me, but my whole family, especially Mum. There was no more Lorne on weekends or holidays. I was tired and working as hard as I could. But in a way, I felt special – special to have been given the opportunity to try. I used to look at my younger team-mates and wish to be their age, to turn back time. Some of them had what it took to be great gymnasts, but some didn’t. I’m not sure they even wanted to be there. Maybe they were pushed. I don’t know, but I wanted to shake them and say ‘don’t you realise the opportunity you’ve been given? Stop mucking around!’
The first set back occurred when I injured my ankle in a fall off the uneven bars. I slipped off the bars and my foot landed in a crack in the mats. It just kept on sinking down and down into the soft mat. Normally we had another mat covering the crack, I don’t know why it wasn’t there that day. I sprained the ligaments in my ankle quite badly and it took a good six weeks for me to be able to start doing full training again.
It was not good timing as I had no time to lose and the Commonwealth Games trials were fast approaching. I was really limited to what I could do in the gym and all I could do was strength exercises and bars and keep off my ankle. I lost a lot of valuable time. The uneven bars were my weakest discipline, and I was strongest on vault, floor and beam, so my best skills were out of play but at least I was working on my weakest link. Missing any time in gymnastics is catastrophic. Coaches freak out if you miss one session so you can imagine the impact of an injury like that. However, I still showed up to training every day and did what I could. My body became very chiselled and strong, but I wasn’t doing what needed to be done. I was losing time.
I was so frustrated that a silly little mistake could have such consequences. My window for making the squad was already slim and that was probably the first time I doubted whether I was going to make it in gymnastics. I rehabilitated through the injury and I competed in one of the Commonwealth Games trials, but, I wasn’t ready and I scrambled up my routines. The night before those trials, one of my cousins had tragically lost her life which obviously was a huge shock for our entire family. I wasn’t ready for the trials regardless, but that was the icing on the cake of a poor lead up and I didn’t compete very well.
I got through the ankle injury but the next part of my body to break down was my wrist. Because I had been doing so much bars and additional strength exercises, I overloaded my wrist joint. It got to a point where I couldn’t swing on it or even open doors properly. I had cortisone injections in it, but still, that didn’t help and it kept getting worse. There never was the temptation to take banned substances to help me recover from injury. It was bad enough dealing with the ancient remedies of a Chinese coach, like wrapping your ankle in cabbage to reduce swelling or using teabags for rips in your hands. Even contemplating steroids or anything similar was just not going to happen. Importantly, no-one ever suggested such a path to me.
I did an about-face with my life at that point and I just packed it in. I quit gymnastics. It was the hardest decision I had made in my life to that point and I was pretty gutted, but I was realistic enough to know that it just wasn’t going to happen. It was a hard decision, but deep down I knew it was the right decision for everyone. I couldn’t imagine life without gymnastics. It was my passion for so long and life was immediately different. I could eat anything, I could sleep in, and it meant that I had time to do other things. I could live a normal life. I could even concentrate a bit more on school – which obviously had suffered.
Inside though I felt a little empty and lost. I retired 18 months after joining the elite program. I felt like a failure, but I knew I had really given it my all and there wasn’t any more I could have done. What was I going to do now?
I decided to stay on at MLC to finish my schooling rather than change schools again. I had a whole summer at Lorne that year which I really enjoyed. When I went back to school to start Year 12, I started coaching some of the juniors with Michelle. It was good to be involved with the younger gymnasts and I think I was in a pretty good mindset. I wasn’t bitter or anything like some gymnasts when they finish, I loved the sport and I still do. I wasn’t jaded, I’d had a great experience and I think I did the best I could, given all my circumstances.
It was a bit of a struggle to get my studies back on course after being behind in Years 10 and 11. I didn’t go into Year 12 expecting top marks but I ended up doing OK and getting back on track. It took about six months for my wrist injury to settle and for me to be able to turn a door knob properly. But mentally I felt OK and I had put gymnastics behind me. However, I missed being an athlete. I missed the routine of it, the training and the competition and was soon searching for the next sport that could fulfil my urge. At one stage I was thinking of taking up kayaking, I also wanted to be an iron woman and was interested in surf lifesaving and triathlons.
Cirque de Soleil rang me up too. At the time, Cirque wasn’t as big as it is now. These days ex-gymnasts can have a great career and earn a living, but at the time, it didn’t really interest me. Deep down, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I even tried Miss Fitness and Aerobics. I liked the physical training because I’ve always liked working my body hard and building strength and definition in my muscles and I liked the aerobics routines. But somehow, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did gymnastics.
I wasn’t sure if I’d ever love a sport the same way.
Chapter 04 - Learning to love... again
About half way through Year 12, I got a phone call out of the blue from a lady called Rachel Johnson. She was a coach at Jets Gymnastics in Eltham and she was also a ski instructor. She was working closely with the Olympic Winter Institute (OWI) who had the idea of recruiting ex-gymnasts to convert into aerial skiers and wanted to know if I’d be interested. Aerial what? Rachel also mentioned that one of my good mates from Jets, Liz Gardner, had expressed some interest. I gave Liz a call and we had a chat about it. Neither of us had skied, but we both wanted to know more. The OWI was looking to explore the link between gymnastics and aerial skiing and whether you could turn a former gymnast into an aerialist. Rachel was out scouting for ex-gymnasts to see if they could make the transition. Being a gymnastics coach and a ski instructor, she was the perfect link, and so the OWI ventured into establishing a new aerial skiing development program, the kind which no one else in the world had explored.
We were asked in for a meeting at the OWI which was located at the Rialto in Melbourne’s CBD. In that meeting was the CEO, Geoff Lipshut and Rachel and they basically explained to Liz and I what aerial skiing was. They had prepared a sales pitch, and it started off by showing us a video. The video showed everything from great jumps to horrible crashes to all the different places around the world that aerial skiers go to train and compete. I was blown away by the flipping and twisting that was going on and instantly imagined myself doing it. It really seemed like an exciting sport and it had all the elements that appealed to me. It involved acrobatics, it had elements of danger and risk, and we would be able to travel the world. When you eventually made it to the World Cup team, you’d be able to compete on the World Cup tour. They also began telling us that we could actually earn money from it if we were successful. There was prize money to be won and different levels of scholarships. If you got good enough, you wouldn’t even have to pay for airfares, accommodation or coaching fees! Jacqui Cooper was number one in the world at the time and she managed to make a living off prize money and sponsorship. Compared to gymnastics, we thought, ‘wow, what a bonus! We could actually make money in this sport’. In gymnastics it had been the opposite. You pay for everything and get nothing in return, financially at least.
Aerial skiing sounded fantastic. I don’t know whether I was just glassy eyed and looking for something new, or whether the sales pitch was really that good, but the sport seemed well suited to me. Then Geoff mentioned a chance of going to the Olympics. My ears pricked up and I was sold. A second chance to fulfil my childhood dream and become an Olympian. It was like I had been born again.
Geoff: ‘I thought Lydia a very determined and bright individual, from day one. What I did not know is whether she would walk the walk and not just talk the talk.’
That said, I really knew nothing about the sport. I knew nothing about the snow. All I knew was that I was halfway through Year 12 and an opportunity was presented to me. I figured at least I could learn how to ski and I had nothing to lose. The sport was appealing to me and I was ready for a new challenge. I needed it. Not that I wanted to get out of school but, let’s face it, this was an opportunity to be an athlete again and I couldn’t pass it up.