The top five most-read Qweekend stories in 2024
From a TV star’s shock career pivot to the untold story of an Olympian’s secret disability, these are the incredible tales our readers couldn’t pull themselves away from.
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As the year draws to a close, we’ve compiled a list of your top five most-read stories in Qweekend magazine in 2024.
From Pat Rafter opening up about his quiet Byron Bay life to Brooke Saward revealing the secrets of her Brooki baking empire, these were the stories that caught your attention this year.
TONY ARMSTRONG, ABC PRESENTER
TV presenter Tony Armstrong on his unconventional rise to the top, using his voice for good and his surprising next move.
After charming audiences on ABC News Breakfast and winning the Logie for Most Popular New Talent in 2022, the former AFL footballer was riding a wave of new opportunities.
When he was named Most Popular Presenter the following year, the media beehive buzzed again – including another request to write a memoir.
But Armstrong, 34, had no interest in putting another football story on the shelves and channelled his creativity into something completely different.
He admits he didn’t even have a story in mind when he first suggested a book to publisher Hachette. Instead, he was preparing to pitch an idea “caught with my pants down and the tide out”.
PAT RAFTER, FORMER TENNIS CHAMP
Tennis superstar Pat Rafter has kept out of the limelight since his grand slam days, opting for a quiet life among the gum trees. But now he’s on a new mission: to explore his family roots.
Rafter and his wife of 20 years, Lara, live on a sprawling 26ha property in the Byron Bay hinterland where they have become deeply engaged in regenerating the land back to rainforest, including creating a koala corridor and sanctuary.
Rafter says he feels a deep connection to the land, with the family often enjoying walking through the trails they have made, although these days, he says, “it’s just me and Lara”, with the Rafter kids now grown up and having left for study or work.
Content at home, he politely passes on most of the many offers he receives for sponsorships, reality TV appearances and the like, but says he couldn’t pass up an offer to appear on SBS’s Who Do You Think You Are?, and the chance to discover his family’s roots.
One of 10 children born to Jim and Jocelyn Rafter, the tennis star says a big part of him agreeing to delve into his family tree was his beloved mum, who he called “an absolute classic”.
And what the SBS show found was a family tree that Rafter says was not quite what he wished.
BROOKE SAWARD, BROOKI BAKEHOUSE OWNER
She has three million followers on social media, and crowds queuing 45 minutes for her baked goods. So how did Brisbane’s Brooke Saward build a global baking empire?
Saward first learnt to bake while jetsetting around the world as a solo female travel blogger.
Obsessed with the sweets she found on her trips, she decided to learn how to make them, signing up to cooking classes in the likes of Paris and teaching herself how to bake from online videos.
Her first sweets cafe was an instant hit but after moving to Brisbane she was only just breaking even.
Determined to succeed, it was her next idea that launched her brand and led to Brooki Bakehouse becoming a cult phenomenon – catching not only the attention of Brisbane locals, but the world.
MEG HARRIS, OLYMPIC SWIMMER
In a sport where timing is everything, top Australian swimmer Meg Harris reveals the extraordinary challenge she has had to overcome to compete for selection in the Paris Olympics.
Harris had already dipped her toe in the waters of competitive swimming in Mackay but was always torn between the red and yellow flags of lifesaving, and the long, black line of the swimming pool. Her family’s move to Brisbane when she was 13, she says, meant swimming won.
And it was a good call - although Harris had her doubts in her late teens, wanting to just be a “normal 18-year-old”.
At Brisbane’s Metropolitan Championships in March, Harris won the 100m freestyle in 53.17, edging out Cate Campbell for the top spot and breaking Campbell’s event record.
Harris’s hearing loss in both ears certainly hasn’t stopped her swimming career – it just requires a little adjustment on the pool deck.
“I had to learn (to hear) the starting (gun),” she says. “It’s the only thing that’s really affected my swimming, everything else is fine, because you don’t need to hear to swim. But the start gun, I can hear it now, I have trained myself to hear it.”
JANINE ALLIS, BOOST JUICE FOUNDER
She surfs and practises yoga every day, is one of the country’s most respected businesswomen and has a great relationship with her husband and four kids. How Janine Allis does it all.
After leaving the quiet, working-class suburb of Boronia in Melbourne to head overseas with just a backpack at age 21, Allis never anticipated she’d end up where she is now.
Founder of Boost Juice, which as grown to more than 600 stores in 13 countries, creator of parent company Retail Zoo which boasts major food chains Betty’s Burgers, Salsa’s Fresh Mex and Cibo Espresso, and a TV star, appearing on several shows.
But it wasn’t instant success for the now 58-year-old.
After deciding while on maternity leave that she didn’t want to return to her publicity job, Allis explored the business world.
After a short-lived trial touring international comedians, her and husband Jeff started a juice business with partners.
Allis sourced the equipment, created all the recipes, headed the operation and launched the first store.
But during a discussion about how to grow the business and who would run the company going forward, things quickly turned pear shaped. “One of the other partners went, ‘Well, Janine has been doing it, so you know …’, and the lawyer and the accountant laughed,” she recalls.
She walked out of the meeting, left the company behind and, in what can only be described as the greatest vindication, started Boost.
Working until sometimes 4am, and with young children, life was hectic. But one person, who Allis describes as her “midlife crisis”, has helped “relax” the fiercely driven, highly motivated, workaholic mother.
And despite all of her success, none of Allis’s business achievements are her proudest.
Qweekend will return on January 18, 2025.
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