Louise Roberts: Anti-vaxxers aren’t the heroes here, our Olympians are

Olympic grit is needed to vanquish the spectre of Delta and the obscene distraction of anti-vaxxers preaching to the rest of us they believe in Jesus but not Pfizer or AstraZeneca, writes Louise Roberts.

Note to all of us: the Australian response to adversity is not dobbing people in or becoming anxious about Covid fear porn. It is showing initiative and doing precisely what you need to do to get ahead.

And it has taken 27-year-old tattooed fist-pumping Queensland dad Logan Martin to ride home that winning message.

Some 7800km away from our lockdown paralysis in NSW, Martin became our first 2020 Tokyo Olympian to win a gold medal on dry land – the first ever in a BMX freestyle event.

Agile, strong, breathtaking, humble and single-minded, Martin is more than an anecdote.

He’s emblematic.

Australia's Logan Martin stands on the podium for the victory ceremony of the BMX freestyle event. Picture: AFP

There was no training facility for him near his Queensland property but his first impulse was not to whinge to the local council or state government.

It was to build a complete BMX training site with his mates and a local carpenter while making a $70,000 dent in his wallet.

This is what you do when you want to get ahead.

You don’t just wait, drumming your fingers and hoping someone else does the heavy lifting. Simple? Yes. Obvious? Yes.

More can-do attitude.... swim superstar Emma McKeon.

It’s the same with vaccination and building a path to freedom and a normal life with the spectre of Delta on our shoulder.

We need adequate and speedy vaccine supplies but we don’t need the government’s motivation to get us to herd immunity.

We can actually do it ourselves.

Federal and state governments can only make us do so much despite their suffocating presence in every private corner of our lives right now.

Our Call to Arms campaign

Yes, we now have the Army on the streets in south west Sydney. Premier Gladys Berejiklian still remains convinced we will have 70 per cent of the NSW population vaccinated by September and “we can turn this around in four weeks”.

When asked if she thought the strategy to lock us down was so far successful, the Premier said: “It’s not a success when you have your community living in lockdown.”

Quite so.

Many locked-down parents are feeling like failures with their homeschooling adventures. The irony of a stunning Tokyo medals haul – and how it could reignite a passion for swimming and athletics in our kids, who are currently prisoners to their screens and unable to play community sport – is lost on no one.

If you have an elderly relative wondering if they’ll see you again – or if restrictions, border closures and lockdown will in fact be their triple epitaph – it is a heartbreaking pill to swallow.

And there’s always the obscene distraction of anti-vaxxers preaching to the rest of us that they believe in Jesus but not Pfizer or AstraZeneca.

Olympic grit is our new pandemic time grit.

Imagine if our BMX hero Martin didn’t scope out a house with a backyard big enough for DIY jumps. Awww, that’s way too hard mate! The words he would never say.

The government can’t make you walk or drive or ride to a vaccination centre.

You have to pick up the phone or go online to make an appointment or show up in person. And wait. And be patient.

Martin, as the king of tricks and flips, knows all about patience. He can even recite how long it took to get his whole body tattooed – 132 needling hours.

Covid forced the closure of the nearby indoor BMX park at Coomera, leaving him with nowhere to train.

In the middle of a pandemic, he was unable to travel to Tokyo to practice so he built a replica of the Ariake Skate Park in his sunny backyard, watched on by wife Kim and toddler son Noah.

It’s called taking responsibility and being an adult.

The three-time world and X Games champion’s matter of fact narrative says it all.

Australian BMX Gold medal winner shows us how Aussie 'can do' spirit works.

“The plan all along was build the skate park and win a gold medal,” Martin said after his gold medal ­victory.

“The neighbours didn’t like it at the start. They sort of mellowed out a little, stopped complaining to the council, six months to a year later.

“It’s really paid dividends, it really paid off.”

Swim superstar Emma McKeon is another example, our terrific Olympian who dazzles with her decency and can-do attitude.

Now a 27-year-old with four gold and three bronze medals from this tournament, she owes her drive to watching her older brother David swim for his country in 2012 and 2016 and focusing on the main goal.

“She was probably better than him at a young age at a lot of things … she was very athletic and had that sort of quiet competitiveness. When she did something she just tried her best,” says her father Ron.

Our Olympic stars are here to remind us of our goal and the commitment, sacrifice and determination required to live with Covid.

We need to take a reality pill as well as a jab to the arm.