Beach volleyball athlete Mariafe Artacho del Solar takes on Tokyo Olympics
Our north shore athletes shook off pandemic uncertainty and an extra year of extreme training to be ready for the Tokyo Olympics 2021.
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As the depth of the crisis became clear, the inevitable was going to happen. The Tokyo 2020 Olympics simply couldn’t go ahead with a pandemic raging around the world and after much hesitation by the organisers it was called off.
“I saw it coming,” beach volleyball athlete Mariafe Artacho del Solar says.
“At first it was a bit like ‘it sucks’ but you couldn’t really waste your energy too much on that. You couldn’t do anything about it.
“At the end of the day health comes first. It was a matter of staying positive and seeing the positive things out of it, which meant we got an extra year to keep growing our team.”
Mariafe and her teammate, Queenslander Taliqua Clancy, joined forces in 2017 after competing at the Rio Olympics on different sides. Mariafe was knocked out of Rio early but the experience gave her an insight into what it takes to be at the top and the motivation to work hard for the next cycle.
Mariafe and Taliqua improved their game year on year and have become a formidable pairing. They won silver at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, took home a bronze medal at the World Championships in 2019 and earlier this year they secured their place at the Olympics by winning a world tour event in Mexico. They stand easily among the best teams in the world and are strong medal contenders.
Instead of breaking their stride, the extra year has given them time to explore other aspects of their game and work on their technical skills.
“Our goal hasn’t changed. We’ve always had the goal of going for gold and going all the way,” she says.
“We’ve shown that we are more than capable of achieving that. In Mexico all the top teams were there. It was a pretty strong draw and it wasn’t easy to get to the final and win.
“It’s just a matter of really trusting ourselves and really trusting the work we have done.”
Mariafe moved to Sydney from Peru when she was 11 and went to Killara High School in Gordon. She played beach volleyball for the first time at Manly and it was “love at first sight”. She is one of several North Shore athletes who have qualified for Tokyo this year in a range of sports including athletics, softball, table tennis and rowing.
The North Shore contingent is entirely female except for brothers Alexander and Nicholas Purnell of Killara who will represent Australia in rowing in the men’s four and men’s eight respectively.
Water polo’s Hannah Buckling is also looking forward to representing Australia for the second time at the Olympics. Unlike Mariafe, the postponement of the 2020 Games was devastating for her.
“It’s been a bit of a whirlwind really,” Hannah says.
“The weirdest thing as an athlete is we are so used to having our whole lives planned day to day, everything to a T. Training, tournaments and travel, years in advance.
“For that to be thrown out was the strangest thing. I just have to get used to being more adaptable to changing situations.”
Hannah balances water polo training with her medicine studies at Sydney University and this will be her last Olympic Games. When the postponement was announced she received support from the university to return to her studies and she aims to graduate at the end of next year.
“I desperately wanted to be able to go. It was the stress of trying to balance that with also being able to graduate,” she says.
“Sydney Uni are so supportive and facilitated me getting back to uni as soon as possible. I’m really grateful for being in the position that I am.
“It’s been an extreme year.”
Hannah was selected for the team in May alongside her Mosman neighbour Matilda Kearns, rugby player Phil Kearns’ daughter. The Aussie Stingers are serious contenders in the competition and are going in strong after winning silver at the 2019 World Championships and bronze at the London and Beijing Olympics. The squad is training hard on the Sunshine Coast ahead of travelling to Japan.
Neutral Bay athlete Michelle Bromley also knows about striking the right balance between career and sport. She works full time as a senior brand manager for Nestle and will represent Australia in table tennis. Every night after work she trains up to four hours and at the weekend fits in more training sessions. All up she spends 18 hours a week on the court, four hours in the gym and even more hours on video analysis of her competitors.
“I have a super supportive husband and he does most of the cooking, which is really helpful,” Michelle says.
“It is challenging but because I’ve been doing it so long it’s the norm for me.”
Michelle was introduced to the game by her late dad David Beaumont and picked up the paddle when she was just six years old. He was the first person who told her she could be an Olympian and she tried extremely hard over the years to make the cut. She lost out on qualifying for three games in a row and she got her lucky break last year. He sadly didn’t get to share the joy with her as he died from an aggressive form of cancer just months after his diagnosis in 2012.
“The sad thing for me is he was the one person at all my tournaments and drove me everywhere for my sport. He was always my warm up partner at each event and my coach as well,” she says.
“It’s a dream come true for me but he would have been absolutely stoked. It’s a shame he can’t be here to experience the hype and pride and joy alongside me.”
Michelle was initially worried she might have to requalify for the games when it was called off but when it became clear the athletes would not be put through that again, she was fine to wait another year. It has given her time to become stronger and improve her game, and also extra time to enjoy the exciting build-up. She is concerned to hear about the swing in public opinion against the Olympics in Japan but firmly believes the games should go ahead.
“I’ve already been waiting 20 years to live out my dream as an Olympian, what’s one more year,” she says.
“From an athlete’s perspective we’ve poured our whole life into something that only occurs every four years. You likely only get one chance in your lifetime to do it.
“You embark on this journey not really knowing if it will actually pay off yet you are dedicating every day striving for that goal. From an athlete’s perspective, for it to be cancelled would be completely devastating.
The build up to the Olympics has been busy for mental health professionals at the Australian Institute of Sport.
In the past month AIS’s Mental Health Referral Network has experienced its highest ever number of referrals as athletes reach out for help with stress and anxiety issues.
“Many sports have had to cancel their qualifying events or pull out of the Olympics altogether and there’s been a fair bit of stress related to that,” senior clinical psychologist Mary Spillane says.
“For those who are going, they won’t have their normal social networks there. They will sort of be on their own in an environment that’s highly pressurised amid all the Covid protocols.”
The postponement of the games has resulted in a mixed reaction among athletes. It has worked out well for athletes who weren’t physically ready to compete in 2020 and needed the extra year to prepare. On the other end of the spectrum there are athletes who were coming to the end of their careers and were uncertain whether they could keep holding on.
There was also a real dip in motivation last year and many athletes struggled to get out of bed and stick to their training schedules.
Alongside all the stress of competing during a difficult year, the athletes have the added challenge of returning home and going straight into hotel quarantine.
“We could have people who performed better than expected and they are in quarantine elated,” she says.
“And then you’ve got the people who didn’t meet their expectations and are stuck in quarantine for two weeks.
“We will be in full operation to make sure anyone who needs support will get support.”
North Shore Olympians
100m Hurdles: Liz Clay
4x400m Relay: Anneliese Rubie-Renshaw
Beach Volleyball: Mariafe Artacho del Solar
Javelin: Mackenzie Little
Modern Pentathlon: Marina Carrier
Rowing: Genevieve Horton, Alexander Purnell, Nicholas Purnell, Rowena Meredith and Tara Rigney
Softball: Ellen Roberts
Table Tennis: Michelle Bromley
Water Polo: Hannah Buckling and Matilda Kearns
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