Selection dramas, injury battles: Why Charlotte McShane still dreams of an Olympic berth

Eight long years after she was denied an Olympic berth in a controversial selection race, Charlotte McShane is giving her Games dream one last crack.

Charlotte McShane is one of the Australian Commonwealth Games triathlon team members, at the Broadwater Parklands on Friday. Picture: Jerad Williams

A controversial omission from the Rio Olympic team and a years-long battle against a back injury and chronic nerve pain have not been enough to kill Charlotte McShane’s dreams of winning a Games berth.

Eight years ago, McShane was left off Australia’s team for the Rio Games, with Triathlon Australia using its discretionary selection powers to name Ashleigh Gentle and London Olympic medallist Erin Densham to its three-member women’s team after dual world champion and Beijing Games medallist Emma Moffatt was the only woman to qualify automatically.

McShane, who until that point had had an outstanding season, was shattered but bounced back to finish third at the World Triathlon Series grand final behind Tokyo Olympic champ Flora Duffy (Bermuda) and the Rio gold medallist and her one-time training partner, US athlete Gwen Jorgensen, in a result that still stands as her best.

Charlotte McShane is still hoping for a Games berth. Picture: Getty Images

“A couple of weeks after the (2016) Olympics I was third in the world championship grand final, so for me, that’s probably the biggest highlight of my career,” McShane said.

“But it was obviously a very difficult moment because I wasn’t selected for the Olympics and I was on the podium with the Olympic gold medallist.

“So that’s kind of been the driving motivator for me since then.

“Just unfortunately, the years following that I was dealing with quite a bad back injury.”

McShane, who now lives on the Gold Coast where she is coached by partner and Beijing Olympian Brendan Sexton, has been dealing with a herniated disc which causes severe nerve pain and sciatica, something that has affected training, racing and travelling for years.

An issue that started in 2018, McShane described her battles as “a very long process of learning what I’ve had and how to manage it”.

After being a reserve for two Olympics and with two Commonwealth Games campaigns already under her belt in 2018 and 2022 though, why is the 33-year-old putting herself through the wringer physically and emotionally in the chase for Olympic selection?

Will McShane be selected for Paris? Picture: AFP

“That disappointment was immense … certainly it felt like a very unfair decision,” she said of her non-selection for Rio.

“So that took me a long time to recover from that and want to put myself in that position where there’s a possibility that’s going to happen again.

“It was very different for Tokyo because I was injured in the lead-up to it and I never felt like I deserved to be on that start line in Tokyo.

“But over the last eight years it’s played on my mind that there’s a good chance that may happen again - and you know, it is a really horrible experience.

“But at the same time, right now knowing that I have another opportunity … to go to an Olympics, I feel excitement more than anything to think that I’ve been able to get through this past eight years with all the injury and everything and still be here in great shape, be healthy, be fit.

“I guess I didn’t really know how I’d feel when it finally came to this time again but it’s nice that it excites me more than it scares me.”

McShane will take part in the Oceania Triathlon super sprint championships on the Gold Coast on Friday, an event that’s just one-tenth the distance of an Olympic event.

How many of these four will head to Paris? Picture: Getty Images

But it presents an ideal opportunity to finetune preparations for the World Triathlon Series (WTS) event in Yokohama next weekend that is the final opportunity for to seal automatic qualification for the Paris Games team.

No Australian women have yet qualified for Paris and with the country only gaining two places for men and women this year - short of the maximum three places available - McShane knows getting to the Olympics will be a challenge.

Ranked 78th in the world and well behind Natalie Van Coevorden (43) and Jaz Hedgeland (47), the top Aussie pair, McShane needs the automatic selection or an outstanding pair of races in Yokohama and the next race in Cagliari, Italy, a fortnight later, to achieve her dream.

“I definitely wouldn’t still be here if I didn’t have that belief in myself or if I hadn’t seen glimpses of that in my training or in my racing,” she said.

“The times that I’ve hit in some of my training sessions, particularly in the run, I’ve been able to do some times that I know are still competitive.

“It’s been a bit of more of a challenge to get that out in racing. It’s been a real challenge to combine all the three (disciplines) together but feel like we’re getting there and some of the things I’ve seen recently in my training, I think I’m in a really good spot.

“I’ve finished top eight plenty of times in my career in WTS races, just not over the past few years.

“But I know that I have what it takes. I feel like I’m in a really good spot at the moment, so I just want to go out and prove that I’m competitive against the rest of the world.”

Originally published as Selection dramas, injury battles: Why Charlotte McShane still dreams of an Olympic berth