Surfer Sally Fitzgibbons opens up on the contrast between her Olympic expectations and the reality of Tokyo Games

Surfer Sally Fitzgibbons pictured roaring crowds and packed stadiums at her Olympic debut in Tokyo. The reality was vastly different but the emotion surrounding representing Australia in 2021 was exactly the same. This is why.

Sally Fitzgibbons embodied the Olympic spirit long before surfing ever entered the Games.

But it wasn’t until her ­experience as one of Australia’s founding Olympic surfers in Tokyo in 2021 that she realised despite differing situations, the emotion that came with representing the country remained the same.

“I embodied the Olympic spirit before I took up any sport,” Fitzgibbons told three-time Olympian Rowie Webster on the En Route to Paris podcast.

“We were all in that age bracket where we were at the 2000 Games (in Sydney) and that’s what a home Games does.

Sally Fitzgibbons of Australia surfs in the Round of 16 during the 2024 Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach on March 27, 2024 in Winkipop, Australia. Picture: Morgan Hancock/Getty Images

“It is what the Matildas did at the World Cup (in 2023).

“It ignites this passion and this fire inside all of us.”

Fitzgibbons, who won’t be part of this year’s Olympic team in Tahiti, opened up about the contrast between what she imagined com­peting would be like and the reality.

“The surfing part of it was such a surreal dream,” she said. “For a while there, and obviously with Covid mixed in, I had this image of what it would be like.

“I was the kid at the opening ceremony (in Sydney), at Cathy Freeman’s live (400m sprint) win and the stadium roaring, and that is what I thought my Olympic experience would be like.

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Sally Fitzgibbons of Australia surfs in their first heat during the 2024 Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach on March 26, 2024 in Bells Beach, Australia. (Photo by Morgan Hancock/Getty Images)

“I had to come back to the fact that I was standing on the beach in Japan, there was pretty much a typhoon, there was no one around and at times maybe a few teammates up on the sand dunes.

“I thought if I can still feel like an Olympian and there is no roaring and I’m just here and I’m just connecting with the ocean, no matter what the result was then (that is OK).

“Even when I sent my message back home after my heat, I just had this overwhelming emotion and I’m like, ‘that is somewhere deep inside’.

“I’m staring down this camera and I can see home, I can feel my country and I couldn’t have been prouder to be part of that. Every Olympics and every time I talk to the Olympians, they are so individual and unique and you can’t replicate it.”