Jaime Roberts discovered kayaking while mining in the Pilbara and has now qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics

It was your typical afternoon in the Pilbara when Jaime Roberts discovered kayaking.

IT was your typical afternoon in the Pilbara when Jaime Roberts discovered kayaking.

Searing heat scorched the red earth as the lowly hum of machinery echoed throughout the mining site.

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Roberts, a 22-year-old mining engineer, was driving her truck towards a nearby excavator when the 2012 Olympics men’s K4 1000 final blasted through her radio.

Jaime Roberts and Jo Brigden-Jones celebrate after racing at the 2019 National Championships , Lake Karapiro, Cambridge. Saturday 15 February 2019 © Copyright photo Steve McArthur / www.photosport.nz

“The commentator was getting excited about the Australian team and I didn’t really know what kayaking was at this point but the men ended up winning,” she said.

“Listening to that race set off this switch in my head.

“The boys in that crew had all come from surf lifesaving backgrounds so that’s when my journey started and my mining career ended.”

MAKING THE SWITCH

AS a 2012 state ski surf lifesaving champion, a national ski finalist and an Australian surf lifesaving representative at the World Championships, Roberts had always felt comfortable on the water and took quickly to kayaking.

“They’re pretty similar skill-wise so I just went down to the river at Bayswater and met my coach and now mentor Ramon Andersson,” she said.

“I went on this very steep trajectory from living a mining lifestyle to transforming into an elite athlete but I don’t regret anything.”

Jaime Roberts and Hannah Minogue during a surf lifesaving race. pic:harvpix.com

In early 2013, the head coach of the Western Australian Institute of Sport kayaking team saw Roberts paddle at the state championships.

A year later, she made her first senior Australian team for the World Cups in Europe and World Championships in Moscow.

Competing on the world stage was nothing new to the engineering graduate.

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In 2011, Roberts was crowned a world champion at the Mining Games, an international competition between mining universities around the world – Roberts winning five out of her six events.

“We were doing all these old-school mining techniques like gold panning but it was quite the experience,” she said.

Then in 2017, having missed out on selection in Rio, Roberts moved to the Gold Coast to train at the Australian Institute of Sport and made history as part of the K4 500 crew to break the Australian record and finish second at the World Cup in Szeged, Hungary.

TALKING TOKYO

EARLIER in 2020, eight years of hard work paid off when Roberts secured the K4 quota spot in Australia’s Olympic team for Tokyo.

“I had to wait for that phone call because three girls were automatically selected but I was chosen based on results from previous competitions,” she said.

“Both my parents are teachers but I was under strict instructions to call Dad first and tell him the news because he wasn’t at work.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but he teared up when he called Mum.”

K4 athletes Alyssa Bull, Jaime Roberts, Alyce Burnett, Jo Brigden-Jones. Photo Steve McArthur (Rowing Celebration)

Having completed formalities with her immediate family, Roberts was then forced to wait 17 days to share the news more broadly as the Australian Olympic Committee announced there would be no team Australia should the Tokyo Games go ahead as planned in 2020.

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“I felt like I wasn’t fully on the team because we had no idea whether we’d have to re-trial,” she said. “My parents knew I’d made the team for 2020 but we didn’t know if I’d made the team for 2021.

“It was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster and I was trying to figure out whether I should book leave for the following year.”

Complicating things was Roberts’ rapid decision to return home to Western Australia to be with her parents as the COVID-19 pandemic began to shut down Australia.

Jaime Roberts and Jo Brigden-Jones racing at the 2018 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Montemor-o-Velho, Portugal. Picture: Bence Vekassy

“The border shut at 1.30pm the next day so I rang our team manager Emma and we were trying to figure out how I would get home but every flight to Perth was either booked or cost $2000.

“We figured out I could fly down to Melbourne and stay the night there and then get back into Perth an hour before the border closed.

“Two days before that, I was on the phone with my parents and I remember telling them I wouldn’t be home for Easter and I’d see them in Tokyo instead.”

After days of waiting, the 29-year-old had fears alleviated when the Tokyo 2020 organisers confirmed they would postpone the Games and Paddle Australia confirmed she’d retain her spot on the team.

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OLYMPIC TRAINING ON A BACKYARD BUDGET

FROM the comfort of her family’s farm in northern Perth, Roberts continues to train.

“I’ve set up my own institute of sport,” she joked.

“Dad didn’t throw out his weights from 40 years ago so we built a squat rack and a chin-up bar out of two pieces of log.

“It’s just a massive relief we’ll still get the chance to compete because it’s been a two-year process to get here.”

A farm-shed ski and the occasional paddle in the Avon River also keep Roberts busy – as does training for a half marathon devised by Perth-based coach Andersson.

Jaime Roberts with coach Ramon Andersson. Pic: Lawrence Greed

“Kayakers don’t really have the frame to run so it’s a big challenge but that’s why I’m taking it up,” she said.

“I’m training for a 90-second sprint, not a two-hour slog, but I’ve organised Mum and Dad to be pacers on the bike so it’s a bit of fun for us in the WAIS kayaking squad.”

When she’s not training for the Olympics, Roberts is a relief teacher and works with ASADA to deliver educational programs.

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