Chloe Esposito’s golden premonition comes true at Rio Olympics
SIX weeks out from the Olympic Games in Rio, Chloe Esposito had a scary thought.
Olympics
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SIX weeks out from the Olympic Games in Rio, Chloe Esposito had a scary thought.
“I have never thought this ever, but I thought: ‘You know what? I think I am going to win’,” Esposito said.
“I just had this gut feeling that I can do this ... and it happened.”
Outside of a small group of family and friends, it’s probably fair to say that not many shared the thought that Esposito was going to win a gold medal in the modern pentathlon either.
Not her rivals, and not an Australian public that would struggle to place the sport and it’s five disciplines – fencing, swimming, show jumping, shooting and running – let alone an unassuming 24-year-old from Casula.
But armed with a belly full of self-belief, Esposito shocked almost everyone by surging through the Olympic field on Saturday and winning a historic gold medal.
The gutsy athlete pulled together near career-best results in each discipline and in the final leg – the 3200m combined shoot/run – Esposito came from 45 seconds behind to win.
Shooting almost perfectly, she went from seventh to first by the last lap of the circuit and broke the Olympic record along the way. It was the first ever Olympic medal for Australia in modern pentathlon.
“I knew there was going to be a day where everything came together. I am so thankful it was today. I just can’t believe it,” Esposito said.
Six months ago, however, Esposito was entertaining scary thoughts of a far more bleak kind. Home from Budapest in Hungary, where she, brother Max and coach/father Daniel live and train, Esposito was laid up with an achilles injury.
She feared she may miss the Olympics, torching all the hard work she’d done since finishing seventh in modern pentathlon in London.
“She was back in Australia and we were wondering if she was going to make it,” Esposito’s fiance Matt Cooper told News Corp.
“Should she withdraw? After three and a half years of the effort, for it to come down to an injury, it felt heartbreaking.”
Cooper eventually “packed her back off to Budapest” and with some alternative treatments and cautious training, Esposito came good. With her father and brother driving her, a stretch in altitude training camps in Mexico saw her recover her fitness and win in the Hungarian Championships.
When she crossed that line that first scary thought: she could win.
Fencing had always been Esposito’s weakest leg - hence the move to Europe to be around elite competition - and when she finished the fencing in 13th spot in Rio, camp Esposito’s quiet confidence grew.
When she swam her best 200m swim time in London, and avoided a disaster in the show jumping like other big rivals (competitors are given a random horse on the day), Esposito was given a 45-second handicap in the last leg.
She shot 24/25 and equalled her best ever 3200m time as well. Esposito’s rivals felt the pressure and couldn’t answer.
“I thought they were probably going to be right behind me or something,” Esposito said.
“I heard they’d left the shooting range and I turned back and saw that it was quite a big distance. I know I can run, and I knew they wouldn’t catch me.”
Originally published as Chloe Esposito’s golden premonition comes true at Rio Olympics
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