‘Debacle’: Iconic image from ‘Lay Down Sally’ scandal haunts Australia 20 years on
Twenty years on from the infamous ‘Lay Down Sally’ scandal, Sally Robbins has a new life but the fallout from the saga is still being out.
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The Olympics deliver some iconic moments, but they’re not always of the positive variety.
With the Paris Olympics just two weeks away, it’s now between 20 years since one of the most infamous scandals in the history of Australian sport — the “Lay Down Sally” saga.
In the final of the women’s eight rowing event, Australia’s crew was running in fifth position with 500m remaining when Robbins dropped her oar and let it drag in the water.
Physically exhausted, she infamously stopped rowing completely and slumped back in the boat, leaning on the lap of teammate Julia Wilson behind her.
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The Aussies ultimately finished the final last in sixth position, limping to the finish 10 seconds behind fifth placed Germany.
The incident blew up and Robbins found herself at the centre of a media storm amid intense criticism that she gave up and let her teammates down.
Australia won 17 gold medals in Athens in their best ever Olympic haul that was only equalled at the Tokyo Games.
While the likes of Ian Thorpe, Jodie Henry and Grant Hackett triumphed in the pool at the Kookaburras won hockey gold, Lay Down Sally overshadowed the successful campaign.
Twenty years on, a special News Corp investigation has delved deep into the scandal, with ramifications still being felt in Australian rowing while Robbins says she’s “at peace”.
After the race in 2004, Robbins said about the moment she gave up: “Suddenly fatigue sets in and I just can’t move. It’s a feeling of paralysis where you just hit the wall.
“I just rowed my guts out in the first 1500 and didn’t have anything left and that’s all I could have done for today.
“I did whatever I could and my best was what I put out there today and I plan to keep rowing.
“This experience only makes me stronger. I will just say that I did everything I could. This is what I could do today and I put 110 per cent in, and that’s what everyone does.”
Her teammate Wilson famously told media in Athens: “I just want to stress it was not a technical problem out there.
“No seat broke. There was nothing wrong with the boat. There was nothing wrong with the seven other athletes around me. There were nine in the boat. There were eight operating.”
Coxswain Katie Foulkes told journalist Peter Wilkins in his book Don’t Rock The Boat: “One of the few things I remember saying is ‘Have some f***ing pride, we’ve got to finish this race.’
“But that was about 200 metres to go or something and everyone, I think, had finished except us.”
Wilkins said: “I felt sorry for both sides but the overriding emotion is that despite her great athletic ability Sally probably should not have been selected in the team. It is a team sport.”
Robbins teammates were furious that after the race ended she got back in position and rowed back to the boat’s docking position before she was left with the team doctor despite not suffering a medical problem.
They were also well aware Robbins had done something similar at the 2002 world championships, when she stopped rowing and stopped the Aussies from winning gold in the quad scull.
The brutal fallout to the Athens saga saw a rupture in the rowing team, which was furious the Australian Olympic Committee publicly backed Robbins but refused to acknowledge their existence at functions.
“One of the big things I remember was it was almost as if the crew were airbrushed out of history,” said Wilkins, who investigated the scandal in an award-winning Australian Story program.
“They would go along to official functions and not be mentioned because they had vented their spleens on the dock in Athens. It was very curious.
“The Australian Olympic Committee’s decision to get behind Sally Robbins and ostracise the crew was a pivotal moment. It was a multi-layered debacle.’’
Where is Sally Robbins now?
Robbins later fell short of qualifying for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and after a bid to become a professional cyclist, she settled down in Brisbane and opened a yoga studio. She was seen with her baby daughter in early 2017.
The now 42-year-old has since moved to Perth, where she runs her own business described as a “holistic health space integrating neuro-emotional techniques, yoga, group and personal training, counselling, hypnotherapy and massage.”
Just last month, she shared a screenshot on Instagram of a text message from the AOC for Olympic Day, declaring she was “proud to be an Olympian”.
“Having this message arrive on my phone every year always brings a tear to my eye,” Robbins wrote.
“I am so proud to be an Olympian and wish our next Olympians at Paris the very best.
“We are all behind you and know how much hard work you have put in to get to this point. I am ever so grateful for the support I received from near and far.
“Let’s get behind our athletes this year - send them a message, video or fax - they will receive them and it makes a huge difference.”
Robbins also recently shared a post that read: “I am at peace with my past and excited for my future.”
Lucy Stephan, who won gold in the women’s four in Tokyo, is part of the women’s eight that’s considered a massive chance to win gold in Paris.
She told The Courier Mail’s special investigation the spectre of the Lay Down Sally saga continues to loom down on Australian rowing.
“It really irks me,” Stephan said.
“It’s been almost 20 years and I’ll walk into an airport (in team uniform) and there’ll be some person that’s like, ‘Oh, Lay Down Sally’.”
“And I’m like, yeah, okay, what about Kim Crow (who as Kim Brennan won the single sculls gold in 2016); what about us in the four?
“We’ve had so many incredible results but in women’s rowing for some reason, we remember the bad thing about it.
“And I think that’s also a part of a part of (what’s driving the current) eight.
“Those girls (from 2004), it’s really unfortunate what happened to them – and I’m sure all nine of them have felt that.”
Foulkes told the Idle Australians podcast in 2021: “One of the things I really struggled with post Athens was this idea of there being a victim – whether it was us or whether it was Sally – at one point I think fingers were pointed at our coach, and I really struggled with that.
“You know, so many things we point fingers at someone, when often it’s actually more of a systemic issue.
“For many years, I really struggled. I tried to work out what I should have done differently,” she said.
“I kept looking at myself. What role did I play in this? What conversations should I have had differently? Who should I have brought in? And I’m sure that like many others, I gave myself a hard time about what should I have done.
“I don’t know what the right answer was because I don’t think there was one – and that was really difficult and still is at times really difficult to get my head around.
“For many years (decades), I have avoided talking about a moment in life that in some ways I let define me for too long,” Foulkes said in a post promoting the podcast.
“So, as I say to many of my clients, here I am ‘turning towards it’ and trying to shake off some of the load I carry around.”
“We are all very much looking forward to supporting our team in Paris and want to ensure they … remain the focus as they represent their country in the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” told the Courier Mail’s investigation.
Stephan agreed it’s time to move on from the ordeal.
“We’re standing on their shoulders and they’re lifting us up,” she told News Corp.
“We learn from our mistakes and we try and make it better.
“I’d love to walk into an airport and have someone say, ‘You’re part of the Paris eight that won gold’, instead of ‘Lay Down Sally’.
“It’s been 20 years and it’s time to move on and it’s about the legacy that we want to bring forward in women’s rowing.”
Read News Corp’s in-depth investigation into the “Lay Down Sally” scandal here.
Originally published as ‘Debacle’: Iconic image from ‘Lay Down Sally’ scandal haunts Australia 20 years on
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