Ready to take it from the bush to the Tokyo Olympics

Ahead of the Tokyo Games, The Weekly Times meets three athletes whose Olympic and Paralympic dreams were born in the bush.

Penny Smith (right), with fellow Australian Olympics Trap Shooting Team member James Willett training at Gold Coast Clay Target Club. Picture: Mike Batterham

Bookaar, VIC

Bookaar, VIC

Shooting

Penny Smith is set to make her Olympic debut at Tokyo, but not in the sport those who knew her as kid on a dairy farm in Victoria’s Western District possibly expected.

Smith’s mum Kim attended the 1984 Olympic Games as Andrew Hoy’s groom, and horses and equestrian have been a big part of life for the family.

Smith was also a keen rider, as well as netballer and footballer, but is about to become an Olympic trap shooter.

“Growing up, sport has always been a passion of mine — I used to stay up to all hours of the morning watching the Olympic Games and different sports,” she says.

It was her older brother Andrew’s motorbike accident, which put him in hospital for more than a month, that ended up steering both him and his sister to a new sport.

“After he got back on track ... Mum and Dad said to him, you need to find something that’s a little bit more user-friendly and a bit safe, so he took up shooting,” Smith says.

“I just had a go, and fell into it from there. If you had asked me as a kid you are going to shoot on the Australian shooting team, I would’ve said, no chance.”

Nine years ago Smith says she set herself the goal of making the Tokyo Games, and won her first major international title at the 2017 World Cup competition in New Delhi. Missing selection for the 2018 Commonwealth Games only spurred her on to achieve her goal for 2020 — now 2021.

MATTHEW DENNY

Allora, QLD

Discus

For many kids, coming last would be enough to turn them off a sport. For Matthew Denny, it only spurred him on.

Denny, who grew up at Allora in Queensland’s Southern Downs region, is about to head to his second Olympic Games, where he will represent Australia in discus once again.

But he recalls a turning point in his early teens that would change the course of his sporting career.

“I got dead last in the state in shotput and discus and that switched my head over,” he says.

“I thought, I don’t really like going to these and getting dead last — I’ll get a coach and have a decent go at it, not really realising what it would turn into.”

Denny says he was always a sports-mad kid when growing up on a hobby farm, and initially dreamt of playing in the NRL.

Discus thrower Matthew Denny used coming last to spur him on. Picture: Annette Dew

He once competed in both discus and hammer throw, and won the silver medal in the latter at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

However, he soon afterwards decided to drop hammer throw to focus on discus, the sport in which he was the 2013 World Youth Champion.

He came sixth in the 2019 World Athletics Championships, and has also recently thrown a personal best 66.15m.

“I definitely attribute a lot of my success to coming from Allora — I grew up in a place where everyone was extremely supportive of whatever you wanted to do,” says the 25-year-old, who is 6ft5 tall and based in Brisbane.

“When I started to really succeed they all really got behind me and supported me, but at the same time no one ever treated you differently.”

JAMIESON LEESON

Dunedoo, NSW

Boccia

It has been a whirlwind ride for Jamieson Leeson from the small town of Dunedoo in central western NSW to her first Paralympic Games to play boccia next month.

Leeson, the daughter of a Merino breeder, grew up in a small town of less than 800 people, while her school includes students from kindergarten to fellow Year 12s.

“Everyone knows everyone, it is very tight knit,” she says.

Born with spinal muscular atrophy, Leeson says there were not a lot of sports she could participate in locally.

She started playing boccia when she was a kid, just for fun, but would travel two hours to Orange to do so.

But it wasn’t until about three years ago that her school principal told her about a schools competition for the sport, to be held in Orange — while there she was approached by a national selector about coming to Sydney to see the sport played professionally.

“I went down a few months later and it kept on going from there,” she said.

Jamieson Leeson, pictured with jockey Hugh Bowman, is representing her country in boccia at the Tokyo Olympics. Picture: Tracey Nearmy

She represented Australia for the first time in May 2019, and is now preparing for her Paralympic debut.

Boccia, which is similar to bocce, is a Paralympic sport in which athletes in wheelchairs throw, kick or use a ramp to propel balls as close as possible to the jack.

Jamieson competes in the classification in which competitors use ramps, and her mum Amanda will also be competing alongside Leeson as her assistant.

“It is very much a teamwork sport, we work together really well,” Leeson says.

Preparation for Tokyo has involved trips to Sydney — six hours away — for training.

“It’s been a really long time coming, it still doesn't really feel real,” Leeson says.

“It has been a lot of training, not only in Sydney but also in my school hall — which has the wrong flooring but we make it work with what we’ve got.”

On top of Paralympic preparation, Leeson is also completing Year 12 — her plans to complete it over two years backfired somewhat when the Games were postponed.

The Paralympic Games run from August 24 to September 5.

MORE

NHILL OLYMPIC ROWER THE PRIDE OF THE WIMMERA

SEASONED TOPS-ALEXANDER IN OLYMPICS GAMES EQUESTRIAN SQUAD

MEET OUR TOKYO OLYMPICS EVENTING TEAM CONTENDERS