Competition or Cooperation? I’m missing Tri season

THE WINTER Olympics. Milano Cortina. What a spectacle. And Australia is doing so well with three gold medals two from athletes hailing from my home town in the NSW Snowy Mountains. Watching the athletes - their focus and devotion and the buzz of competing - is making me miss my sport, Triathlon.

This summer I am not just extremely busy (work, business, study) but struggling with an achilles injury. It is the same injury which forced me off the athletics track and onto the bike many years ago and I have been unable to run or complete a triathlon. But injury and time away from competition is all part of the game of sport – we can’t rely on it, especially as we get older and busier. Take Lindsey Vonn’s career and the fragility of alpine skiing as an example.

In my past I met and had a relationship with Swiss skier and Olympic champion, Sandro Viletta.  As a professional and passionate sportsperson, it was insightful to spend time with him, and we had a great connection. At the time, Sandro was going through the difficult phase of retirement and re-directing his life. It was a long  hard road as it is for many athletes. In recent years I made the decision not to pursue triathlon at a high level, and like Sandro went through a similar adjustment process of reestablishing myself and my identity.

Getting each other - Sandro and I hanging out in Sydney.

During this time, I have come to re-think my approach to sports. When I was competing in triathlon I was so focussed on myself, and I forgot to appreciate all the people around me. Sport gives us some amazing skills from determination, courage, strength, discipline, ability to deal with disappointment, and maybe a less obvious one - cooperation. As we get older sport doesn’t evade us, it just changes for us.

I believe sport is more than competition. Regardless of whether you win or lose, when you participate in sport you are creating an arena for social interaction, community and bringing out the best in each other. Training, preparing and competing is a gift not only to yourself but to others.

Sport will always play an important role in my life, but currently my focus is on my business and teaching career.  Sport will also always be my grounding and sense of calm when life is stressful. Whether it’s watching a rugby game or surfing competition on the weekend or going for a swim or ride or playing touch football – it stabilises me. But more importantly sport is about its power to bring people together, to lift and inspire us. At the end of the day, we’re humans (not robots) and we need people. That is the meaning of sport.

Triathlon is a community - friends first, competition second.