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Evelyn Williamson
The inaugural Kapiti Sportsperson of the Year awards dinner was held on 27 April 2006 at the Paraparaumu Golf Club premises.
Top triathlete, Evelyn Williamson, was the guest speaker. We have been fortunate enough to get a transcript of her speech. Here it is:
"Thankyou.
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Its great honour to be asked to speak at this inaugural event. Congratulations to all the nominated athletes here, I think it’s wonderful that your skills and efforts are being recognised. As you have gathered my sport is Triathlon. Triathlons come in various shapes and sizes, but there is some consistency when it comes to international competition. You will have heard of Ironman Triathlons, and you will have heard of the Olympic Distance Triathlon. I am an Olympic Distance specialist. My races consist of a 1500m open water swim, a 40 kilometre bike, and a 10 k run. The race is continuous, meaning there is no stopping in between each discipline. My swims can be in a lake, the sea, in a river, or in the case of Japan, Motor Boat parks
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Bikes can be hilly, flat, technical or straight, they can be multi lap or on out and back courses.
Runs can be either short, or long, or up, or down. They can be on the road, on pavement, trails, whatever.
What you tend to see happen is that different countries set up different courses to suit their own athletes:
In Japan they have short swims and flat bikes, and they start their races at 11am.
That way you are running at 12.30 – the hottest part of the day.
In Europe they will send you up the biggest, steepest hill they can find,
And in South America they will cancel the swim if the surf break is any more than a foot high, because their athletes don’t know how to swim in waves.
You get used to it, and I think that one of the things that makes a good Pro is having the ability to cope with all types of courses and all types of conditions, and being able cope with last minute changes to what you thought was going to happen,
or what you were told was going to happen.
My year generally consists of a build-up period back here in New Zealand, from about November to the end of April.
During this period I usually look for a couple of close by races in the Pacific or Asia, before heading over to Europe in early June.
This is the start of my race season proper.
After spending 3 to 4 weeks at high altitude in either France or Switzerland, I will then race almost every weekend all over Europe, with the odd trip into Asia, through to the end of August.
I then shift to the States for about a month and race what are known as the big city non drafting races. World Champs is usually thrown in there somewhere as well.
Then it’s back home, usually for October, where I sit on the couch for a month and watch TV. It usually takes me through to November to unpack.
And then it all starts again.
I actually became a Pro a bit by accident.
I forget which year it was, but about 10 years ago New Zealand held a round of the ITU World Cup Series.
Once the race had filled up with international athletes the race organiser needed a few more bodies to make the race complete.
They rang around what were basically the top ten domestic athletes in the country (of whom I was one), and asked us if we wanted to race.
I almost said no.
I was pretty well convinced that I would come last, but I knew that this would be my only chance to actually race against athletes of this calibre.
These were the people I read about in magazines and watched on TV.
To this day I really don’t know how I did, but I ended up 5th, second kiwi girl and in front of some of the biggest names in the sport.
I do remember racing my heart out, and I do remember being absolutely astonished by the result.
This result gave me the confidence to go overseas, and start racing some of the big international events.
And I was doing alright …… in fact, I started to do better than alright.
Over the next couple of years I began to juggle work with triathlon, teaching phys ed at Kapiti College and tearing of to Europe or Asia for a weekend to race.
I can remember catching a plane on Thursday afternoon, flying to Europe, racing, and being back in the classroom on Tuesday morning teaching.
I also began representing New Zealand at the elite World Championships each year, which in itself was a goal I never thought I would reach.
Crunch time came in 1997 when the Sport of triathlon was admitted into the Olympic programme, and the standard of athlete and racing began to go through the roof.
My chances of being successful as a part time athlete/full time teacher were becoming less and less.
I knew that something would have to change.
I also had the thought in the back of my mind, that if I kept improving at the rate I was, I might have a shot of being there at the Sydney Games.
In late 1997, when I was offered a part time flexible job with Sport Wellington, I quit teaching and stepped into the great unknown.
I had become a PROFESSIONAL ATHLETE
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I’ve been doing this now for 10 years. Some years have been good, some years have been great, and a couple have been bloody awful. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. When you reach a point like that, When you live around here and you want to take your sport further, you have a big decision to make;
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1. You can relocate to a place with other similar athletes, centralised resources, a different climate or access to better competition.
Or
2. you can remain in place and make use of your existing structures.
It wasn’t hard for me to choose the later option for a few simple reasons;
· Kapiti is a small town with a good supportive community
· I have good friends, training partners and I like the training environment
But then there’s more to it than that.
While writing this speech I tried to write a sentence explaining why I like being in Kapiti so much, and why I wanted this to be my home, and why I decided I would try and do it from here,
but I couldn’t get the right words down.
Then it occurred to me that I would be speaking to a room full of Kapiti Coasters
and that they would understand what I was trying to say.
So My challenge became:
how do you compete on the world stage, and how do you do it from right here on the Kapiti coast?
First things first
You need a great coach
The reality is, Kapiti is a small place, and I found I needed to look further a field.
In perfect world, your coach is there, every day, watching over you in training and practice, providing advice and feedback on the spot.
Richard Lindroos, my coach of 12 years, lives in Auckland. This is not ideal.
But we have overcome this situation, and for it has worked surprising well.
In some ways we have turned it around a little.
It has forced me to be a more independent athlete, and made me more able to think on my feet,
I have found that this can pay big dividends when you are racing and training, on your own, 12,000km from home.
The critical factor in our distance coaching relationship is that we have learnt to trust each other completely, with frank and open communication on a daily and weekly basis.
I actually believe that he can make me go faster, and this is a key point, that I believe in him, the same way he believes in me.
Without that sort of belief and trust, I don’t think coaching over the phone would work.
I have to add however, that at times our discussion can become a little too honest!
You know the communication lines are open when your coach shares with you that a recent sample provided to family planning, was done in a ‘bit of a hurry’ and ‘was not his best work’!!
Once I had my Coach, the next challenge I faced was Finance
I have a competitive advantage here because I am part Scottish!
One of my most vivid memories of the early days … is trying to raise money by standing outside the front door of some Porirua supermarket, on a cold, windy, Saturday morning.
I was selling raffle tickets to the locals, who I now realise would have had no idea who I was, or what I was doing there.
And probably didn’t have any money either.
Until I began paying my way purely from racing, a significant part of my funding came from Kapiti community. This was a critical element in being able to take those first steps.
Initially, a Sport Kapiti arrangement involving Kapiti Pak n Save and the then Kapiti Toyota provided me with some backing,
And I remember arranging the first Jolly Miller Duathlon as a fund raising event.
I got everyone I knew who could ride a bike, and everyone I knew who could run, and put them in teams together and made them give me an entry fee.
One guy had no money but paid his entry with a box of apples, so I took them too.
No one I asked to be in that fundraising race turned me down.
I also had support from the local men's and women's lions clubs,
and even now some people just do what they can to help out.
I have a neighbour two doors down who last time I went away gave me a hundred dollars in an envelope … “just because he knew it was hard, what I did”
You’ve no idea how supported that makes you feel.
You cannot pursue top level sport without some degree of finance. You don’t necessarily need a lot, but it has to be there,
and I was acutely aware of that in the early days.
It was a huge step for me … leaving a full time job, and deciding you were going to try and make a living racing.
My partner and I had just bought our first house and we were about to lose an income. Tomo did the sums and said that we could just get by on his income, provided I was able to break even on my expenses.
A few years later he told me he had lied, and that we were actually about $30 a week short.
So…once you arrange the money, you have to spend it well.
And you have to learn to be incredibly efficient with the funding you have.
I always choose home stays over hotels.
To start with it was to do with cost, but I now do it because I have met some amazing people and have established life long friendships.
I now return to these same homes year after year.
There is a race in Boston each year on the same weekend as my birthday, and I’ve now had my birthday with the same American family for the past four years. They bake me cakes and buy me presents.
You also learn to spend the least amount of time possible in the expensive places.
My best effort thus far, is arriving in Korea from NZ at 4pm on a Friday, racing Saturday morning and being on a plane to Europe at 2pm that same afternoon.
I’ve also become a master at avoiding bike fees.
For those of you who are unaware…(especially the golfers among you who get off scot free!) taking a bike on a plane had become a revenue gathering exercise for the airlines.
In the US this is now $80US per leg, which is sometimes more than the ticket itself.
I have consequently, developed a four pronged coping strategy for this.
1. negotiate, (guy first, hockey gear, massage table, scuba)
2. get angry (argue re golf gear, argue, unfair, heartless, poor athlete…)
3. cry (create emotional scene)
4. back away from the counter….compose….move to next counter and repeat
checking in can sometimes take a while and be quite exhausting.
But it works, and my funding goes that little bit further.
The next challenge is really no challenge at all, because I’ve found everything I’ve needed right here.
You need people around you who believe in what you are doing, who understand what you are trying to achieve and are simply prepared to help.
You need people like Peter Ellis, who I believe will probably be familiar to everyone in this room.
Through Sport Kapiti, Peter enabled me to leave work and train full time and still maintain a degree of financial stability.
He recognised, at the end of 1997, that this was the next step for me, and found a way to make that happen, without me even being aware.
One day he just said to me everything’s in place, the offer is there if you want it.
You need people like Greg Fraine
Hopefully you’ll find out a little more about Greg this evening.
Greg is not my coach but he is my friend.
He is a vastly experienced athlete, and to tell the truth I’d rather hear him speak than me any day.
But I can go to him at any time … over anything … and get a 2nd opinion or his thoughts on any matter.
And I know that what he will say will make sense, and be based on sound judgement.
A person like this is invaluable to an athlete like me.
And you need a person like Tomo
My better half.
He is the reason I am able to do what I do.
I couldn’t ask for a more patient and understanding friend, partner, training buddy, and general logistics guy.
Hard to find one of these but good if you can get one!
Then there are many, many people who help you and play a part in small ways.
By being training partners, club members from Kapiti harriers and Kapiti Cycling Clubs, supporters, and even just people who stop me in the supermarket and say well done.
As a sportsperson I have not found everything I need here in Kapiti, so I have learned to make the best of what is here and go out and get what is missing.
The clearest example of this is the fact that on most days of the week I get up at 4.45am (and I am not a morning person) to drive an hour to Wellington for my swim sessions.
I have to say, I am looking forward to the arrival of our new Aquatic Centre, which may make these early starts a thing of the past!
It is also not unusual for Tomo and I to pack up for a couple of weeks, and go and train somewhere else in NZ for a change in environment, facilities, and people.
It’s a good way to focus, keep things interesting with fresh training partners, and to push yourself that bit harder.
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In much the same way, If I can’t find a service that I need, I am prepared to fly to Dunedin to use the swim flume, or Hamilton to use the heat chamber, or even Australia for surgery, if I decide that is the best place for it to happen.
One of the fun parts of learning to adapt is that I have been able to fit in with other National training squads whilst on the circuit.
Travelling alone I’m often invited to join in with another national team who are training in the same place.
It’s a relief from solo training.
I also get to meet new people, and have a chance to pick up new techniques or ideas.
Although….last year I had to draw the line at the Luxembourg Team Tuesday morning swims.
In the liberal country of Denmark, Tuesday morning is nude swimming day,
no exceptions.
It was all a bit much for a modest kiwi girl!!
If you’re going to compete on the world stage from Kapiti
YOU need to make it happen
To survive and succeed in top level sport, you have to capitalise on every opportunity, and make everything work for you.
This statement matters to me even more because I live here.
Because I choose to live on the Coast,
I choose to have less opportunities than if I based myself somewhere in the States or Europe.
So every time I travel, every time I race, it has to count.
…..I have a rule, races cost money and I will always finish, because you never know what will happen by the finish line.
You never know who will crash on the bike, fade on the run, or simply pull out because it’s all just got too hard.
In a race in Australia, someone ripped off my goggles during the swim and my contact lenses floated away,
Along with any aspirations of a good race.
I rode my bike almost blind, following the back wheel of the cyclist in front of me for guidance, then relied on the cordon tape to guide me through the run.
I still finished, and finished well.
In Switzerland one year, my luggage hadn’t arrived by race day.
In a borrowed wetsuit, togs, and goggles, borrowed running shoes, bike shoes and pedals …. I still raced – and I won….
A couple of years ago I spotted a race in Macau that looked like it would suit me.
I was in the States at the time, but the only flights I could get there routed me through most airports in Asia.
Of the six days I would be away from the States, more than half of it would be spent in the air or in transit lounges.
But I knew I was in good knick, and that the race would be right for me. So I went, and I won.
You have to make it happen.
When you live in Kapiti, international sport doesn’t come to you, you have to be prepared to go after it.
You have to be prepared to take chances, and you have to be prepared to take some risks
You have to make it
happen.
ROUND-UP
You can compete on the world stage from the Kapiti Coast, I promise you this.
I have been doing it every year for the past ten.
Kapiti does not, and cannot, provide everything you need.
To tell the truth I’m not even sure that I want it to.
The Key is to work out what is not here, and work out ways to get those things when you need them.
I have my Coach in Auckland. We’ve learnt to communicate well enough that this is no longer a barrier.
I have developed a network of service providers, of sports doctors, nutritionalists, skills coaches and the like all over the country. If the need arises, I will go to these people at a moments notice.
And I have training partners all over New Zealand, and all over the world. If one place isn’t working for me, I will go somewhere else.
Make no mistake. To be world class you need access to the best there is. But you don’t need it to be right here.
You just need to know where it is, and how to get it when you need it.
What Kapiti does provide you with is incredible, local, genuine support. People know you, and look after you, and they appreciate what you do. The fact that we are all here tonight is testament to that.
Recognition is one of the highest motivators to athletic endeavour. The longer you spend in sport, and the higher you go, the more you come to realise how true this is.
Kapiti has provided me with this, and I will be forever grateful. I’m glad I chose to stay.