Nicola Rutzou
This week’s Aussie success story has a nice tie-in with our previous highlight, Kathy Watt. Track superstar Anna Meares was reportedly inspired to take up track cycling after watching cyclist Kathy Watt at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Canada.
It’s one thing to be inspired, but another to achieve it. Anna and her sister Kerrie would never have succeeded on the track without their parents’ sacrifices. For the first two years of their training, Anna’s dad drove them 300 km to the nearest velodrome every week until the family relocated to Rockhampton, where the sisters gained access to a velodrome and coaches.
Many of you will know of Meares’ impressive palmarés. When she retired after 22 years of cycling in October 2016, she tallied six Olympic medals, 27 world championship medals, eight Commonwealth Games medals, and an Order of Australia medal.
Meares is a determined and tough competitor. In 2008, just seven months out from the Beijing Olympics, she crashed in a World Cup competition in Los Angeles, fracturing her C2 vertebra, a mere 2 mm from a clean break. Ten days after the accident, Meares was back on a training bike, determined to make a comeback. At the Beijing Games, Meares took home silver in the sprint against GB’s Victoria Pendleton, an event she wants to win at the 2012 games in London.
Her most recent achievement is her role as Chef de Mission for the Australian team at the Paris Olympic Games earlier this year, which she will continue for the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
