SEEBOHM’S GOLD RUSH
IT was in Windsor, Ontario, last December that Emily Seebohm almost gave up.
She had flopped at the Rio Olympics while secretly battling endometriosis. The speculation in Australia was she could be finished after a 10year career and for a moment she thought she was, too.
Her parents John and Karen remember the day vividly. Seebohm was competing at the world shortcourse championships and they found a moment to catch up with her.
“It was all over,’’ John See- bohm said, the tears welling in his eyes at the memory. “She basically said: ‘I’ve just had enough of this. I can’t keep doing this’.’’
The Seebohms (John, a 300game player in the SANFL, and Karen, a former national league netballer) had five minutes to turn her around.
“We laid it on the line and said: ‘ You haven’t been doing this for so long for that to happen. We know how much talent you have. Just get out there and do your best’,’’ Karen recalled.
“And to her credit, that’s what she did, with her coach David Lush, and Mitch [Larkin] and her family, they have been a really solid team.’’
A few weeks later Seebohm had surgery to relieve the symptoms of her endometriosis and surgery again to remove her wisdom teeth, and the slow climb back to the top began.
Yesterday, a year after Rio, she reached the peak again, retaining the world 200m backstroke title she won in Kazan two years ago.
She had fought her way back to win Australia’s first gold medal in Budapest, on day seven of the eight-day meet.
Seebohm, 25, was fourth when she made the last turn but turned in a barnstorming final lap to snatch gold from Hungarian hometown favourite Katinka Hosszu.
Seebohm’s winning time was a personal best and national record of 2min 5.68sec.
She used to hate this race, preferring the 100m sprint, but has mastered it using her backend speed, and decided it is her new favourite.
Hosszu finished a close second in 2:05.85, with American Kathleen Baker third (2:06.48).
Australia almost had a second medal as 16-year-old Kaylee McKeown set a world junior record of 2:06.76 to finish fourth on her debut at this level.
When Seebohm touched the wall and realised she had won, she put her hand to her face and cried.
“I was pretty relieved and then I was just really honoured and proud,’’ she said.
“It was such a fast field tonight and I was going to be proud of myself whether I won or came last because getting back into the pool after Rio was really hard.
“With everything that I’ve gone through it just proves to myself that it wasn’t me, that Rio was just one of those things that happen in life. Sometimes you have to go down to go back up.’’