COMMONWEALTH GAMES STAR SALLY PEARSON: my battle with anxiety
World-champion hurdler Sally Pearson, perhaps Australia’s greatest track-and-field athlete, talks to Lizzie Wilson about the father she refuses to acknowledge, her battle with anxiety and why she handed over the coaching reins to the person she trusts mos
Self-doubt is one of modern life’s most debilitating curses. Even for those who have scaled the heights of greatness, anxiety is sometimes so powerful it can lay them low with a sideways glance, a raised eyebrow or even a friendly word from a complete stranger.
For world champion hurdler Sally Pearson, who has suffered from anxiety most of her adult life, one of those crippling moments came most recently at her local supermarket.
“I was at the local shops. This lovely lady called my name and I froze. On the track, with sometimes 80,000 people in the stands, I’m completely in control. Put me at the checkout, where I’m just little old Sal, and it comes over me like a tsunami and it’s far greater than shyness – I feel like a deer in headlights!”
Sally, as focused and ice cool as she appears, makes her living overcoming hurdles. Her ongoing battle with anxiety, something she rarely speaks about, is just another hurdle for this champion. She privately struggles with its incapacitating side-effects every day, yet manages to take it in her stride, never allowing it to affect her ambitions both on and off the track, or her dogged determination to be number one.
Nevertheless, Sally, 31, doesn’t shy away from the topic as she outlines the extraordinary transformation she’s made over the past two years in preparation for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in her home town of the Gold Coast.
“I know what people say about me and understand why they think I am a little odd. I’m really open to talking about it, because I get better with it every day. I suffer from a condition known as social anxiety, which has been at times more debilitating than any of the physical injuries,” she explains. “I’m not great in situations where I’m out of my depth or feel I have to talk to someone and have no idea what to say.”
This form of anxiety, according to the experts, is characterised by a discomfort or a fear when a person is in a social interaction that involves a concern for being judged or evaluated by others.
“It could be why so many people read me wrong. They see me as a bit tricky – they take that gritty steeliness, and my sometimes clumsy social skills, and minds are made up that I’m either arrogant or aloof. Or seemingly so self-absorbed I only function when I’m on the track. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
By her own admission, she’s a whole lot more than that. The current 100m women’s hurdles world champion, and Olympic gold and silver medallist in the same event, is a tragic “foodie”, an adventure junkie who dreams to one day rescue and home every stray dog she finds. One of the top five sportspeople in our country, she’s a no-nonsense woman who doesn’t suffer fools and abhors mediocrity.
“I’m a high achiever. I hate the feeling of losing almost as much as I love a win. I’m a proud perfectionist – I don’t believe you can be the best in the world at what you do without that DNA. If that’s my pathology, bring it on!”
One former teammate recalls a woman whom very few got close to. “Sal is incredibly intense – there’s this misunderstood coldness and only certain people could room with her. With those who got her, she was easy as steam and incredibly aware of her teammates’ need for privacy. She’s a very thoughtful person on one hand, and yet incredibly all about Sal.
“She’s a chameleon, a hybrid of awkward meets genuine warmth – and she has a terrific sense of humour. I’ve watched her struggling her way through an awards ceremony and a few weeks later enter a stadium poised and proud. She’s become enormously popular in the Australian team for her dedication, particularly with the young ones, and, once you get her, the loyalty is boundless.”
Born on September 19, 1986,
Sally Elizabeth McLellan arrived into this world with one guarantee – her single mum, Anne, would become her strongest ally. It’s been well documented that Sally respectfully will not speak about her father and asks that he is not named, a man who has had nothing to do with her life except to make contact many years later when he realised the little girl he never knew was a world champion athlete.
“I appreciate the question and am grateful you asked with such sensitivity,” she says. “So I never get asked again, I can’t comment about a man who is so not on my radar and who I’ve met only a few times – albeit briefly. He was not ever with us from the day I was born, so I don’t have a dad, there is no father.
“The armchair experts will jump to their own conclusions, suggesting I lack a father figure in my life – trust me, I don’t. He does not have a place in my life, and never will.”
Mum Anne is a humble woman. She doesn’t do limelight and flashy fanfare – she doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. She’s worked full-time since Sally was five months old, and in the mid-1990s relocated from Sydney’s eastern suburbs for a better life on Queensland’s Gold Coast.
“Over the years, there have been so many stories about Mum’s sacrifices – she didn’t have a car, sometimes she worked three jobs to support me. Can we finally put to rest all the ‘poor us’ rubbish? Lots of people don’t have cars and, to be honest, having to catch the bus to training was all part of moulding me into the person I am today – grateful and appreciative, and not some spoon-fed spoilt brat.
“I’d been in gymnastics for years, but, like many kids, interest waned and I wanted something new. I was nine when mum enrolled me in the local Little Athletics. I knew I had talent, I was going to be a champion,
“I know what people say about me and understand why they think I’m a little odd.”
likely a world champion, but I didn’t know in what,” recalls Sally.
“I wonder how many of my peers over the years had that same dream. It translates into every aspect of life, not just sport. To be the best teacher, the greatest lawyer, it’s the same deal – dream and dream big. I never let myself think I couldn’t do it. Because I figured if I didn’t someone else will.”
During her high school years at Helensvale State High School in Queensland’s south-east, Sally met her now husband, Kieran Pearson, and knew from the first date he was the one. They married in 2010, although there’s no rush to start a family.
“So far it’s just our fur babies!” she says. “Last year, we lost a golden retriever, Toby. His brother, Oscar, is still with us and one big ball of joy.
“Kieran is the ever-supportive husband, my rock, and knows how I tick. I’ve always said I would be the same person married or not, but I run so much better and do everything better when he’s around,” she says.
Being one of Australia’s foremost Olympians and one of the fastest 100m hurdlers in history has come at a price. At the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006, Sally fell spectacularly in the 100m hurdles final. Despite the battering, she turned up the following day and guided Australia to a bronze medal in the 4x100m relay. She had another gut-wrenching fall during a Diamond League event in Rome in 2015, breaking her wrist, prompting many critics to predict it would end her career.
“I don’t give up that easily,” she retorts. “Falling and injuries come with the job – it’s an occupational hazard of the sport. You have 100m with 10 barriers and everything is in the timing. As cliched as this sounds, stumbling blocks have been the making of me, my stepping stones to victory. Since I can remember, I’ve been fearless and the bullies gave up on me pretty quickly!”
These days, she’s the master of her own destiny, quite literally, having decided 18 months ago to be her own coach after a succession of disasters. She parted ways in 2013 with longtime mentor Sharon Hannan, who throughout their 14-year partnership was more a second mum to the young champion. They simply outgrew one another. Sally concedes she foolishly jumped from the fry pan into a smouldering fire. After a series of failed tenures, she dumped the last man standing, a local podiatrist and part-time coach Ashley Mahoney, declaring the relationship was fraught with dysfunction from day one.
“Reports of me self-coaching sent shock waves through the sport. The odds were against me, there’s no doubt. I’d missed two years injured, was turning 30 and had worked my way through three coaches in two years. I had to save my career and decided the only person who was capable of doing that was me.
“I was gutted I’d missed qualifying for the Rio Olympics. I was not in good shape, a dark place I will never again visit. It was day one of the athletics and we were watching it on TV. I felt like Cinderella who didn’t get to go to the ball. I sat down with Kieran and started to map out a plan. I was determined I could be the World Champion again, but this time, on my terms,” she explains.
Ultimately, whatever she penned that day at their kitchen table would lead to one of the sweetest comebacks in Australian sporting history. She assembled a support group of her closest confidantes. Fittingly, they call themselves “Team Pearson”.
“It’s the people I trust most, including my mum and, of course, Kieran. I asked him to consider parking his plumbing business to travel with me. I said, I’ll pay your way, just come with me, because
I think I can win the World Championships,” Sally recalls.
“Of course, he said yes. It was hardly a tough decision: fixing a toilet or eating gelato in Hungary! We love discovering new places. We get a thing for somewhere and we’re both currently hooked on Queenstown, although our favourite holiday is here on our Gold Coast beaches. There’s nowhere quite like home.”
Months of tough training and planning followed. Kieran graciously followed his wife across the world while she ran from meet to meet, knowing the closer they got to the 2017 IAAF World Championships in London, the more pressure loomed for the athletics star. Falls and losses would surely mean the game was up.
On August 13 last year inside the city’s Olympic Stadium, in just a dozen seconds, the fairytale comeback was complete, Sally reclaiming the gold she knew was rightfully hers.
“Seeing the number 1 next to my name up on the big screen, representing Australia – it’s hard to imagine ever feeling more proud. I knew the handful of critics were watching, the ones who thought I couldn’t self-coach, and to them I ask today, so who is the world champion?
“There was a very funny moment after the race when an official handed me a package. I asked, ‘What’s this?’ He explained that was the medal for my coach – I couldn’t stop laughing! Here I was standing on the exact same spot where I won Olympic Gold in 2012, holding not one, but two World Championship medals. It was a turning point moment, knowing
I’d just been rewarded for being a top-shelf athlete and a world-class coach – it doesn’t get much better.”
Sally won’t ever let herself forget the early struggles, which is why she’s a sponsor’s dream. There’s a long association with global giant Adidas, and after years of catching buses, these days she drives an Audi. But it’s the recent ad campaign with the fastest man on earth, Jamaican Usain Bolt, for Coles that has the retail focus groups talking.
“Since I was a kid I’ve never been one to embrace idols,” Sally says. “I look more at the performance, so being with Usain was more about how does he tick? I was never that autograph seeker, although I did wonder if he might ask me for mine – I’m joking!”
There are so many more sponsorship backers, and it’s highly likely the list will expand over the next two years if she does decide to push the boundaries and go for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. “Without them, I wouldn’t be able to compete. They’re not freebies and I honour each fairly and with gratitude.”
Competing at the highest level among the world’s best means Sally has seen her fair share of drug cheats go down. She has zero tolerance, and nothing makes her happier than hearing another “grub” tested positive.
“I’m brutal when it comes to the excessive abuse of performanceenhancing drugs, in all sports. It makes me furious the sporting bureaucrats think we’re naive and stupid enough to believe they’re on top of the scourge – it’s an epidemic.
“If it’s so widespread outside our borders, why wouldn’t we have it? It needs to be tackled head on. I’m regularly tested, and I have nothing to hide. One day, I hope the even playing field is just that – sadly, I doubt it.”
These past months, Sally has fixed her focus to one of the biggest events of her career. She’s on track to a third consecutive Commonwealth Games gold medal in the 100m hurdles. If she does nail the hat-trick, she will be emulating Pam Kilborn, who won the sprint hurdles crown in 1962, 1966 and 1970. “Being a Gold Coast resident, there’s no bigger honour than being a Commonwealth Games Ambassador,” she says. “I want that gold medal as much as any other, I think more, knowing it will be in front of my home crowd.”
Preparing for her photo shoot with The Weekly is much like everything else in Sally’s current life – she’s very much in charge, uncannily switched on, remarkably self-aware and pin-sharp focused.
“I wish this interview wasn’t over,” she says. “It’s great to be able to speak so openly, knowing you got me.
“I forgot to mention I love a glass of wine and I love to dance – that’s me when I actually do let my hair down. There we go – I always save my best for the finish.”