STANDING ON THE OUTSIDE THIS TIME
Ken Wallace has won Olympic and world championship gold but, as he tells Dwayne Grant, it’s what he’s witnessing in his new world at council that has opened his eyes to the people behind major sporting events.
KEN Wallace can’t believe what the sporting world looks like when you’re helping organise a major event instead of busting a gut to win gold at one.
“When you’re an athlete you’re in such a bubble,” the three-time Olympian says of a kayaking career that has snared him gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Games and several world championships.
“You’re so focused on what you’re there to achieve – that dream of standing on the top podium – and we don’t realise the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes.
“Now I’m starting to see it and, because I’m still racing, I’m turning up to competitions with an appreciation that so many people have gone out of their way to enable me to compete and give me the best chance to win that gold medal. “These events don’t just happen.” Wallace’s fresh view of the world has been coloured by a year-long stint as a community engagement officer with the council’s Get Set Gold Coast team, which is helping residents and businesses ready themselves for the biggest event in the city’s history.
With kayaking not part of the Commonwealth Games line-up, the 34-yearold was forced to find another way to get close to the action of a hometown Games.
“I was a little bit disappointed that I wouldn’t get to compete here but that fades away knowing I’ve got a lot of mates who will be on the team,” he says.
“Then there are those I don’t know but soon will because of the six degrees of separation on the Gold Coast.
“With certain sports, you often don’t realise who someone is until they win a medal and you realise ‘Wait, that guy gets coffee at my local’.”
Befitting a man with the drive to win Olympic gold, Wallace is juggling his fulltime council gig with training, competing and the joys of raising two little boys with wife Naomi at their Currumbin home.
And while he’s pretty handy with a paddle, it’s his passion for having a chat that is paying dividends at work.
THE LEGACY THE GAMES IS GOING TO LEAVE BEHIND THROUGH THINGS LIKE UPGRADED INFRASTRUCTURE IS AMAZING KEN WALLACE