Scots triathlon star isn’t wallowing in exit ... he’s just grateful to know now
the next weekend I’ve got this heart issue – it was a year of investigation.
“I was mentally prepared a little but as an athlete you always think positively so I was not really accepting that was a possible outcome.
“I did get it [the all clear last year] but to be fair it is good that they kept on it because if they’d just cleared me and sent me on my way then I could be two years down the line in a pretty bad situation.
“It’s good the medical team were diligent with it and made sure they kept their eyes on me.
“I was definitely initially upset but also pretty grateful and just tried to focus on the fact it could have been so much worse.
“It is a genetic disorder, there is nothing I could have done any different in my life.
“This was always going to happen but it could have happened in a much worse scenario.”
That much was made clear o n Ma r c h 17, 2012, when Bolton footballer Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the pitch at White Hart Lane.
The midfielder was in effect dead for 78 minutes, having suffered a cardiac arrest. He retired five months later on medical advice despite making a remarkable recovery.
Englishman James Taylor then bowed out of cricket in 2016, revealing “you could see my shirt moving, that’s how hard my heart was beating inside my chest” before discovering he has the same condition as Austin.
“Once I started reading those kind of stories, I was like, ‘I am really lucky not to be that guy,’ says the Glaswegian.
Besides a period of two weeks where he had heart palpitations that went away, Austin has felt physically fine and always had for the past year.
But an initial call last month – “I just thought it was a normal phone call with the doctor” – prepared him for what would follow a week later as the UK’s top cardiologist delivered the final verdict with mum Jude there too.
“The tests leading up to it had all been positive,” he says. “I was in a positive frame of mind and this was the last test – if that test had gone well then that would have been me fine.
“I just assumed it was a tick- box sort of thing. I think most people, you’re just thinking positively, ‘It is not that, it is not that, I just need to get signed off by the doctor then I will be training again.’
“I was training up until the day. I was expecting a result but hadn’t really prepared for the fact it could be a bad result. But I accepted it pretty early on.
“I was expecting them to say I couldn’t do any exercise at all and they have said I can do low-level exercise.
“Although it was a bad result, in my head I was like, ‘If that is what it is then I won’t be able to do any exercise ever again’ – and I can.
“It wasn’t 100 per cent horrific news. It was bad but there was almost a silver lining. It’s not as bad as what it could be so that probably helped the most.”
Although his career has been cut short, he has not been starved of success. In fact, Austin speaks with the air of an athlete who feels blessed for what he had instead of cursed for what will now never be.
On retirement, he says:
“It wasn’t really a decision to be honest. It would be pretty immature and ignorant to continue.
“It would 100 per cent have a potentially fatal consequence, so it was more, ‘ This is what will happen if you continue, you can continue obviously’ – but it wasn’t really much of a decision in my head.
“It was, ‘If I have it then I’m stopping because I want to live as long a life as I can.’ It was definitely sad to know my career was over and obviously as well a lot of hobbies that I have I can no longer do.
“But it’s a pretty small bubble I was living in and I just need to trust myself that I’ll find another bubble to slot into. It might take a few years.
“I’ve had a few friends who have stopped the sport and I have spoken to them and geared myself up for what it is going to be like f inding something else.
“They all are pretty positive about it and it is just about making sure I use all the things that I’ve learned through the sport for what I do next.
“It is definitely sad but at the same time it is the best possible case scenario for the disease, that they caught it really early. I am really lucky in that respect.”
Austin grabbed Scotland’s first Gold Coast medal two years ago, having finished 22nd at Glasgow 2014.
In the four years leading up to Australia his name had regularly been recalled purely because it wasn’t Brownlee after joining Alistair and Jonny in a three-man breakaway at Strathclyde Park.
The brothers dropped him at the sstart of the f inal lap ccycl ing but the story of his showing ffollowed him until he sserved up a new one 110,000 miles away on the oother side of the world.
“That is what is so good aabout sport – all it takes is one race and you have ggot a career,” he says.
“It was that day for me. II’d be in a much different pposition now mentally lolooking back if I didn’t hhave that race, which is a ggood thing as well.
“That race was really sspecial but it is almost morem important to me now than what it was at the time, which is a bit strange.
“Most people, you do the race, those two weeks after is where it means everything then you just move on to the next thing.
“And that is what I did at the time, you are happy for two weeks then, ‘ What next? I want to do this and this.’
“Whereas now I’m almost more proud of that race than I was at the time I did it. I think that wouldn’t happen if I didn’t have to stop now.
“I’m definitely really happy to have that. Essentially Commonwealth bronze is a tagline that I am happy with on my career. Whereas getting dropped by the Brownlees isn’t.
“I am definitely not hard done to in terms of life.”
I was kind of geared up for it. I was expecting a result but hadn’t really prepared for the fact it could be a bad result