In for the long haul
Late-blooming Lauren Boyle has battled all sorts of obstacles to find success at the world champs. Simon Plumb reports
I ADMIT it. I’m a quitter, one of many to give up on swimming at national level, aged 16. I fell out of love with the relentless, twice-daily training and severe personal sacrifices.
Lauren Boyle didn’t. Despite having any number of reasons to permanently wash the chlorine out of her hair, she kept going, changing schools, taking a new direction in life, reinventing herself as a distance swimmer rather than a sprinter, blazing a pioneering trail in America – doing everything except giving up.
Her reward came with two bronze medals at the swimming world championship in Barcelona last week; in the 400m freestyle and then the 1500m freestyle, where she was not far outside the recent world record.
Overnight, she also raced in the final of her prime event, the 800m freestyle – aiming to emulate New Zealand icon Danyon Loader’s three-medal haul from the 1994 championships in Rome.
Boyle’s success is the first time since Loader 19 years ago that New Zealand has secured a medal at this level.
Boyle had done enough to be regarded as an outside medal shot at last year’s London Olympics. Her tearful reaction to a bittersweet fourth place in the 800m introduced and endeared her to the wider public. A gold medal at the world short course championships five months later reinforced the name.
Even then, she’s still a relative unknown in a sporting landscape dominated by team sports and ball games. But Boyle is no newcomer. In fact, she’s so deep into her career that her sudden success might have cynics wondering what changed.
At 25, she’s considered ‘‘old’’ in a sport often dominated by teens and where burnout, rather than late blooming is the usual pathway in one of sport’s most brutal and lonely pursuits.
Her career has been about clinging on. Understanding just how tough it’s been, and the challenges she’s still trying to overcome, is the real story.
Behind the amiable smile and quiet disposition is a tough character hooked on ambition.
AFTER HER first swimming lessons, thought to be around the age of seven, Boyle was identified as having a dose of natural talent. She persisted through senior school and by 16 was travelling overseas for competition.
And it was at a meet in Perth in 2003 that a dramatic decision was made, ultimately leading to history in Barcelona.
She had been studying languages and the arts, to high standards, for five years, but suddenly told her parents she wanted out of Auckland’s Kristin School to switch studies towards sciences and economics.
A career in sport, whether as a scientist or athlete, fuelled the change in direction to University of Cambridge exams at ACG Senior College in Auckland.
But coming in cold to new subjects, Boyle had some serious hard yards ahead of her.
She was playing catch-up and it was here determination and ambition had to grow.
Two years later, she was taking on even more, volunteering as an assistant to her swimming club’s treasurer. It would trigger an interest in business and contribute to a move across the Pacific ocean to further education in the US.
But all the academia, on top of a punishing training programme and a place in the New Zealand swim team as a youngster with potential, had been taking its toll. By her own admission, Boyle considered walking away from swimming. And that was the best part of a decade ago.
What stopped her from pulling the pin was the call of the prestigious University of California, Berkeley, and American Olympic coach Teri McKeever.
McKeever told the west Aucklander she was no longer a sprinter. She was to become a distance swimmer. It was a bizarre and drastic move, and a serious gamble from Boyle’s point of view. But McKeever, after seeing Boyle graduate, has now seen her former student finally bloom.
‘‘I’m proud that people are talking about her now. She’s truly been one of my greatest coaching joys. To watch her develop not only as an athlete, but as a young woman, it makes me very
I’m proud that people are talking about her now, she’s truly been one of my greatest coaching joys. To watch her develop not only as an athlete, but as a young woman, it makes me very proud. TERI McKEEVER
proud,’’ McKeever says.
But all the while Boyle was pushing for more and more work.
‘‘As her father it’s been very important to me, seeing Lauren in a twodimensional sense – athleticism and education,’’ says Allan Boyle.
‘‘She’s got incredible strength and resolve, it’s something rare and I think it’s self-taught. Of great personal satisfaction is she has never let either sport or education get ahead of the other – and it’s something she has always wanted to control herself, since her teens. It’s why she wanted to moved into Senior College in 2003.’’
Accepted to the Haas School of Business, a revered arm of Berkeley, Boyle significantly ratcheted up the workload once again.
While the swimming career continued to develop, the desire for education was just as strong – flirting with overload. Pulling it off was a feat in itself and on returning to New Zealand with a heavyweight education, Boyle had become the first Kiwi swimmer to truly excel in the American college system – blazing a trail for the likes of Sophia Batchelor, who is soon to follow Boyle’s path.
Graduating in May 2011, another big decision had to be made: Career or swimming? Boyle chose swimming but the environment she came home to was toxic.
SWIMMING NZ was publicly hammered last year in the third taxpayer-funded investigation of the dysfunctional sport body in four years.
After years of infighting, the board was asked to resign en masse but that was just one of 21 recommendations for a total shake-up.
Boyle’s long-time coach Mark Regan quit after his relationship with administrators deteriorated.
At the same time as Regan went, Boyle also saw her sport’s government funding slashed and swimming relegated to second-class status in the Crown’s Olympic strategy. Her success in Barcelona means her personal funding is now safe, and there is optimism for the sport’s wider funding rebuild too, with improved results across most of a new-look national squad.
With a new national coach and highperformance director in Briton David Lyles and Spaniard Luis Villanueva respectively, there’s a chance to begin effective, new athlete-coach relationships.
But even after the cleansing, the effects lingered: in the past few months alone Boyle has gone through four coaches. It’s not her fault – it’s because Swimming NZ was finding its feet again.
For a while she was even training without a permanent coach and was largely kept in the dark during the hiring process. For an athlete aiming at medals, it was a ridiculous place to be. But despite the multitude of disruptions, Boyle has soldiered on – and actually blossomed in the face of it.
Even in Barcelona, Boyle knew her personal government funding, the revenue which makes fulltime training possible, was on the line. There was no room for mistakes but it’s a position she’s become conditioned to.
And now one more decision faces Boyle. She has stopped short of committing to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, where she’ll be 28 (American superstar Michael Phelps retired at 27).
While she’ll be older, she’s never been faster.