16 broken bones, but BMXer Sarah Walker is back ‘stronger than ever’
Failure and success go hand in hand for Sarah Walker, writes Marc Hinton.
Sarah Walker is used to going out on a limb. Every time she stands on her pedals in the starting gate, awaiting that imminent, adrenalin-charged moment where she must send her BMX bike hurtling downhill, into the first jump, the first corner, the first brush with calamity, she stares fear in the face and refuses to blink.
It’s what she does. And she has the scars to prove it.
But even by her standards, you would think the 28-year-old Cambridge-based pride of Kawerau is challenging her comfort zone when she tells the world that ‘‘failure is awesome’’. An athlete whose sporting career has been defined by her world titles, by her precious Olympic silver medal (in London, 2012), and here she is declaring that to come up short is indeed a glorious thing.
It’s a fascinating concept that Walker explores in a series of advertisements for tech sponsor Samsung airing right now. They’re beautifully shot, minute-long, mini-capsules of Walker’s life. Her ethos. Her raison d’etre.
In one she rattles off her list of significant injuries: 16 broken bones, six surgeries, plates in her left wrist, in her left humerus, in her right wrist. Then she declares: ‘‘If you don’t fail, you’re not really pushing the boundaries to see what’s possible.’’
In another, while she’s lying prone, post-crash, watching her other self fly See Sarah Walker talk about embracing failure at round the track, she says: ‘‘Failure is awesome ... I crashed in practice at the world champs and it was my last chance to qualify for the Rio Olympic Games. In that moment it was proof I was giving 100 per cent. It’s part of what makes me who I am. I’m not going to let fear control what I do.’’
Industry types have drawn parallels between New Zealand’s BMX icon getting up off the deck and dusting herself off, and Samsung’s own travails with its ill-fated Galaxy Note 7. In that sense they have chosen the perfect vehicle to portray a message that Walker believes passionately.
Walker loved the concept of encapsulating her career in a 60-second snapshot, but it had to have authenticity. ‘‘Failing being a good thing isn’t something people are used to, and being able to portray that in 60 seconds is tricky,’’ she says. ‘‘The idea of having me on the track, and seeing me ride past, then crashing, and getting up and ‘yeah, I failed here, but I’m going to get it right next time’ ... seeing that visually was really cool. But the message of failing and moving forward is a very real message.’’
In fact, as Walker sets off on one more Olympic cycle, one more campaign on her BMX bike (she leaves tomorrow for the Oceania championships in Bathurst, Australia starting next Friday), the ‘‘failure is awesome’’ message is one she happily extols. Now.
‘‘I hated failing and letting anyone down,’’ she tells the Star-Times. ‘‘That was a big fear for me. To embrace failure was a massive challenge and really scary. It didn’t happen overnight, and I would actually practise failing, knowing it was OK. As I went on I was able to really embrace it. You’re going to have moments you fail, but there are so many moments we fail where that failure is really, really good.’’
Walker uses her gym training as an example. Unless she fails at lifting a certain weight, how can she know she’s given 100 per cent of what she’s got? Same on the BMX track. Unless she’s comfortable with the possibility of crashing, how can she push those limits? ‘‘In BMX it’s safer to accept you could crash than to be afraid of it,’’ she adds.
Of course, Walker isn’t the first elite athlete to embrace the failure message. A certain Michael Jordan once declared: ‘‘I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.’’
For Walker her silver medal in London was a form of failure because she had been aiming for the gold. ‘‘But because I accepted that failure is there, I didn’t get gutted at a silver medal. That was the coolest moment of my life and I was so proud of myself because I wasn’t afraid to fail. I gave everything to be the best I could possibly be, and in that moment it was second.’’
Same with her unsuccessful attempt to make it to Rio. Though it came up short on the back of a broken arm suffered in training early in 2016 — one of three cataclysmic crashes that have been responsible for the lion’s share of those 16 broken bones — she was as proud of her effort to get there as she was her London silver.
‘‘I couldn’t have done anything more [to get to Rio]. It sucked not to be there but I couldn’t have changed anything. I was the strongest I could be, the fastest I could be, and that was the outcome. It was the same with London. One outcome was the silver medal; one To embrace failure was a massive challenge and really scary outcome was not qualifying. But I gave it everything I could in both situations, and that’s all you can do.’’
Walker uses the same mental strength, honed by noted Waikato sports psychologist David Galbraith, to deal with that dreaded fear factor.
‘‘It’s always there,’’ she says. ‘‘I’m definitely not fearless, but I have learnt the tools to overcome fear. I’ve learnt how to be more courageous, and put fear aside for the performance I need. That’s an awesome tool because there are going to be moments in my life outside of BMX that will be scary.’’
Walker is in a good place now as she embarks on a campaign that will take her to twin world cups in May and then to the world championships in July. Maybe even better than she’s ever been thanks to a second stint using track cycling as her chief summer training regime.
BMX isn’t at the Commonwealth Games. But track cycling is, and that intrigues Walker.
Last year before she broke her arm in February she had been the ‘‘strongest and fastest’’ she had ever been, thanks to track cycling. That continued this year, with a national team sprint title to show for it.
Now she sees track as not only a valuable tool to prepare for BMX, but as a potential destination in 2018. ‘‘It’s a really cool challenge and the training is really good. In BMX when you get fatigued you have to stop because it’s dangerous. In track you can just keep going. It just gets ugly but the danger isn’t there and the training you’re able to do is amazing.’’
But that’s down the line. A focus for next summer, when she’ll try to crack a Commonwealth Games spot. In the meantime BMX beckons.
‘‘I know I was the strongest and fastest I had ever been last year but I didn’t get to compete at that level. I want to see what that is capable of, whether it’s first or 16th. I do BMX because I love it, I don’t do it for the Olympics, for the outcomes. I do it because it’s awesome. Not qualifying [for Rio] allowed me to prove that, not only to other people, but to myself.’’