Catching Up With … Aussie Olympic Champ Jodie Henry Making a Distinction for New Technology
After a record-breaking week within the pool again in 2004 at Athens, Australia’s Jodie Henry left the birthplace of the Fashionable Olympic Video games as a triple Olympic gold medalist and triple world report holder, heralding the dawning of a brand new period in Australian ladies’s swimming.
It’s been 20 years since Jodie Henry emerged as a member of a revolutionary group of Australian dash freestyling ladies who arrived into the 2004 Olympic metropolis of Athens with golden goals.
Henry, a humble, happy-go-lucky Queenslander, unleashed her back-end pace to win particular person gold within the 100 meter freestyle closing, beating former world report holder Inge de Bruijn (NED) and the celebrated Natalie Coughlin (USA). Henry’s title was complemented by a world report, as she broke teammate Libby Lenton’s mark along with her 53.52 within the semifinal.
Henry additionally anchored the Australian ladies to not one, however two relay gold medals within the 400 freestyle and the 400 medley—each in world-record instances.
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Flash ahead to 2024: When the present crop of Aussie world-beating sprinters—Emma McKeon, Mollie O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack, Meg Harris, Bronte Campbell and Olivia Wunsch—took to the pool deck in Paris for the most recent Olympiad, Henry was left pacing the ground of her Brisbane residence, chewing her fingernails!
Photograph Courtesy: Adam Fairly
Henry, now 40 and the mom of three children, has a vested curiosity within the present batch of Dolphins who’ve carried the Olympic 400 freestyle relay torch over the previous twenty years. In any case, it was a flame lit by Henry and her staff in these golden Video games of Athens. The Class of 2024 added a record-equaling fourth consecutive 400 freestyle relay gold medal in Paris to their wins in London, Rio and Tokyo.
Together with fellow Olympian Linley Body, Henry works with Australia’s Olympians and Paralympians in Athlete Wellbeing for Swimming Australia. She is tasked with making a distinction within the lives of the current-day swimmers and setting them up for all times after sport.
Henry is captivated with her position: “Figuring out them provides these further nerves on prime and particularly when you understand some are fairly nervous racers as nicely,” stated Henry. “You simply need them to do their greatest…to the touch that wall and be proud of how they went.
“We work with our national-team athletes in each our Olympic and Paralympic applications, so we have now between 70 and 80 athletes that we glance after. It’s a program that entails participating with every athlete—which could be very totally different, too…relying on the athlete. It’s so good to see these athletes with a future focus and a future-thinking mindset, understanding that swimming isn’t going to final without end. They’re working towards that subsequent skilled objective after swimming…which is basically good to see.
“In our era, swimmers usually struggled with that transition out of sport as a result of they didn’t actually have that id past being the athlete. So, it’s actually good to see now that persons are extra conscious of that, and we all know that transition out of sport goes to be exhausting it doesn’t matter what. Once you go from being an athlete to turning into a standard particular person locally—and the challenges that all the time include that—it’s very nice to see that it’s altering.”
A BIT OF HISTORY
Henry grew to become solely the third Australian lady to win the coveted particular person 100 freestyle Olympic title. The 2004 staff was solely the second Australian squad to win the 400 freestyle relay and the primary staff to win the 400 medley relay.
The 100 freestyle was first swum for ladies in Stockholm in 1912, when Australian Corridor of Famer Fanny Durack received her Olympic gold forward of fellow Aussie Mina Wylie in a history-making starting for ladies’s swimming.
It wasn’t till 44 years later that the unstoppable Daybreak Fraser received the primary of her three 100 freestyle crowns in Melbourne in 1956, adopted by Rome in 1960 and Tokyo in 1964.
After Fraser’s history-making feats, no Australian had stepped as much as the Olympic medal dais within the 100 freestyle for 32 years—since Munich in 1972 when Shane Gould received bronze behind the U.S. pair of Sandra Neilson and Shirley Babashoff.
A couple of half-century faraway from the Fraser period, Australian coaches capitalized on their proficient group of rising freestylers, led by Henry, Lenton, Alice Mills and established two-time Olympians Sarah Ryan and Olympic butterfly medalist Petria Thomas, bringing them collectively for specifically organized coaching camps.
“We have been the beginning of that dash revolution—again within the day when coaching was all the time simply piling up kilometer after kilometer,” Henry stated. “However within the early 2000s, we had coaches who realized that’s most likely not one of the simplest ways to educate feminine sprinters.
“So we have been in a position to flip it on its head, and we put some actually good classes collectively and have been in a position to construct and construct…and ultimately, we have been in a position to unleash our pace. It began with myself and Alice (Mills), after which Libby (Lenton) got here on the scene. Alice and I educated collectively (underneath Coach Shannon Rollason), so we knew what one another was doing a variety of the time in coaching…and (we pushed) one another alongside and knew what was attainable as nicely.
“Libby wasn’t with us each day (since she educated in one other program with Coach Stefan Widmer), but it surely was so good once we all got here collectively, feeding off one another. It was a time when Inge de Bruijn was breaking 54 seconds for 100 freestyle. And it was like, ‘OMG—that’s only a freak of nature…that’s not attainable!’”
However by the point the Australians arrived in Athens after their German coaching camp, they knew something was attainable.
A NEW CHAPTER OF OLYMPIC GLORY
On the 2004 Olympics, the Aussie ladies wasted no time in making their mark and turning heads on the pool deck with the 400 freestyle relay on the opening evening of the jam-packed eight-day program. Olympic glory and their very own chapter in Australia’s storied swimming historical past awaited.
In 1912, Durack and Wylie had completed first and second within the particular person 100 freestyle. Since they have been the one two females on the staff, Australia put it to Olympic officers that they swim two legs every. That proposal was rejected.
In 1956, it was Fraser who led her staff to win Australia’s first gold within the ladies’s 400 free relay, with Lorraine Crapp, Sandra Morgan and Religion Leech.
In 2004, the Australians had the posh of main off with Mills, adopted by then world report holder Lenton—who had damaged de Bruijn’s world mark on the Australian Trials (with the time lowered later within the week by Henry within the semifinal)—adopted by Thomas.
Henry powered previous U.S. legend and one other former world report holder in Jenny Thompson on the anchor leg, clocking the quickest time in historical past along with her break up of 52.95.
The Australians broke the U.S. stranglehold on an occasion that they had owned since Barcelona in 1992, and so they took down East Germany’s world report.
STAYING FOCUSED
Henry knew the stress was now off…or was it?
“The truth that we received the 4×100 free on the primary evening form of lifted the stress a bit, however then on the flip facet, it didn’t after I swam that fairly good anchor leg,” recalled Henry. “It was the beginning of a incredible week for me, one which felt like an out-of-body expertise—such as you have been watching another person do it.
“So, for me, the proudest factor about profitable the 100 was that I used to be in a position to keep centered…to maintain my thoughts and physique on the job—doing what was presupposed to be achieved, which was swimming two laps of freestyle up and down the pool as quick as I may. So simple as it sounds, your head can actually get in the way in which of that, in order that’s the factor I’m most pleased with—that I didn’t let my head get in the way in which.”
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Married to Brisbane Lions former Australian Guidelines Soccer Premiership winner Tim Notting, the couple has three children: Emmy (14), Charlie (12) and Freddie (9). When Swimming World tracked her down, Henry was on the Queensland Sunshine Coast doing what she does in her position, catching up with the subsequent era making ready for LA28 and Brisbane 2032.
Says Henry: “Generally you simply get to some extent the place you need to give again, and I’m lucky sufficient to be taking part in this position now.”
