InsideWAIS Feature: Kim Mickle’s Road to Redemption
Once every four years, the Olympic Games takes hold of the national sporting psyche and envelopes the sporting landscape like few others. Heroes can be born, but so too can tales of disappointment and underachievement.
The commonly termed “Post Games blues” can affect those that win as well as those that lose, but there’s no doubt that once normalcy is returned, the longer lingering questions lay dormant with those that which performance didn’t meet with design.
One such story of opportunity missed belonged to WAIS javelin thrower Kim Mickle. The inveterately popular self coined “spear chucker” who made her Olympic debut in London, found that a life-long dream could turn bleak in the sporting equivalent of a fleeting moment.
Mickle entered London Australia’s top ranked thrower, but after three qualifying throws short of the required mark, she left the Olympic stadium shattered almost inconsolable.
She has spoken of the hurt and made no bones of the under achievement, but what she has done since suggests that she will not shirk at the challenges that wait.
Last weekend, London hosted the Anniversary Games, which although coupled as the London leg of the globetrotting Diamond League series, was designed to celebrate the first anniversary of the Olympic stadium bursting into colour and life with its historic and spectacularly successful Olympic and Paralympic Games. Success of course is relative, and the irony would no doubt not have been lost on Kim.
The Bolts, Pearsons, Weirs and Ennis of International track and field were all there, but so too was Kim, and whilst her story has pages yet to fill, the darkest of its sporting chapters was given a timely edit.
Mickle – in career best form – threw 63.05m to finish third at the London event. This time, there was no disappointment, no tears and ultimately, no problems. In her own trademark knockabout fashion, Kim took to social media to share her relief.
In part it read: “bloody stoked to have redemption at that track.” That it warrants scant mention, suggests the venue still bears scars, but evidently the first layers of healing is manifest.
Redemption clearly is a motivating factor for Mickle. In May she threw a then season’s best in New York, in her first international competition for 2013, just days off a long haul flight.
After the competition she said: “I can only speak for myself really, but the biggest driver for me this year is the disappointment of London and I think in some ways it is probably driving people like Benn (Harradine), Dani (Samuels) and Julian (Wruck). We were all a little less successful than we probably would have liked in London and in some ways the form we wanted at the Olympics is something that we are working very hard to have now. It’s redemption for what could have been, in a way.”
In a way, she was right. Since London, Mickle has medalled in each event she has competed in. A new strength and conditioning coach, work with a specialist sports psychologist and a revised training strategy with her long-term WAIS coach Grant Ward has all helped, but Mickle herself has knuckled down for the best period of training and preparation she has ever had.
A precocious talent, Mickle’s career by her own definition has been a “roller coaster” of highs and lows, both performance wise and emotionally. From the highs of winning a junior world title and medalling at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the eight time national champion has also suffered the lows of serious injuries that have stopped her from regularly reaching what is unquestionably world class ability.
A reconstructed elbow, a completely reconstructed thumb on her throwing right hand, and a fractured rib and torn muscle sustained in qualifying for London at the 2011 World Championships in South Korea head a list of injuries that had seemingly dictated that any steps forward, had been equally met by one step back.
But 2013 has been different. The inconsistencies that have at times plagued the 28 year-old have given way to a meticulous performer who has stretched a personal best (64.35m) into territory which if replicated at August’s World Championships, could well see the Australian Flame member take a step on the medal dais at a peak world competition for the first time.
There are no guarantees in sport, and come August Mickle will need to produce her best again. In the mean time, a last block of training before joining the Australian Flame team at the pre-Worlds camp in Tonbridge awaits. Whilst medals are always the goal, it is just as likely 2013 in this particular case, represents redemption.