InsideWAIS Feature: Mickle’s Mark – Part 2

At 30 years of age, Kim Mickle rates her career to date as a seven out of 10. She’s achieved things in athletics that most could only dream of, but as the javelin star enters the peak of her career, she has goals written down for the next 18 months that would render that scale obsolete. If you think it’s bravado, you don’t know Kim Mickle.

In a wide ranging interview with InsideWAIS over three-parts, Mickle outlines her plan of attack for this year’s World Championships and how she defied a surgeon that told her she would never throw again. She reveals her pain from underachievement in London, and discusses her drive to ensure history doesn’t repeat in Rio.

Part one is available here.

Kim Mickle has often used the roller coaster analogy to describe her career. Peaks and troughs have marked and guided, celebrated and despaired what at its core, and almost paradoxically, has been a remarkably consistent journey.

Kim won a Youth World title in 2001 in Debrecen, Hungary as a fresh-faced but non-fancied thrower who was sent on merit but justified equally, on gaining competition experience.

All experts and expectations suggested she would make up the numbers.

She instead, launched a massive personal best of 51.83m for gold at the same championships that launched track and field stars – Allyson Felix (US athlete – London Olympics 200m gold medallist) and Kiwi shot put legend Valerie Adams (four-time world champion and dual Olympic champion).

“That was pretty cool, cause I was the underdog and I almost like it that way, or I did when I was younger, I actually love being the best now,” she corrects herself, with customary laugh.

“Back then it was nothing to lose and I thrive off that adrenaline pumping moment. So when that moment came, they didn’t think I was going to qualify for the final, and then I won it. It was cool, I mean, who doesn’t like the underdog?”

There’s dichotomy in Kim’s competitive and personal character. In competition, she’s meticulous, holding a sheer determination to win. Out of sport, she’s as laidback and personable as anyone you could care to meet. The traits however, never appear in spite of one-another, and Kim controls the switch.

Having won youth gold, Mickle’s path to success appeared mapped out, until disaster struck a year later at the World Junior Championships in Kingston, Jamaica.

This time, heading in as gold medal favourite, Mickle destroyed her elbow joint in competition, as she launched a throw. The devastating injury required two reconstructions, of which Mickle still bears testament in the form a neat scar. The setback kept her out of javelin until 2005.

Mickle recalls receiving the news that the injury was thought to be career ending.

“The surgeon told me there was too much damage and I’d never throw again,” she said.

“I didn’t believe him, I’m pretty stubborn. I couldn’t understand how you couldn’t fix an elbow when people have had much worse things done. I just didn’t believe him. I’d heard of other javelin throwers going through the same thing and coming out the other side.

“Some other kids would probably just crumble and that would’ve been it,” she said.

But not Mickle, who instead with her mother Lee in tow, consulted another specialist who offered a chance. Likened to a flip of a coin – the specialist offered Kim a new approach, which was by no means certain, but at least provided light at the end of the tunnel.

“He gave me a 50-50 chance. It was a new baseball technique. Baseballers and ligaments aren’t friends – same with javelin throwers and elbow ligaments,” Kim offered.

Proof of the odds, Mickle’s first surgery was unsuccessful, but a second round, followed by a long recuperation period – in which Mickle took up soccer to maintain her fitness – returned her to javelin and back on towards her Olympic dreams.

“It unfortunately took two surgeries to do it. 2005 was the first time I threw again. I think I threw 55, and won nationals again that year,” she said smiling.

Kim’s personal best prior to her injury, had been 51m.

What drove Mickle was her own goals. Not unlike the written down targets she has for this year’s world championships, Kim had an outcome in mind, and injury was merely a hurdle en route.

“I told my mum when I was about six years old that I wanted to be an Olympian, and I never lost that dream,” she said.

Kim realised this dream at the 2012 London Olympics. Walking out for competition, she transcended aspiration to actual accomplishment the second she stepped foot on the famed London Olympic Stadium track.

She was fit, confident and ready to take the world by storm, yet inexpiably to her at the time, her three qualification throws failed to meet the automatic qualifying mark and her London experience was over almost as rapidly as it had begun.

Where many shy away from failure, Mickle took ownership and used the experience as the bedrock or catalyst for change that formed a “Team Mickle” approach that has led her to a World Championship silver medal in Moscow (2013) and to a point in her career where Rio represents more than redemption, but a chance to write her own chapter.

“My London Olympics was the worst thing I’ve ever done, yet, it’s gotten me to where I am now so I don’t know if I would change it,” Mickle reflects.

“I’m very much a whatever doesn’t kill you kind of person – maybe that was the blessing, like my elbow, like everything else I’ve been through.

“No, I probably wouldn’t change it, but I maybe would change where I stuffed it, probably at a world champs or a Comm Games, not an Olympics Games. But hey, my mum always says – if you’re going to do something, do it well. I stuffed it and I stuffed it well,” she laughed.

Mickle and her coach Grant Ward, devised a new approach. She was strong and could throw, that clearly wasn’t the problem. They enlisted the services of sports psychologist Brian Miller, who Mickle credits with changing her philosophy towards preparation.

“At London I was thinking there are millions of people watching right now, don’t stuff it up,” she said.

“He (Brian) very much taught me how to be within myself when ever I throw, don’t worry about others, don’t worry about what’s going on around you, it’s all about you.

“That just narrowed my mind and helped me pin point why I was doing things, and for me that just made things simpler.

Mickle’s team approach also consists of the service support she receives through WAIS, in areas such as strength and conditioning, physiology and biomechanics.

“It’s not just about sport here (WAIS), it’s about lifestyle as well and that’s where Grant and I became a great partnership because he realises I do this because I enjoy it, It’s not that I’m a robot and just want to win medals, it’s because I love it.”

“I can speak with any of our gym coaches, and they will help at the drop of a hat, Sacha (WAIS physiologist Sacha Fulton) is always on hand to assist with skin folds and Andrew Lyttle is hugely important with our biomech stuff,” she said.

With the support of “Team Mickle” Kim set upon a run of form that post London, saw the athlete medal at each competition she competed at to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, where she won gold with a new Commonwealth record.

That 24 month period of form included national championships, Diamond League events, and her career pinnacle, silver medal at the 2013 IAAF World Championships, where she threw two, then personal bests.

On her career to date, Mickle preferred to look forward rather than reflect on what she’s already achieved.

“It’s not 10 yet. I have a lot more goals that I want to achieve. I’ve always had that Australian record (which she achieved in March 2014), but now I wouldn’t mind having a crack at that 70m mark by the time I retire. That would probably be the moment that I would know that I’ve made it, when I can throw that sort of distance.”

In Part three, Mickle discusses her plans for Rio and the role of her relationship with long term coach and mentor Grant Ward.