As the 2012 London Olympics draw near, spare a thought for our athletes. As we casually go about our undisciplined daily lives, their entire being is focused on one thing: winning.
For the past four years, they have lived and dreamed sport. They have micromanaged their lives according to strict regimes, sweated to the point of exhaustion through daily multi-hour bouts of training, and absorbed the counsel of coaches, sports psychologists and exercise physiologists. Being an elite athlete is a vocation – and in this final fortnight the pressure is truly on.
How motivated are they? When Olympic swimmer Amaka Gessler crashed her bike on the way to training in 2011, fracturing an elbow, her first reaction was to ask an onlooker for a lift to the pool.
Part of that motivation comes from knowing that there is only a brief age window for an athlete to ascend to the physical and mental peaks of high performance sport.
At age 22, Gessler is not untypical. Although there are outliers, it is unusual for female swimmers to compete at an Olympic level beyond their mid twenties. If she is going to make her break, it needs to happen soon.
But she is in a cleft stick. That same period, from early adulthood through to mid twenties, is the time when society expects its members – athletes not excluded – to gain the education on which they will found future careers.
And the athletes themselves must think, there will be life after sport, then what?
So how does an aspiring elite athlete reconcile these two imperatives, an education and sporting success, the graduation stage with the victors’ podium.
For a great many of them, Massey University is the answer.
Indeed, if you tally the athletes going to London something remarkable emerges. A little under a third of New Zealand’s 185-strong Olympic Team are either Massey students or alumni.
If the University were a nation, it would be better represented than many countries. Jamaica is fielding a team of 50; Massey’s count is 53.
If the University were a nation, it would be better represented than many countries. Jamaica is fielding a team of 50; Massey’s count is 53.
Amaka Gessler – her injured elbow now well healed – is a Massey student, as are her women’s relay teammates Penelope Marshall and Natasha Hind. New Zealand cycling’s best medal prospect, Linda Villumsen and the gold-medal-prospect kayaker Lisa Carrington are Massey students. Then there is the rowing men’s pair, Hamish Bond and Eric Murray, an alumnus and a student respectively. In the past three years, the two have been undefeated. Can they maintain that record?
Why do athletes choose Massey? One reason is the University’s reputation as the New Zealand’s most flexible provider of education, offering distance, campus-based and mixed mode options and a range of qualifications. Villumsen is studying towards a Bachelor of Science; Murray a Bachelor of Communication; Carrington, a Bachelor of Arts.
There is the University’s commitment to quality without compromise. These are smart, highly motivated individuals. They want the best.
Then there are the facilities the University offers – gyms, running tracks and nearby stadia – and the expertise it harbours. Massey’s school of sport and exercise science is well regarded and one of its professors – Gary Hermannsen – is the New Zealand Olympics Team official sports psychologist.
But perhaps the best argument in favour of Massey is its human touch and its willingness to adapt to the needs and circumstances of its students. Kelly Evans the high performance coordinator at Massey’s Academy of Sport, works with Massey’s athletes daily. She is the one who talks to them about which paper and programmes will suit their work-life balance – remembering that distance education in particular is more often an endurance event than sprint – and who works alongside Massey’s exam department to organise exam sittings in far flung locations.
No wonder then that when in 2011 High Performance Sport New Zealand set about designating New Zealand’s ‘athlete-friendly’ universities, Massey was the first to be so named.
Why this emphasis on sport? Because if we are New Zealand’s defining university, then we should engage with a sector that helps define New Zealand in our own eyes and those of the world. Because if Massey’s byline is ‘the engine of the new New Zealand’, then this too is a reason. One study has put the market value of sport and recreation to the New Zealand economy in 2008/09 at $5.2 billion, with productivity and health benefits valued at $1.0 billion and the personal benefits of participating in sport and recreation amounting to $6 billion.
Many of Massey’s alumni are now highly successful within that sector. Robin Stalker, the Chief Financial Officer of adidas, Matt Holmes, the Senior Design Director of Global Footwear for Nike, and Kit McConnell, the Tournament Director for last year’s Rugby World Cup, are three individuals who immediately spring to mind.
And at this year’s Olympics there is, once again, a personal Massey connection.
Lara Middleditch, who is studying for a Master of Management in Sport Business extramurally through Massey, is in London working as the Central Planning Manager for Event Services at the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Like the athletes, Lara and her fellow organisers have been putting in long hours in preparation and practice; when the Olympics launch and the competition begins, she’ll be there.
But there is a drawback: her complete attention will be on ensuring the Games success; there will be no time to cheer on her country’s athletes.
She will have to leave that up to us.
