World champion hurdler Jana Pittman says she’s still coming to terms with her move away from professional sport towards a new career in medicine.
“I'm not really sure I've actually coped with it yet,” she says. “I think it's probably the hardest thing I've ever dealt with.”
Pittman became emotional hearing stories of retirement from her fellow athletes on Insight’s two-part special looking at how sporting greats cope with life after sport, saying she finds it hard to let go of her athletics career having never reached her goal of an Olympic gold medal.
“Whereas these guys have obviously succeeded, I didn't ever hit the goal that I was hoping for in my career,” she says. “Growing up as a child, wanting to win the Olympic Games, is all I've ever dreamed of.”
“I can't let go because that elusive gold medal never happened.”
She says moving away from professional sports has also been hard because, for many years, she tied her identity to success on the track.
“I think part of my lack of retirement issues … was trying to prove to other people that I am actually a good athlete; that I am actually worth who I am,” she tells Insight’s Jenny Brockie. “[It] took a long time, probably getting into the medical school, before I realised that actually I'm okay just as I am.”
“I think that is one of the biggest challenges we have as retiring athletes: being able to accept, for us, what is mediocre.”
I think that is one of the biggest challenges we have as retiring athletes: being able to accept, for us, what is mediocre.
Pittman had a stint representing Australia in bobsleigh at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games, before continuing her studies in medicine – a profession she says was another childhood dream.
“[As a child] I carried a doctor's bag around and administered medication to all my brothers and sisters.”
Academia has been a significant part of her life, paralleling her sporting career. She sat her Higher School Certificate in an embassy in Chile during a World Junior Championships meet - just a couple of weeks after competing at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.
“I used to study with a torch on the way home in my HSC year from training and I think … at that stage I didn't believe I was going to be good enough to be an elite athlete so I wanted that background and that background option.”
Jana Pittman, on Insight Source: Insight
It’s been a fulfilling ‘plan B’, and she credits her best performance years to those where she was also doing well academically, achieving a rewarding balance between the two.
But, Pittman admits, the next Olympic Games plays on her mind – despite niggling injuries that have plagued much of her career.
“Now, right in the back of my head, it's like, ‘Sweet, three years till Tokyo,” she says.
“So you still think about Tokyo?” asks Brockie.
“Can't help it,” she says. “That's why I need an off switch … I would love a set of doctors to sit me down and say, ‘You are done’.”
“I am going to be a doctor and I still can't tell myself I'm done.”
Catch up on both shows now. Part I:
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And Part II
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