WINTER Olympian Gareth Nichols delivered an interesting, inspiring and amusing account of how a boy from Singleton became a member of Australia’s four-man bob sled team to an excited room of King Street Public School (KSPS) students on Wednesday.
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There was plenty of talk about the popular film Cool Runnings, a movie based on Jamaica’s first bob sledding team, how dangerous the sport is and some unusual questions like – when was Nichols planning on settling down.
An amused Nichols replied: “After the next winter Olympics in Korea.”
Nichols, who recently competed at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, paid a visit to his old school, where back in 1995 he was school captain.
He fondly recalled his memories of growing up in Singleton and playing a range of sports, including his favourite rugby union.
He revealed to the students this was the sport he originally wanted to pursue at a professional level while studying Engineering at Newcastle University but a devastating knee injury put an end to this dream.
However, it opened another door because after some vigorous rehab Nichols discovered “he was very good at running hard in straight lines”.
This led to him becoming involved in beach sprinting, an activity that took him all the way to Egypt where he achieved a world ranking of nine.
“Beach sprinting was fun but it did not rev me up like rugby did,” he said.
“You actually had to be very calm and focused.”
Although, he continued training when he graduated and moved to the small town of Newman in Western Australia for work.
From here, a trip to Perth led to him meeting a life-long friend and the state’s 100m sprint champion, Lucas Mata, who convinced him to take up athletics.
“One day when we were training, my friend Lucas said he received an email from Duncan (a member of the 2010 team) in Vancouver suggesting he would be good at the sport,” Nichols recounted.
“We ended up qualifying first and second and the next day we were on a plane to Canada.”
He remembers thinking – what is a boy from a small country town, who has been training in the desert at temperatures of about 40 degrees, taking on a world of ice and of temperatures of minus 40?
Nichols says the thing to take away from his story is that if you work hard enough and take opportunities when they are presented to you – anything is possible.
He also had a bit of fun with the students, showing them how a four-man team position themselves in a sled.
