There was also the twenty-year-old axolotl (also known as a Mexican salamander) which passed on just before she left for London. Did I mention the chooks who come when they’re called? You get the picture. You’re lucky to be an animal at Villa Formosa. They’re officially ‘part of the family’.
A family that’s missing one very important member, still on his way home from England.
WorldWide PB is a seventeen-year-old liver chestnut Hanoverian Warmblood stallion and stands at 16.1 hands. Joann purchased him just seven months before the London Games. He is her dream horse. ‘It’s just like a fairytale. I cannot believe he’s mine,’ she explains. ‘He’s quiet and gentle when I’m around him. He looks to see where I am. When I’m brushing him or if I fall over when I’m leading him, he waits until I get up.’
Combined with his expressive movement, he is, Joann says, ‘the ideal para-equestrian horse. He’s like a spiritual horse. He just knows what’s what. It’s my freedom.’
I ask Joann to expand on that sense of liberation.
‘Just day-to-day things take a lot out of my body and it gets really painful. I don’t want to be held back by my illnesses, but when I’m on WorldWide I feel like I am part of him, I feel like we even breathe the same way, it’s just this freedom and this love and the feeling I can do anything I want to do.’
But she can’t stay in the saddle forever. ‘That’s when reality hits in, when my foot hits the ground and a hip has to slide back to where it’s supposed to be. Reality hits in that, yes, I’ve had this magical ride — now you get off and you have to work for it again.’
Joann has to be lifted onto her saddle and rides without stirrups. She also rides mainly off one hip and has weak hand and arm control. She has an exemption to use voice commands during her tests. ‘[Trainer] Manuela McLean has been helping me teach WorldWide different cues. He just wants to learn everything, and he picks it up so quickly. It just seems to work.’
With the process of quarantine, more than two months will have elapsed after the Paralympics before Joann gets WorldWide back home to Broadford.
Horses have been part of Joann’s life for as long as she can remember. She reckons she came out of the womb ‘horse crazy’. ‘I used to get up early to watch the milkman come past with his horse. My grandfather used to work with Clydesdales and he would tell me lots of stories about them. My father had a Palomino when he was a young boy. He wasn’t horsey but he used to say to me, “One day I will buy you the most beautiful horse around,” and I said to him, “But I don’t want to wait for that day, I don’t even care if it’s the ugliest horse around, I just want one now!”’
Joann was always told she was a dreamer, that her head was in the clouds. But she kept dreaming. She knew what she wanted. Just not the way it would happen.
Twenty-five years ago, Joann was riding one of her Welsh Mountain ponies in the back paddock. She used to breed and show them. It was a lifestyle she worked three shift jobs to support. ‘Whatever my horses needed I bought for them.’
It was a windy day and, after her ride, instead of getting off her horse to open up the big farm gate, she chose to unhook it while still in the saddle and throw it across the ground, hoping it would land on a rock and stay there until she passed through.
‘It didn’t, it swung back and I got wedged between the gate and the gate post like a cork. I was caught in the middle — and my horse jumped forward and cracked my body in two different directions. I remember the pain being so intense it just blew out of my head.’
Joann’s memories after that are segmented. Of waking up lying under her horse, not knowing how long she had been out for. Of wanting to make sure the horse was okay. Somehow dragging herself back to the house and into her bedroom. Of trying to get her riding boots off and not being able to, then waking up two days later to the incessant ringing of her phone. ‘I was lying backwards on the bed with my legs in a sitting position. Everyone assumed I was on night shift, or one of my other jobs.’
To this day, Joann doesn’t know how, but she managed to drag herself into her car and drive to work in a confused panic. From there she was rushed to hospital.
‘I was in a land of denial,’ Joann reflects. ‘I was scared more about being late for my work than I was about my legs [which had become twisted]. It was around lunchtime. I don’t remember the pain then or getting to work or hospital.’
The accident had severely damaged her central nervous system and both legs, which led to incomplete paraplegia. It left her right leg as a ‘rubber leg’; today, Joann can still swing her right foot around until it points in the opposite direction. Her hips would dislocate on a regular basis and she would be in and out of traction for the next ten years.
She was twenty-six.
The shadows Joann talked about emerging from in London were huge. In rehab, she was told much of the time that she would never walk or ride again. Told she was in denial.
‘I’ve had a lot of surgery. Lucky I’m a patient person. I had to sell my horses and move off the land, have people come in and out of my house to help me with medical things. I felt like I had lost my independence and everything that was close to me. I found out who my real friends were. It was just a big life-changing thing. And to be told I would be wheelchair bound and not be able to ride any more — that was a killer. Then I knew — nope, this is not going to happen.’
A couple of years after the accident, Joann’s case manager talked to her about going along to Riding for the Disabled (RDA). Joann refused, cancelling the appointments because she thought it would be ‘just like kiddie rides. I did not want to look into it. I did not want to be a disabled person.
‘I had a young daughter [Olivia] at the time. One morning my case manager put us in the car and just took us to Oaklands RDA where I met this wonderful lady called Pat Blake. She talked me through it and — I owe her a lot — I started to do it. The day they stopped leading me around was the best day of my life and then I started finding out how I could ride again my own way.’
Within two years, Joann started doing competitions on RDA horses and, after a decade of training and volunteering, gained her coach’s licence in 2000, so she could in turn train and inspire other riders — give something back.
From there, Joann’s personal riding blossomed. From making the Victorian para-equestrian squad in the early 2000s, to her first trip overseas as part of the Australian team at the 2006 World Games in England, to winning Paralympic gold on her first attempt in 2012 — it almost sounds too easy. It was anything but.
On returning home from those World Games in 2006, Joann suffered a second accident, when a horse she was riding bolted and she was forced to come off. It is hard for her to remember the specifics of that time as she acquired some brain injury in the fall. She also nearly lost a leg, and now has severe allergic reactions to many things. ‘Like a bubble person,’ Joann tells me. ‘Just about anything can set off an anaphylactic reaction.’
The reality is that some moments were very low. ‘Being told I’m not going to live. Having my family brought in and crying over my bed and seeing my daughter telling me she couldn’t do this any more, seeing me so sick in one of my lowest times — that was really hard. And just telling her I’ve got my goal. I’ve lasted this long and it’s okay, I’m going to be fine; trying to convince [my family] that I’ve got this goal and dream and I’m going to do it. Nothing is going to knock me off. It’s like a cat having nine lives — I’ve got more than nine.’
Joann has a district nurse visit Monday to Friday to assist with needles and dressings, and then she visits the local Kilmore hospital Saturdays and Sundays for more of the same. All the hospital staff know her. For years she has come back and forth to be ‘patched up’. ‘They know my hobby and my love is killing me but I wouldn’t have it any other way — and they support me to do it. Regardless of what happens I really am a lucky person — really I am.’
Joann also credits the medical support she received at the London Games as
being a major part of her success. ‘I had a lot of fluid in the lungs — I was pretty sick there. Vicky Kahn, our sports physio, was pummelling my back every day and taping up my shoulders to stop dislocations. The medical team really worked hard and we were doing a lot of breathing techniques and I had two nurses and saw the doctor regularly to tell me what I was able to take.’
Joann spent a lot of time with her legs up on the wall to help drain fluid. ‘People look at me and think I look all right, but there is a lot going on underneath. I’ve got two lymphoedema stockings over a zip sock on one leg [the leg that doesn’t bend]. The other one has a tight stocking on to keep fluids and clots away. Then I’m strapped up with tape across my back. I’m allergic to tape so that has to be taken off as soon as I have finished my event and then breathing wise …’ She pauses. ‘But when I get on [WorldWide] it seems to all fall into place.’
And so it did. On 1 September 2012, in front of an educated and generous crowd at Greenwich Park, including her mother and sister, Joann Formosa fulfilled her Paralympic dream with gold at her first attempt in the Individual 1B Championship, pushing hometown favourite Lee Pearson into the silver medal position — his first loss at a Paralympics in twelve years.
Pearson acknowledged the achievement, telling Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, ‘I know what it means. It was very emotional and she was crying her eyes out on the podium saying she was standing between two legends [Pearson and bronze medallist Pepo Puch of Austria, who also rode at an Olympics].’
As for Joann, ‘I did say to Lee, “Sorry mate, it did have to be done by an Aussie and a woman!” I just had to prove that I could do it. He said that I was very gracious. The atmosphere was fantastic there, so friendly. I may not have great legs, but put me on a horse and I am different person. I am free.’
Joann says her Paralympic gold is a team gold: for the Australian para-equestrian team; for her family, her friends and fundraising supporters in Broadford and Kilmore; for the small sponsors who stuck by her; and for all the doctors, nurses and therapists who have kept her alive.
Since London, Joann has helped set up the Kilmore Adult Riding Club. She wants to create a place for local coaches and those with disabilities to come and experience what she has. To create a location closer than Melbourne that provides the possibility of achieving dreams.
Once the house is fixed, Joann’s plan is to sell it and buy a property in Broadford big enough to have all her animals on the one parcel of land, including the precious WorldWide, who has always been agisted nearby. ‘Even now I’m against the odds, but it has always been that driving flame — that love and passion that I have for riding. It’s my life. I’ve got to have it. That’s what gets me through the bad times. When I’m in hospital I’m scheming my next ride, my next competition, what I’ve got to do. I ride my test in my head. I’m obsessed with it.’
Obsessed indeed. Joann is aiming for the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, because there is nothing stopping her remarkable spirit.
I’m out of the shadows now and I’m in the sunlight. Look out. I’m here to be seen now.
The comeback
by TW Gibbings
I CAN’T REMEMBER his name. I’m not even sure he’s still alive.
Steve? Stevie maybe? Perhaps neither; but that second chimes the loudest of Year 12’s fading peals.
We formed our bond — such as it was — in Evolution 1.01, where Stevie and I were unique in our rationalism. Our desks were surrounded by Christians. We were besieged by believers. Naomi (I can remember her name), the smartest, nicest, most righteous girl and editor of the school religious rag, Young Christian Creationist Weekly, sat next to me because she was in love with me but couldn’t give into sin.
Her trammelled desire might have been easier to dismiss did she not possess a figure to throw Richard Dawkins upon his knees, clamouring for the tonsure. She sat on one side of me; Stevie sat on the other. I talked with Stevie mostly, spinning to Naomi only for a reaction to another of my hilarious Homo erectus gags or when not looking at her became too much for my howling, virginal libido — say, every thirty-seven seconds.
But I digress.
Stevie’s was not a companionship I would have sought, necessarily. His awkwardness didn’t bolster my fragile schoolyard credibility. He wasn’t particularly tall, see, and the cut of his jib was not redolent of the heroism sung in songs. He was all angles and apexes — elbows, knees, chin and prominent, grey teeth. His hair was buzz-cut short and he was thin. Twig arms and stick legs, his clothes hung on him like slack sails. He was old — twenty — and hadn’t been at school for a couple of years, apparently.
But in Evolution, we cracked wise. And, to be fair, he was all right. He threw some solid chat. Apart from our shared appreciation for the science-explained wonders of the universe, Stevie also liked footy. Loved footy. We talked footy a lot.
Paying frankly imperfect attention to the blackboard we talked about the code, the teams, the stars (Carey, Hird, Lockett); we chatted about who we supported and why (him: Footscray and family, me: Fremantle and whim); we talked about our personal experiences in the game. As our quality banter went the journey I formed the distinct but anomalous impression, after a quiet line or two here and a shadowy hint there, that Stevie had tickets on himself. He was a gun, or had been, back in the day.
Bullshit, I thought. Must have been. I wasn’t then the expert armchair judge of a footballer I’ve become but, even so, I knew a gun needed more bullets than Stevie could stick in his bandolier. With a dismissiveness befitting a Soviet show trial, I receipted and filed him as a skinny try-hard.
Nonetheless, I did condescend to encourage him down to train with my footy team. He demurred initially, but in the last week of pre-season — just as it got really clear-night, star-bright, Canberra cold, when all you can think about is a chillihot shower and massive spag bol — he showed up shivering in trackie daks, a woollen Doggies jumper, gloves, and a beanie.
I was surprised that he rocked up, and not super happy about it. It was the self-styled reputation thing again. The point being, if I was going to bring someone to the club, I wanted to bring a weapon. A semi-automatic assault rifle with an unlimited magazine masquerading as a six-foot-five Victorian prodigy who’d emerged from the womb mouthguard on and boots laced. Not a stunted twenty-year-old with an age exemption, delusions of faded grandeur and the destructive threat of a water pistol.
Pretending I didn’t really know him, and putting myself in the drill he wasn’t in, meant I didn’t see how he trained, but he effervesced in class the next day. He was definitely coming to the next training sesh, and he reckoned he might even put his hand up to play when the season began that Saturday if the doctor was cool about it — who were we playing again?
‘Tuggeranong Bulldogs at Gordon,’ I said.
He shrank a little at that. Turned a bit greyer. ‘No shit,’ he said. Apparently they had been his junior club. He hadn’t been to Gordon Oval for five years, more than. Since before he got sick.
‘It’s still wind-burnt and’ — sotto voce — ‘fucking cold,’ I said, then tactfully, ‘You were sick then, were ya?’
‘Yeah,’ he’d murmured, licking the gums between his teeth and his top lip, ‘a bit.’ Then the teacher free-kicked me a question about the Cambrian explosion and I grasped the opportunity for a cheap goal at Naomi’s expense.
As I drove home, L-plates on and hyperventilating, I raised the subject with my old man, who taught at the same school. I was trying to be a good bloke so why would Stevie keep serving up bullshit and expecting me to eat it?
‘He keeps talking about how he was a jet and tore it up when he was a junior. I let it go, but it’s annoying and it’s sort of sad.’ I checked the mirrors.
‘He’s not taking the piss — a few years ago Stevie was a superstar.’
‘Wait, what?’ I stomped on the brakes reflexively. ‘What?’
Dad’s closed eyes flicked open, checked the road, skimmed to me and shut aga
in. ‘It is sad, but not because he’s lying. He’s probably not told you how good he really was.’
Well, I flustered, how the bloody hell did he know that? Turns out that Dad taught Stevie physics (news to me) and he’d seen letters to the principal from Stevie’s club coach, the ACT representative team coach and the head of the ACT Junior AFL. To say they were solid references was a wilful understatement verging on criminal fraud.
‘So he was good then? He doesn’t look that good. He looks skinny.’
‘Yeah, mate, he was good. Blinker on. He would have killed you on the football ground. Has he ever mentioned he’s been sick?’
‘Orhh, yeah/no, sort of. Not really but. Did he get sick, did he? Is that why he hasn’t finished school?’ I was displaying the full suite of my forensic powers of deduction.
‘Yeah,’ my dad said, ‘he did get sick. Watch the road. Perhaps you should ask him.’
I agreed that perhaps I would, but got distracted in class by Naomi’s industrial yet conflicted flirting and didn’t get around to it until I saw him on Saturday morning.
Obviously, I didn’t ask him when we were getting changed, because you can’t cop a heavy question when all you’re wearing is lucky underpants. I didn’t ask him when we were warming up either, because it was so windy and so cold I was flat chat trying to warm anything. I finally pulled the trigger as we trotted back to the sheds for the coach’s last rocket. I floated to the back of the steaming pack and slowed down a bit, and Stevie, being all right, slowed to keep my company.
‘How’s it going, mate? You ready?’ I asked.
He yeah/no’ed and puffed. He’d be okay, he hoped. It’d been a while but. He was pretty unfit, a bit nervous.
‘You’ll be right, champ’ — as if I knew — ‘but, but how come you haven’t played for ages?’
Grey eyes peering up out of the corner of his grey face, Stevie said he’d got sick.
‘Yup, ya told me.’ Damn it — it was now or … well, Monday, come to think of it. No, bugger it: ‘How sick? What sort of sick?’
ABC Grandstand's Unsung Sporting Heroes Page 17