Frozen Hope

by Jacqui Cooper

  It was all ‘ME! ME! ME!’

  It was a very privileged existence.

  I was spoiled. I spent eight hours a day concentrating on improving and maintaining my mental and physical wellbeing. There were physio sessions and massages whenever you wanted, and at many of the events there were banquets and we ate like kings and queens. For many of the stops on the World Cup circuit, we stayed in luxury accommodation – fresh sheets every day and room service if I wanted it. All I had to do was concentrate on myself.

  And I never got bored. Being on a jump site every day was a new challenge every day: the weather was different, the outcome of each jump was different, my anxiety was different and my body was different. There was always so much to keep me busy and engaged, which was perfect for a hyper personality like mine.

  For two months I’d be back in Australia for the off-season, and it got harder every year. It was great to spend time with my family, but my life was elsewhere and I couldn’t wait to get back on that merry-go-round. After a couple of weeks, I’d be busting to return to all the excitement and all the like-minded people who loved the lifestyle as much as me.

  When I became a world champion, I knew I wanted to spend another five to ten years in the sport. To keep myself interested and invested, I reset my goals and challenges. I was moving the bar – my bar. I wanted the next phase of my career to be bigger and better, I wanted prove myself in other ways, and I wanted to break through and be the first to do something in this sport that I loved so much.

  For years I’d wondered why male and female aerial skiers had such different skill sets. Why was it that the guys got to do all the big jumps? What was that about? Why weren’t women doing them? Not surprisingly, I found it came down to size. As a rule, women are smaller and lighter than men, so we are more affected by the wind blowing us about and we have less muscle bulk to protect us on tough landings.

  Female aerial skiers are generally about 5 feet 2 inches. In contrast, I’m 5 feet 8 inches and weigh around 68 kilograms. I figured I had the same height and weight stats as the guys, so why couldn’t I try the same jumps as them? And that’s how I came to set myself the challenge of being the first woman to do a triple-twisting triple somersault on snow.

  The funny thing is, I’d already been practising this jump on water and other women had been doing it, too, but none of us had ever done it on snow. Nobody was ready to take that leap, to do what no woman had dared to do, until I said, ‘I can and I will do this skill on snow.’ It hadn’t been done, but it could be.

  After a heavy summer training period working intensely on my triple-twisting triple somersault, I had qualified it and I was now ready for snow. Pre-season training began in mid-November when the snow started to fall in a little ski resort just outside Calgary. Just like in every other pre-season training, I had to work my way up to the large jumps by spending some time building my confidence and practising landings on the smaller jumps. Once I was on the triple jump, I knew that one day soon I would be ready to take a giant leap of faith.

  One day in November 2000, my confidence was high, the weather was right and my mindset was perfect. I became the first woman to complete a triple-twisting triple somersault. It was a huge moment for me and a groundbreaking moment for the sport.

  More than any medal win, that jump changed the way that women were perceived in the sport. It changed the way that we trained, and it changed the level of skill and expectations of what we are capable of. I was so proud to have shown the way for other skiers. Now a female aerial skier can attempt anything she feels capable of.

  Many female athletes are at their physical peak in their early thirties, but they decide to retire. They have spent years giving their all to their sport, but they want other things too, like career longevity or to start a family. Also, they might not be receiving enough funding to sustain all the travel and training.

  In 2002, I was heading into my third Olympics and I’d never been so confident and prepared. I had won three consecutive world titles and I was favourite for the gold medal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games. I was twenty-nine years old, and I was in great form. I was financially independent, and I had sponsors, international corporate endorsements, government funding, scholarships and sporting institutes behind me. I was investing properly and putting money away for the future. I’d spent more than a dozen years making myself into the best athlete out there, and I was setting high standards and had other countries scratching their heads about what I was going to do next.

  At that time in my life, I had no plans of finding a life partner and settling down. It was not on my radar. There was simply nothing else that I wanted to do – it was the athlete’s life for me!

  4

  My Gentle Giant

  I hadn’t lived in Australia for over ten years. My friends were scattered across the world and, apart from my family, there was very little for me here.

  Fiona’s best friend, Julie, understood my situation. She realised I would be doing it tough, so she took Fiona aside and said, ‘I think I’ve got someone for Jacqui.’

  Julie’s fiancé’s best friend, Mario, was single, but he was shy and there was no way he’d go on a blind date. So they arranged a dinner with twenty people, and everyone but him knew that it was a blind date.

  I arrived early because I had to prop myself up at the end of the table where my knee wouldn’t get bumped. Of course, Mario was the last to get there. I sat watching all the guests come through the door, and every time I’d think, ‘I hope it’s not him!’

  Finally a tall guy, dressed perfectly, came in and the first thing I noticed was his gorgeous shy smile. So handsome. I looked over to Julie and she gave me the nod.

  I thought, ‘Oh, thank god. Isn’t he beautiful!’

  WHEN I FLEW OUT OF Australia the day after my Year 12 exams finished, I left behind all the friends I’d ever made and any potential romantic partners I may have had. As a dedicated athlete, I did not consider meeting new people to be a priority. So it was no surprise that I started dating athletes on the circuit.

  My first serious boyfriend was an Olympic mogul skier and we ended up being together for four years. He was a great guy and a fantastic support for me. I was young and without family by my side; Adrian looked after me and kept me on track.

  I dated a few more Olympians after him. My sisters used to call them ‘tracksuits’ or ‘ski-suits’. It would have been good to diversify a bit and step outside the athlete bubble, but with my focused lifestyle I didn’t have a whole lot of choice.

  Leading up to the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, my competitive expectations, as well as those of the nation, were enormous. Every day I trained at the Olympic venue I knew that all eyes were on me. I prepared knowing that at the end of the week Olympic medals were going to be awarded, and I wanted one. I trained like I deserved one. Then, a few days before the competition commenced, I blew out my knee in a bad crash in training, and just like that it was over. I ruptured my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), broke the top of my tibia and ruptured the capsule. As I was tumbling down the landing hill, it felt like my knee had been blown to pieces by someone with a shotgun. The pain was out of this world. It was my first ‘real’ injury.

  To say I was devastated is an understatement. Not only were my hopes for Olympic gold dashed but, also, for the first time in my career, I was not going to compete in a major event. Every other time that I had injured myself, the doctor would patch me up and send me out there. I would manage the pain and get a result, whatever it took. I could look after my broken body later. But there was no arguing with a torn ACL and a smashed knee. I had to resign myself to the reality of major surgery and a slow, tedious recovery back in Australia. The surgeon estimated it would take about two years in total.

  It was a massive shift to get my head around. My life had been a whirlwind of different countries every week. Parties, banquets, hanging out with a bunch of sport-mad gypsies – heaps of fun. Now here I was, back in subur
ban Melbourne living with my mum. No like-minded friends, no daily challenges, no adrenaline rush. For the first time, I had to watch the merry-go-round go by without me.

  I made a decision that I would make this setback work for me. I pushed aside the urge to wallow in a ‘why me?’ mindset, and I set myself some small targets. I would spend quality time with family and try to make some new friends.

  I remember, after the fourth operation on the knee, my surgeon suggested that I should consider a career outside of sport. To me, that was ludicrous. The sporting life was all I knew. I never gave up on myself. I had the utmost faith in the ability of my body to fix itself. I was going to defy all the naysayers; I would prove them all wrong!

  I believe that how you handle adversity is a sign of your strength of character. I was showing the world how strong I was. Now, it might sound kind of ridiculous – even delusional – but perhaps sometimes a little bit of crazy is exactly what it takes.

  My sister Fiona is very sociable, and it turns out she had a plan for me: ‘The next two years will fly by if you get yourself a man. Don’t date ski-suits anymore, Jacqui; date someone in a real suit!’

  It was she and her friend Julie who set up a blind date with twenty other people. Like most people, I don’t like blind dates, but I was up for it this time. Why not? I had nothing else to do.

  They invited Mario on the pretext that the usual gang of friends was getting together for an informal dinner at a restaurant. They told him he would know everyone there. He was the last to arrive, so he sat down in the only vacant chair – which just happened to be the furthest possible position from me.

  One by one, everyone at the table who knew about the blind date realised that nothing was going to happen if Mario and I spent the evening at opposite ends of the group. I wasn’t going anywhere, with my injured knee, but when Mario got up to speak to someone at the other end of the table, everyone quickly moved positions, like in musical chairs. When everyone sat down again, the only empty chair was the one opposite me. Now, under normal circumstances, Mario would not have sat opposite the only person at the table he didn’t know. He’s not rude, just shy. Always the gentleman though, he sat down and started to make polite conversation.

  First we talked about how we knew the group, and I explained that my sister was good friends with Jules. He asked me what I did for a living and I said, ‘I’m not doing much at the moment.’

  ‘How do you spend your days then?’ he enquired. I told him that I went to the gym to stay fit and did a lot of skiing.

  Mario had spent the last twenty years working in Perth and he was definitely not into snow sport, so it didn’t click. Thinking I might be at a loose end, he told me encouragingly that maybe skiing was something that I could eventually build up to doing full-time.

  ‘You could try to get on the state team,’ he suggested.

  I explained that aerial skiing doesn’t have state-based programs; it’s a national sport. So he asked me if I was hoping to get on the Australian team, and I said, well, yes, I was actually already on the Australian team.

  He was impressed. ‘Wow – I bet you’d like to get to the Olympics one day!’

  The people near us were staring at him in amazement. How the hell had he not seen the story about me and my Olympic blowout? It had been splashed all over the papers only eight weeks earlier.

  As the penny dropped, I watched the colour drain from Mario’s face. Finally he murmured, ‘I think I read about you in an in-flight magazine. Did I?’

  I smiled, enjoying the moment. ‘Yeah, that was me.’

  Mario was mortified and full of apologies, bless him. Switching to interview mode to cover his embarrassment, he began asking questions about my career and then we moved on to other things. We chatted easily for the rest of the evening. I went home early because of my knee, and Mario went out to a bar with the others but not before he’d paid for everyone’s meal. He said he hated the fuss when it came to splitting bills and he didn’t want to spoil the evening. What a guy!

  I definitely wanted to see him again, but not with twenty other people. I had given him my business card, and I crossed my fingers that he’d give me a call sometime. Mario told me later that he started writing an email as soon as he got home. He spent a long time over it; he was nervous that he might say something silly! Finally, at four o’clock in the morning, he closed his eyes and hit ‘send’.

  As for me, when I got home after the ‘date’, I decided to have a bath. I remember lying in the tub shouting out to Mum down the hallway: ‘Mum! I’ve met the man I’m going to marry!’

  And she said something like, ‘That’s nice, dear. Don’t forget to let the water out when you’ve finished.’

  You know when people talk about love at first sight? Well, it’s a corny cliché, I know, but love at first sight is exactly how it felt. Mario was everything that I found attractive in a man: tall, good-looking, successful and a great listener. He was in his mid-thirties and made me think of a seasoned Australian football player – very fit and self-assured. He reminded me a bit of ‘Big’, the love interest of Sarah Jessica Parker’s character, Carrie Bradshaw, in TV’s Sex and the City.

  Mario is second-generation Italian-Australian and he has that lovely blokey thing going on. He is very respectful and generous, and it was no surprise that he’d shouted twenty people for dinner because he didn’t want any conflict over splitting bills to spoil an enjoyable occasion.

  I opened Mario’s email the next morning and was over the moon that he was keen on catching up again. Soon, we started going out on proper dates. This was something that I’d never done before. We were courting!

  Mario was nothing like any of the guys I had dated on the World Cup circuit. I would say to Mum, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe it: he paid for everything!’ And she’d scoff back, ‘Of course he did. He’s a gentleman. MARRY HIM!’

  On our third date, we went to a big shopping centre. He had some errands to run and there were a couple of things I needed to buy. It also just happened that my sisters were there, too.

  We met at a cafe. He sat on one side of the table and the three of us sisters sat on the other. Oh boy, did they grill him. It was like he was attending a job interview or even facing up to a firing squad! Someone should have told him that when you start a relationship with a triplet, you have to deal with all three. I figured that if he could make it through that inquisition, he could get through anything. They loved him, of course.

  Throughout the dating period, we had the usual ups and downs of any new relationship. I remember once feeling a bit wobbly about where we were heading and my mum announced, ‘If you get rid of him, I’ll get rid of YOU!’

  A year later, we bought a small home in Albert Park: a tiny, single-fronted Victorian terrace.

  Two years after my injury, by the time I was fully recovered, I had done a complete turnaround: I was reluctant to get back on the merry-go-round. I had a life in Australia now with my gorgeous boyfriend, my family and my friends.

  Being back on the World Cup circuit was a bittersweet experience. All I can say is thank goodness for Skype! I got Mario a cat to keep him company while I was gone. Oscar was a beautiful creature, and Mario and he adored each other. He wasn’t a cat person before then, so I’m very proud that I made him into one. Mario spent a lot of time renovating our little place in Albert Park, and while I was away it was his and Oscar’s bachelor pad. I would come home and they would be there waiting, like my little family. It was wonderful.

  I was in love and I missed Mario like crazy. One week, a competition was cancelled because there was no snow in upstate New York. I had only four days off, but I thought, what the hell! I flew home from America just to see my man. He was totally unprepared, of course, and our house was a mess. It was so funny to see him running around madly cleaning up. I was just glad to be with him, even if only for a few days.

  Another time, Mario flew over and met me in Japan, and one time he came to Hawaii. It was so romantic, so
exciting! Ours was far from a typical relationship. I would be overseas for ten months a year and then I’d be back, but usually not for a decent block of time. I’d be away for three weeks and come back for two, then I’d be away for ten days and come home for six, etc. Not many men would have hung in there.

  One thing that worked in our favour is that Mario has always been very focused on his career. He works as a commercial manager for a variety of different hotel chains and he moves around a lot. He understands what it means to be intensely committed to your work.

  Sometimes he’d get away and join me for events overseas, but we’d spend very little time together. Mostly he would sit in my office while I prepared or competed. He was just an ordinary spectator, but a loving spectator. He saw a bit of everything – the good and the bad, some big wins and some awful crashes – and he was there to pick up the pieces.

  Mario is incredibly patient. He watched and waited and over eight years he never once expected me to give it up. At no point did he say he’d had enough, that he was sick of hanging around and it was time to get on with our lives. He waited until I felt ready to stop, and he was unwaveringly supportive through it all.

  It was always special for me when Mario was at an event. Two great moments became major highlights in my career because of his presence.

  The first was in 2008 when I won my fifth world title in Japan. No-one had ever won five world titles in the history of the sport, and my gorgeous man was there to see me break the record.

  The second was the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, which was my last competition. No woman in Australian Olympic history had been selected to compete in five Olympics – winter or summer. I was determined to be the first. Things had not been going well for me. I had recently dislocated my hip and damaged my pelvis, and my body wasn’t coping. I simply didn’t have any momentum; my body was failing me and after twenty years I was mentally out of juice.