Throssell Dreams Big and Delivers in Spades
“Believe in yourself and dream big.”
This was the message that newly minted dual world champion Brianna Throssell shared to the next generation of aspiring athletes after taking gold with the Australian women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team at the 2019 FINA World Championships in Korea last night. And with it, came a new world record (7:41.50).
The Australian team of Throssell, Ariarne Titmus, Madison Wilson and Emma McKeon took more than half a second off of China’s 2009 time of 7:42.08, which represents an even more impressive effort, considering China’s time had been set during the “supersuit” era.
The Australians however, will have no opportunity to rest on their laurels in victory, safe in the knowledge that the US – who claimed silver last night, also dipped under the old world record in clocking 7:41.87 for second place.
Despite an already decorated representative career with the Australian Dolphins – July, 2019 will define a breakout moment in Brianna Throssell’s international career. A month in which she’s helped Australia to two world championship relay titles and has swam a personal best in an Olympic class individual final.
The sentient value of her words post medal performance, can’t be washed off as a fabricated spur of the moment response either.
In April, InsideWAIS asked Throssell – ahead of Australian Selection Trials – what advice she would now offer her former teenage self? What she said in response, now speaks volumes.
“You can’t buy confidence,” was her instant reply.
“It comes from taking note of what you do in the pool, from pushing times or completing this or that, and I think you just have to take confidence in the small things in the everyday training environment.”
She was asked also, about what impact being a role model had factored on her career?
“I’d never feel burdened by that kind of thing, but I guess I wouldn’t really classify myself as a role model either,” she explained.
“I guess it’s always in the back of my mind. I always have to think about what I post, what I say, what I do in public. The idea of being a role model appeals to me and I’d like to set a good example both in and out of the water.”
Having achieved a new career pinnacle at 23, and just a year out from the Tokyo Olympic Games – Throssell is now set to be thrust forward as one of the state’s leading lights as the intensity of an Olympic build-up grows ever-stronger.
That she has already had the experience of an Olympic campaign behind her, will become an invaluable asset. The media interest, the sponsorship involvements, the sudden inundations of public appearance requests can become an overwhelming burden for athletes that have not trod this path before.
But as ridiculous as it seems to call a 23 year-old a veteran, Throssell has already chalked off competition at every major international level for the Dolphins Swim Team.
That she now holds such clarity over the impact of her achievements – on her thousands of fans and followers, it is reasonable to conclude that her experiences will ultimately help her stick to the processes familiar; both in training and through the guidance of her support team. It has taught her long ago, that confidence is not for sale.