InsideWAIS Feature: Mickle’s Mark – Part 3

At 30 years of age, Kim Mickle rates her career to date as a seven out of 10. She’s achieved things in athletics that most could only dream of, but as the javelin star enters the peak of her career, she has goals written down for the next 18 months that would render that scale obsolete. If you think it’s bravado, you don’t know Kim Mickle.

In a wide ranging interview with InsideWAIS over three-parts, Mickle outlines her plan of attack for this year’s World Championships and how she defied a surgeon that told her she would never throw again. She reveals her pain from underachievement in London, and discusses her drive to ensure history doesn’t repeat in Rio.

You can read part one here.

Part two is available here.

There is an unmistakable resilience inherent within Kim Mickle that it not to be confused with over confidence.

In under 500 days Mickle expects to represent Australia at a second Olympic Games. She no longer dreams of being an Olympian – like her former child self with a promise written and attached on a bedroom wall – she now has a focus on success.

No Australian female javelin thrower has ever thrown 70m before, but Kim has never been influenced by what hasn’t been done or by what others say she can’t. She was told by a coach back in her little athletics days that she was too short to be a thrower but an unprecedented ten national titles later she stands on the shoulders of giants.

As external anticipation of Mickle’s Rio campaign begins to build, she understands that javelin at its core, remains an individual pursuit. She however, intends to mark her 2016 scorecard based on her own expectations rather than the chorus of medal hype that goes with Olympic fanfare. Not that it should be mistaken for lacking ambition.

“I don’t like to focus on what colour medal you win, because you just have no idea what other people are doing, or how they’re doing it, you’ve got no control. I’d obviously love to say – to win an Olympic gold, but if someone comes out and throws 80m, what are you going to do?” she framed.

“I want to do that 70 throw by Rio for sure. Redemption from London, because I didn’t even qualify (for the final), but I reckon I’m going be 10 times in a better way than I was then.”

With a list of achievements including World Championship and Commonwealth Games medals, national records and gongs from WAIS, Athletics Australia and the WA Sports Federation, Kim is increasingly raising her public profile. Her sponsored vehicle silhouettes her craft with a Rio themed message scrawled on the side, yet as the sponsors warm to her irrefutable charm, her method of context remains more mainstream.

“When I’m asked how far I can throw, I tell them 66m and they’re never really sure if that’s good or not, but if I can put my skill in terms they understand they tend to be more impressed,” she says.

Kim says she achieves this by listing her gym personal bests which include:

Bench press – 107.5kg

Snatch – 115kg

Full squat – 130kg

And if that doesn’t make the penny drop, there’s always her YouTube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFePfqDWD7Ywhich includes check-side snaps from the forward pocket boundary line and full court-length basketball trick shots, set against her international representation.

The other instrumental note from that clip with pun intended is Kim’s love of heavy metal music which Mickle herself jokes about.

“I love music, it fires me up,” she says. “I channel my angry Kim through my music. I’m kind of placid, I drive like a grandma, I very rarely swear, so it’s kind of like a contradiction but the music definitely fires me up.”

She herself can play guitar with Metallica and Led Zeppelin topping her go to repertoire.

But if every band needs expert backing, Mickle’s ever-present and metronome has been her long term coach Grant Ward.

Wardy as Kim affectionately calls him has supported her through lean troughs, and stood quietly proud during her laps of honour, and not surprisingly when Kim reflects on her closest counsel – his is a name that features prominently.

“Our relationship works because we both realise that sport isn’t everything, it’s life – and sport just happens to be what we’re doing, and if you stop enjoying it, that’s when we both stop doing it. We both know that, and that’s why we still enjoy it,” she explained.

“We’ve had our moments when we’ve frustrated each other, where things weren’t going right, but then we can, at the drop of a hat forget it, leave the environment – go and have a coffee and realise that life’s too short, you can’t do something you hate.

“He can see when I’m getting frustrated and need a bit of my time – he’s a dad himself – he can see so much more than an out and out coach that is completely – we do things my way. He has a background in school teaching and he’s very good at reading situations,” Kim said.

The Mickle project is over ten years strong, but Kim still believes she has the zest for javelin that has made the journey to date such fun.

“My head is flat out 100% towards Rio. My training blocks are monthly but I plan things in four years cycles. I’ll be 31 by Rio, but funnily enough our world record holder is 33 (Barbora Spotakova – 72.28m) and she’s still killing it, so it just depends on life style.”

“I commit 150% when I’m at training, yet when I’m outside of athletics I’m about everything else. I love golf, I love footy, I play the guitar, I like going out to gigs, I like going to the beach, everything I do outside of sport has nothing to do with javelin.

“If after Rio, there’s nothing there for me any more and I don’t want it then that’s when I’ll say no but I can’t see that happening because I absolutely love it and there’s nothing better than on a nice sunny day, being out at the track.”

And if history is any guide, Kim Mickle usually gets it right.