Sarah Carli

BIOGRAPHY

Sarah Carli overcame a significant setback to make Olympic debut in Tokyo. But she come through the other side in a remarkable story of resilience – spurred on by her love of running.

After an amazing start to the 2020/21 summer season where in December she ran an Olympic qualifier of 55.09 elevating her to number four Australian all-time, Sarah seriously hurt herself in the gym in February 2021, just five months out from the Games. The accident required surgery and then intensive rehab. It took eight weeks before she was cleared to run again.
“It was a normal training session and I was stepping up onto a box with a bar on my back. I slipped, fell forward, hit my head on the box and the bar came down on my neck,” she said.

She had damaged the wall of the carotid artery in her neck, which required life-saving vascular surgery. She cautiously returned to competition on June 18 in Townsville running 58.53. The time was irrelevant. She had made her way around one lap and over ten hurdles just months after a life-threatening injury to be selected to the Australian Olympic Team for her Olympic debut. She continued to progress quickly and in the heats of the Tokyo Olympics, she placed fifth in an admirable time of 56.93.

In 2022 she raced regularly and in April claimed her first ever Australian title. In June she won the Oceania title and in her last race in Europe before the world championships she clocked 55.66 seconds, the third fastest of her career and the quickest since her near career ending gym accident in early 2021.

Sarah’s European form continued into the Eugene where she progressed to her second consecutive World Championships semi-final and recorded a season’s best time of 55.57. Two weeks later at the Commonwealth Games she was sixth in the final clocking 55.82.

After cursing through her 2023 domestic season, where she won her second national title, in Europe she smashed her PB clocking 54.66. She also ran three of her fastest four times. Her new PB was a best by 0.42 seconds, moved her to number three Australian all-time behind Olympic champion Debbie Flintoff-King and world champion Jana Pittman. It was also the fastest time by an Aussie for 16 years. At the world championships in Budapest, Sarah seemed to miss the start in her heat, eventually placing sixth in her heat, clocking 55.76 and missing qualification for the semi-final by one place.

A short domestic season in 2024, saw her win her third National title in a very quick 54.96 – the second fastest time of her career. She added the Oceania title in June.

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Sarah Carli’s started in athletics at the age eight, when she and her sister signed up for the U9s at the Wollongong Little Athletics Club.
At 16, in December 2010 she won the Australian Schools 400m hurdles in an impressive 60.52. At the 2011 Australian championships she placed second and secured selection for the World Youth. At the championships she was outstanding destroying her personal best through the three rounds, eventually placing second in the final in 58.05 seconds – fifth fastest in Australian junior history.

She ran a couple more 58 seconds times, but she never improved her PB for seven years. 
She explained what happened during those seven years and that life got in the way of her sport.
“I forgot the sport was for fun and as a junior I got badly injured, so I was then enjoying other aspects of my life and I wasn’t ready to give that up. I was at university and working at Costco - huge hours and late nights.”
Her improvement commenced when she settled into a career, a desk job and regular training routine. It also took the prospect of a home Games to inspire her to her next two PBs 57.63 in the semi and 56.87 in the final of the 400m hurdles at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games trials in February 2018. She was a close third in the race, with just the winner selected for the Games.

She launched into another winter of training (in 2018) and at the 2019 Canberra Track Classic she sprung a surprise clocking 55.67, a 1.2 seconds personal best and importantly a Doha World Championships qualifier. Sarah’s win also handed the first defeat in eight years to one of the greats of Australian 400m hurdling - Lauren Boden. Sarah went on to placed second in the nationals and at the Oceania Championships.
Her outstanding form and progress continued at the 2019 World Championships where she made the semi-finals and ran a phenomenal personal best of 55.43, just 0.03 seconds outside the Olympic qualifier. During COVID she trained very well in Wollongong and in her first hurdles of the season in December 2020 she ran even quicker, clocking an Olympic qualifier of 55.09, moving up to fourth Australian all-time. 

But by February 2021, things had gone horribly wrong with a gym accident.
Carli had suffered a freak accident when training alone at a local gym, slipping and falling forwards when stepping onto a box – the bar on her shoulders crushing her neck.
“I got an MRI and everything looked good. They cleared my spine and were getting ready to discharge me,” she said. But the mood quickly changed as a final test had her stumped. I started to get very confused. The nurse was showing me pictures and I could not remember more than three of them,” she said.
It was the first sign that things were not right, with the next sign less subtle.
“I started to feel numbness in my hands and feet, then I had a seizure,” she said and then came the most chilling assessment of all. We have to operate now, or you are going to die in the next couple of hours,” she recalls the doctor saying.
The diagnosis was a traumatic carotid artery dissection. In layman’s terms, she had torn the artery in her neck that supplies blood to the brain - requiring a vein to be removed from her thigh and planted into the area to prevent a stroke.
Upon awakening from the successful procedure, Carli was informed that she could not exercise for five months – a prospect that did not sit well with the determined hurdler.

You can’t do anything over 120 beats per minute she was told. By March she could barely walk down her driveway, in mid-April she jogged 100-metres, and in June she cleared her first hurdle, racing in Townsville to secure her Olympic place. Most athletes went to the Olympics to win, but Sarah Carli had already won.

Most influential person: Without a doubt my mum. She has been there through every moment good and bad…Memorable sporting moment: There is so many! But re watching Kerryn McCann’s last 400m of her 2006 Commonwealth Games marathon gold is always so inspiring…Interesting fact: I danced for 10 years competing in solo and troupe eisteddfods…Advice to your young self: Surround yourself with the right people…Hobbies: The beach and Netflix (if netflix is even a hobby?)

@ 8 June 2024 david.tarbotton@athletics.org.au