Comeback Queen Gregson’s Road to Paris

In a sport featuring regularly romanticised comebacks, Genevieve Gregson breaks the mould of your typical star. After double Achilles surgery and childbirth, Australia’s newest Marathon Mum opens up on her doubts and challenges masked by a smile and boarding pass to a fourth Olympic Games.

Carted off the track in a wheelchair at the Tokyo Games after rupturing her Achilles on the final water jump of the 3000m steeplechase final, the easy option for Gregson would be to declare she never had any doubts about returning to the top level. But that is far from the truth:

“When I really focus on the different components of this comeback, it was definitely hard. There were plenty of times where I couldn’t see how I was going to come out the other side,” Gregson says.

“I thought maybe I didn’t want to do this anymore. I felt like I had such a great run and was proud of making three Olympics. There were times when I was pregnant and post-partum where I felt like my time was up and I wanted to do something else.”

A three-time Olympian at 32-years-old with a ruptured Achilles and looming pregnancy, Gregson’s first step towards extending her career would come in the form of committing herself to the marathon.

“With how it ended up in Tokyo, I felt like I wouldn’t be able to face another steeple even if I wanted to. The marathon felt like the only option because jumping another steeple and landing in the water pit was out of the question,” Gregson says.

An renowned figure who had spent over a decade on the world stage and hitting the headlines with Olympic finals and national records, Gregson’s focus was on being a mum before a marathoner, pausing her sporting aspirations as the birth of her son Archer marked the achievement of a lifetime goal with husband and fellow Olympian Ryan Gregson.

“Having our beautiful and healthy baby boy is lucky, I’m so grateful for that. Also having a husband that does what I do and understands it so well, there have been so many times with a fork in the road where we could’ve gone either way. We always choose to do the thing that is best for our running, our family and our happiness,” Gregson says.

“Ryan is a tough love type of guy; you don’t turn to him for a shoulder to cry on. You turn to him when you want the real answer, which I like because I know he isn’t going to sugarcoat anything for me.”

Life as a mum was underway, but running was harder than ever. Over tens of thousands of kilometres, Gregson had become so well accustomed to her body gliding across the pavement, but her gift was seemingly gone as she battled through 20 minute plods.

“It took a while to convince myself I was actually the same athlete. The doubts snuck in that maybe it is time to give it up because I’m not moving the way I used to before surgery,” Gregson says.

“One of the moments that was most triggering for me was when my friend took a video of me running from behind and I remember looking at it and just panicking, because my right foot looked like it wasn’t hitting the ground properly, it just looked so off.”

Toiling away at the Queensland Academy of Sport with cross training and treatment, Gregson rehabbed her body slowly but surely in search of her former shape and identity, but the reprieve was far from immediate.

The seven-time national champion looked a fraction of her former self at her return to the track in 2023, but a half marathon in Japan and marathon debut of 2:28:33 on home soil at the Gold Coast saw her turn the corner and start to believe that success was not far away.

In only the second marathon of her career, Gregson would clock a breakthrough 2:23:08 in Valencia, Spain to obliterate the 2:26:50 Olympic standard. The performance saw her rise to third on the Australian all-time list and ultimately selected for a fourth Olympic Games at Paris 2024.

“If I was on this Olympic team for the steeplechase I would feel like a veteran or a grandmother, but because it’s a new event in a championship race, I feel like such an amateur. I lean on people like Jess [Stenson] and Sinead [Diver] because it’s a whole new chapter that I’m just scratching the surface of,” Gregson says.

Gregson will stand on the start line in Paris with a story to tell, hoping to make her fourth Olympic appearance her best yet, and it may not be her last:

“The last year or six months have been the happiest times I have had as an athlete. At one point you can think that you are done and then a year later, you are starting to consider three more Olympics and if Brisbane 2032 is possible.”

By Lachlan Moorhouse, Athletics Australia
Posted 29/06/2024