Genevieve Gregson: My son became a saviour for my sport

It’s well into the evening when Genevieve Gregson connects for our interview from her training camp in Australia.

She immediately begins by apologising for being tucked up in the bedroom of the cabin but it was the only space she could find for the call. “Sorry, I was rushing dinner and baby, but everyone’s outside,” the 34-year-old says, adding, ‘I’ve told them all to be quiet.”

Carving out a moment of solitude to reflect on her remarkable comeback isn’t perhaps as smooth or easy as it once was for Gregson, but it becomes obvious as the conversation gets going that the runner wouldn’t have it any other way.

The three-time Olympian is currently doing everything in her power to be selected for Australia’s marathon team for Paris 2024. The squad is set to be finalised at the end of April and Gregson’s claim will be hard to refute after running the third-fastest time by any Australian woman in the discipline at the Valencia marathon in December last year. Still, she’s not resting on her laurels: she knows more than anyone what a ticket to these Olympics would mean.

In between her training commitments, she devotes her time to her 18-month-old son Archer and supporting her husband Ryan Gregson, also a two-time Olympian in transition to the marathon discipline. It can be frantic, challenging even, she concedes, but the joy on her face every time she talks about her life as it is now, and the “village” of people that help her make it possible, hints at the happiness with which she has embraced the latest stage in her life.

“It's funny, I've been saying to my friends and training partners up here, this is a part of my chapter that I didn't think would ever exist,” Gregson admits talking about her world now.

“In 2021 when I did rupture my Achilles, there was like a brief period there where I thought my career was over and just little things, like the thought of not travelling overseas, doing the Diamond Leagues, doing the major championships, going to the Olympics, all those things immediately, like flashed before my face and I thought, I'll never do those things again. And that was really heartbreaking.

“So, being here now is surreal because I have my little baby boy; I have my husband; my dad's up here at the moment with his partner to help babysit. It's just a little snippet of my life that feels so whole right now because it was something that I didn't envision ever happening again.”

“I knew what I was doing was very detrimental but it was the Olympic Games”

Gregson remembers the rupture as clear as day: “It was like the tip of the iceberg”, she begins.

First aware she had a problem with her left foot after her second Olympic steeplechase at Rio 2016, the years after were largely all about management.

“I just worked out what flared it up, what helped it, how I could manage it, and there were plenty of moments in between 2016 and 2021 where I'd had really extended time off,” she says reflecting.

“But those last few years leading into 2021 with Covid and everything, I got my body in a really good place. And I actually strung together years of uninterrupted training, which was the best I'd ever done, really, in my career without any injury."

The newfound freedom meant Gregson pushed her preparation more than she ever had, and she was enjoying the process until after one race in July, she realised she had gone too far. Normally she would have taken time off to recover - but that year, the stakes were different.

“I knew what I was doing was very detrimental, but it was the Olympic Games. I was in the shape of my life, and I just thought I had maybe a small chance of just pulling something off and my body just bearing the pain and getting on with it,” Gregson says.

But it was a gamble that wouldn’t pay off.

Around 150m out from the finishing line in Tokyo, on the last water jump of the race, the Australian went to land. As she hit the water with her right leg - what had been the good one - she collapsed.

“It was just a gunshot. It just snapped so sharp and fast and loudly that, as I fell to the ground, I was shocked.”

Gregson had ruptured her right Achilles. It dawned on her straight away what had happened. Knowing she had been on borrowed time there was always a sense it might happen but not in an Olympic final in front of millions.

“I was devastated,” Gregson continues. “I laid there. I mean, a lot of photos arise from that moment that show kind of the shock and the pain in my face. But it was more the moments after when I'm wheeled off that I just break down.

"I think I was a little bit embarrassed because I know the whole world is watching. I knew it wasn't an injury where you just have a few months off and bounce back like it was a make-or-break situation.”

Genevieve Gregson: "To think that life couldn't play out this way is honestly scary"

Gregson’s husband Ryan was in London calling her race for radio and experienced watching his wife fall live on air.

He dropped off the airwaves as soon as he felt his phone ringing in his pocket - it was Genevieve calling him from her wheelchair inside the stadium.

“My husband, he just took the emotion out of it, and he said, ‘This is terrible. I'm so sorry. I'm hurting for you, but we'll have a baby, you'll get home, you'll get surgery, and you'll start your next chapter of road running, and you'll get back stronger than ever’.”

They were all the words Gregson needed to hear. Knowing that they had always wanted a family and that a transition to marathon had been part of the wider career plan she took immediate comfort from the words. And as agreed, the Australian took that exact path.

But even as she pressed ahead, the tragedy of what had happened continued to stalk her for much longer than she ever expected. From being persistently tagged in photos of her fall to finding herself getting emotional as she would try to explain events from her perspective, it took Gregson some time to realise how deeply affected she was by what happened.

“For at least a year and a half to even two years after to talk about it, even as I am to you now, to explain step by step, I would get upset all over again.

“I would think that I'm okay. And I'm like, 'oh yeah, let me explain the story to you.' And I would break down every time. And I think that it was obvious that I probably hadn't completely dealt with it. I was just pushing it down because I wanted to keep moving forward.”

Genevieve Gregson: Reframing trauma into triumph

Time, her son Archer and discovering a natural propensity for marathons all played their hand in eventually helping Gregson through the worst of what happened.

And now, she says, she understands that injury in a completely different way.

“It’s so surreal and I say this a lot,” Gregson muses, “If that moment never happened, I wouldn’t have had these last two years and especially these last six months. And that’s scary to me.”

Had she not suffered the rupture and fallen pregnant, Gregson is sure that she wouldn’t be where she is now: “I think if I do get emotional or think of the moments that might make me upset it’s more because it's crazy to think that if it didn't happen, I wouldn't have Archer, and that that's probably the thing that makes me sad.

“At the time I thought my world had ended. But really, it was an opening door to this way more amazing chapter. I find that, emotionally more sad because I could have maybe not had that, but I'm so grateful I do.”

More than just fulfilling a lifelong wish of having a family, she is also adamant that Archer has helped her become a better runner.

“I feel more relaxed,” Gregson explains. “I feel like it's not the only option is to succeed. A bad run is at the end of the day for me anymore, and I don’t feel that pressure. Even though I've had my eyes set on making the Olympics for the last three years, I never once thought, if I don't make the Olympics, that's it. I've been more motivated than ever because I've been able to do this journey, do what I love, and have a little baby boy alongside me while doing it.”

On the track too, the evidence is overwhelming.

Unshackled from the weight of expectation, the “forced” transition to the marathon has unearthed a veritable contender in Gregson, who clocked an impressive 2:23:08 on her second-ever attempt. Far from finding the distance gruelling, she says she has genuinely enjoyed every step of what has been a “dream comeback”:

“If I look back on the last two years of my kind of stages towards this comeback, back to an elite level, I haven't done anything more intense with training. I haven't tried harder, I haven't added more kilometres in, I haven't done more gym. Like I'm still a committed athlete, of course, but I put all of those professional things and that mindset second to being a mum and raising a baby. And I think subconsciously that takes off the pressure and all the expectations you have on yourself as an athlete because, in your mind, you're an athlete second to being a mum.

“That's been my little secret in the back pocket. Facing adversity, I found that having something else in my life that I love so much, and has become the more important thing, has been a saviour, really for my sport.”

Olympic redemption

There might be several months before Gregson finds out whether she will make her fourth Olympic Games, and her first as a marathon runner, but the Australian doesn’t seem to be too fazed by the wait. Such was her showing in Valencia, she has made herself impossible to ignore, and there are still 5km races in wait for her to further her cause.

But even as she flashes a quiet confidence rooted in months of wicked hard work retraining her engine, Gregson doesn’t hide what competing in Paris would mean.

“I wouldn't be able to put into words,” she says frankly. “It would almost probably mean more than my first Olympics in London which would be crazy to top, but there was so much doubt and so much adversity and so many obstacles in my way.

"And if I get there and I get that uniform and I'm at that Olympic Games, it'll just be such a credit to just everyone in my corner. But also, like my own personal belief that I actually thought I could do it and pull it off.

“In Tokyo, that was a fork in the road for me. I think I can place better than I have in Rio. I placed ninth in the steeplechase. My goal would be top eight in Paris.”

That fire for self-redemption that burns bright is also one that seems will be just as enduring. With a new chapter started, and its pages already turning, Gregson doesn’t even want to stop at Paris.

“Apparently the Olympics in 2032 are in my home city,” she says with a grin. “So my husband's told me I can't stop ’til six [Games].”