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Olympic track cyclist Anna Meares inspired a large crowd of agents and brokers gathered at Connect 2018 with her comeback story.
Ms Meares suffered a broken neck in a track accident just seven months before the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
During the high-speed crash, she broke a vertebra, dislocated her right shoulder and tore ligaments, tendons and skin in several parts of her body.
A career-ending injury for most, but not for Ms Meares who got back into the saddle 10 days later to keep training for Beijing.
Ms Meares told the 2,500 agents and brokers from Ray White and Loan Market that she was an 11-time world champion whose success has not been defined by her defeats.
“I want to share with you some of the challenges I’ve faced, the highs and lows in my 22-year career, and a great deal of success,” she said.
Ms Meares talked honestly about the crash and what it did to her body and how it impacted her.
“It was the force with which my head bounced off the track that caused the break and I was within two centimetres from a total clean snap.
“After I broke my neck, you find out how heavy your head is and I couldn’t even hold my head up on the bike,” she said.
But in less than eight months after the accident, Ms Meares won gold at the Beijing Olympics.
“I know I am brave and resilient, yet I didn’t know how capable I was to endure pain and discomfort,” she said.
Ms Meares said that people find out the full extent of their potential in adversity. And for her, she found worth in her passions.
“My parents and my siblings asked me not to continue. But they backed me and my value and my passion, so it helped me to stay motivated, and we pushed through the tough times.”
For Ms Meares, it was who she surrounded herself with that drove her to her success.
“I was very neglectful of the energy that people brought to me as I adopted a victimised mentality around negative people. But if I was around people who were driven, happy and motivated in my company, then so was I,” she said.
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