On an exclusive shoot for the August issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly in Queensland, Dawn – a three-time Olympic gold medallist – pulled out all stops to provide us with beautiful images.
While still in pain from recent shoulder surgery to her right arm, she proved she is a trouper from the old school, insisting on removing her sling so that The Weekly’s photographs would look completely natural.
“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” Dawn told our crew, who were concerned about her welfare. “It only really hurts when I’m putting the sling on, so taking it off is not a problem.”
Dawn’s recent surgery corrected a lingering shoulder injury that she suffered several years ago while trying to load a surf ski on to a trailer all by herself. Dawn also had her bicep muscle reattached to her arm bone after she was side-swiped by another passenger’s bag during a plane flight six months ago.
In a far-ranging interview, Dawn speaks about her loving relationship with her grandson Jackson, the son of her daughter Dawn-Lorraine, and their new lives together on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
She also talks candidly about her opinions about the Australian Olympic swim team, their chances at the upcoming games in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro and how, in her opinion, the Russians – recently banned from the Olympics unless they came prove themselves drug-free – have always been cheats.
“It doesn’t surprise me in the least,” Dawn says. “The Russians have always been cheats. In fact, all those eastern bloc countries, the East Germans, the Russians, they were all using drugs, steroids and all sorts of things. I think the only reason so few were caught during my time as a competitor is because we didn’t have the tests in those days. If we had the same tests then as now, I’m sure a lot more would have been banned.”
Read the full story in the August issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly, on sale now.
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
