She’s dropped her married name and that famous smile’s back. Now the Aussie golden girl is partying away the pain of her recent marriage split. Sarah Blake reports.
Just weeks since her shock break-up with husband Grant Kenny after 23 years of marriage, the former swim star was all smiles and in holiday mode as she paddled and partied her way through four days on picturesque Hamilton Island.
An international outrigger contest attracting competitors from around the world provided the perfect excuse for Lisa to let her hair down with the girls – her team-mates at the Mooloolaba Outrigger Canoe Club – and put domestic dramas behind her in her first public outing since news broke of the golden couple’s split.
Telling acquaintances “everyone’s good, everyone’s happy”, Lisa has proven her eagerness to move on with her life by reverting to her maiden name. No-longer a Kenny, the newly single mum seemed to enjoy the party atmosphere during her island interlude.
“It’s a girls’ weekend,” she told Brisbane’s Courier Mail newspaper. “It’s four days of racing and partying.”
Lisa stayed at the exclusive Beach Club, a resort with landscaped gardens and private balconies overlooking the gleaming white sand of Catseye Beach. She lazily topped up her tan in glorious weather by the hotel’s infinity pool and leisurely browsed the boutiques dotted along the island’s marina – when she wasn’t sweating it out with other paddlers on the clear waters of the Coral Sea.
For Lisa, the trip was a celebration, of sorts – the passionate ocean canoeist has just been given the green light by doctors to return to the gruelling sport after heart surgery more than a year ago.