On Episode 52, Sunny and Mayank sit with Australian national champion rower and Olympic gold medalist, Rosemary Popa OAM.

With a strong bloodline of rowing pedigree, Rosie is the daughter of Sue and Ion, two Australian bronze medallists from Los Angeles 1984.

However, behind the glory, Rosie shares openly about what is often hidden behind the closed doors and shiny medals. She brings awareness to the numerous career dynamics that pose mental health risks to athletes: unsustainable expectations for perfection and constant improvement, enormous public pressure to win, pervasive demand to outwork or outlast an opponent, and relatively short career spans that can end in the blink of an eye due to injury.

No longer should athletes be viewed as sub-human robots used to serve the needs of the masses. Conversations around athletics must be intersectional and critically evaluate how individual differences interact with cultural environments and systems. Only then will we be able to provide an open, safe, and collective environment for athletes to thrive in.

In this episode, we speak about Rosie's:

💡 Early days, childhood and upbringing to two Australian Olympian parents

💡 Journey navigating between basketball and rowing in her earlier days and what ultimately led her into rowing

💡 Time abroad in the States at UC Berkeley and stepping up her training program, including the awareness of self-destructive and often toxic behaviours she had picked up along the way

💡 Gruelling training program and working through self-expectations, the feeling of loneliness and making sacrifices for her rowing career

💡 Mindset between being disciplined and hardline vs. having some fun along the way

💡 View on cultivating and management key relationships and picking the right mentors

💡 Mental health when the Olympics in 2020 was cancelled and what that meant for her as she had to buckle down for another year of training ahead of 2021's games

💡 Perspective on 'community' and the importance it plays within all communities, including the work she is doing with Rosemary Local, an initiative to support local creatives

💡 + Many more

Mental poise is not about pushing past limits of physical and mental anguish. It is an acute awareness of the present moment, your personal limits, and the limits of the environment. It is understanding when your performance is at its peak, and at what point efforts are counterproductive to your own well-being and the well-being of others. It is using a moral compass to drive your behaviours and actions.

This conversation is one step towards changing the culture of athletics. Athletes are humans first, and the value of humanity is not tied to our achievements. These athletes are finally redefining—for themselves—what performance success looks like.

The bottom line is that mental health is always a worthy endeavour — no matter the cost.

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You can find Rosemary Popa and Rosemary Local through the following channels:

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/rosiepopa

Website: https://www.rosemarylocal.com/

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There are some sensitive topics we touch on regarding mental health so if there are any triggers for you please know there is support and there will be plenty of links in access below.

LifeLine - Ph: 13 11 14 https://www.lifeline.org.au/

Banksia Project - https://thebanksiaproject.org.au/

Mr. Perfect - https://mrperfect.org.au/

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As always, Bottled Up is a passion project to help provide a voice to those many men who are going through the peaks and troughs of life. We are not trained professionals and if you're worried about someone close to you and their mental wellbeing, it's important to get professional advice.

Start a conversation with them and let them know that they're not alone and that there are many support resources out there - including friends, family, school chaplains and plenty more!

If you're feeling distressed or overwhelmed, Beyond Blue has a number of trained mental health professionals available 24/7 on 1800 512 348.

For immediate support, call Lifeline on 13 11 44 and in an emergency, always dial 000.

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Music: https://www.purple-planet.com