THE DYNAMIC DAWES DUO
On and off the track
Twenty years, six Paralympics, three Games medals. Countless personal bests and race wins around the world. It’ s a pretty impressive resume for any athlete and their coach. But for Merewether couple Christie and Andrew Dawes, theirs is not just a sporting success story but a tale of a husband and wife, 14 years of marriage and one beautiful five-year-old boy also among their milestones.
The friendly and unassuming couple have been at the centre of the world wheelchair track and road racing circuit for the past two decades – but if you’ d asked them about the future in the mid-1990s, neither of them would have ever dreamed of being where they are today.
Christie, who grew up on the western shores of Lake Macquarie at Marmong Point, was just nine years old when her father died unexpectedly. Eleven months later her family’ s world was shattered once again when she was involved in a car accident with her mother and older sister. The crash broke her spine, leaving her a paraplegic.
As part of her rehabilitation, Christie was encouraged to get fit and stay active. She later became involved with the NSW Wheelchair Sports Association, where she tried her hand at a series of different disciplines before taking up track and road racing.
At the time there was no such thing as professional coaching for wheelchair athletes – a situation that would be changed just a few years later by the man who would go on to become her mentor, friend and, further down the track, her husband. 50 | www. intouchmagazine. com. au
WORDS MICHELLE MEEHAN
“ Sport was introduced to me as part of my rehab in the hospital,” Christie said.
“ Off the back of that, I got involved with NSW Wheelchair Sports Association and tried a bunch of different sports that were just made available, which was an excellent program. I chose track and road racing.
“ You used to just get coached by other athletes because there were no coaches, NSWIS, NSW Institute of Sport didn’ t exist, so you just were mentored by older athletes, more experienced athletes.”
Around the same time, Christie was pursuing her interest in wheelchair racing, Andrew was returning to Australia from a stint travelling around the world.
The former PE teacher was looking for a job when a role at NSW Wheelchair Sports as a Development Officer popped up- a position that would unexpectedly alter the course of his career.
“ As the development officer you’ re organising activities like State Championships and Come and Try Days and I saw all these kids that were interested, but they weren’ t actually training, they were just competing,” he said.
“ I saw there was a link missing and … I didn’ t really like organising stuff, I’ d rather coach, so I started coaching( wheelchair athletes) voluntarily after work.”
While he had no specific training to rely on, Andrew used his physical education background to create programs for the athletes who came to his sessions, which he kicked off at Homebush in 1995 and continued for several years.
Regularly asked how he coaches wheelchair athletes, never having been in a chair himself, Andrew said the early days, in particular, were as much about him learning from his young charges as they were about them receiving his guidance on how to put together a proper training program.
“ I often get asked that question, and it was difficult, but it wasn’ t that difficult because there were no coaching resources … I didn’ t feel the pressure that I didn’ t know what I was doing because nobody knew what they were doing,” he said.
“ And I spent the first four or five years of my coaching career learning from the athletes really. I’ d give them my input in regards to how you put together a training program and how you periodise it and stuff, but as far as the technique and the position of the athletes, I basically learned just as much from them, and I still do, they know what they’ re doing.” Christie was among the first group of athletes he coached. Still at high school at the time, she would be driven to Sydney twice a week by her mother to train with Andrew and was under his wing for around a year before she competed at her first Paralympic Games in Atlanta in 1996.
“ I was still in school, travelling to and from Sydney of a Wednesday afternoon and Saturday and I think any parent can empathise shuffling their kids from sport to sport so despite having a disability, our family was no different,” she said.
“( Before Atlanta) Drew had been my coach for a year or so and I’ d go down there to train, and he’ d travel up once a week to coach, we worked at it as best we could, and then I’ d do sessions by myself obviously.”
After finishing school in 1998, she moved to Sydney to train full-time under Andrew in the lead-up to the 2000 Paralympics. By this time he was working as a professional coach with the Sydney Academy of Sport, with the specific aim of preparing wheelchair road and track athletes for the Sydney Games.
Among his charges was another up-and-coming athlete who he also began coaching from a distance a few years earlier – Kurt Fearnley.
Now one of Australia’ s most well-known and decorated wheelchair competitors, Andrew met Kurt when he was a 15-year-old from a small country town struggling to take his love of athletics to the next level.
“ I started coaching Kurt not long after Chris( Christie), I think Kurt was my second athlete,” he said.
“ I was working at Wheelchair Sports still, and I fielded a phone call from this school teacher, she was the PE teacher at Blayney High School, and she said I’ ve got this kid in a wheelchair and he loves sport, he wants to do athletics but –‘ he keeps getting bogged’- was her quote.
“ I’ d just started coaching, and I grew up in Orange, Mum and Dad lived in Orange, and it wasn’ t that far( from Blayney), so I said next time I come home I’ ll leave early on a Friday morning and come to the school and say hello.
“ I did that and met the teacher, met Kurt, had a few words, we organised a chair, and it went from there. In those days I’ d fax him a program to the post office because he lived on a farm and he’ d get his program and, similar to Chris, once he finished school he moved to Sydney for 2000.”
The Sydney Paralympics provided the first glimpse of Kurt’ s future potential as an athlete, with the 19-year-old picking up two silver medals in the men’ s 800m T54 race and the men’ s 4 × 100m T53 / T54 relay.
And while Christie missed out on a podium finish at her home-town Games, she said the experience provided her with a valuable insight into the need for athletes to remain balanced.
“ For the two years before Sydney I really just ate, slept and trained, that was it, I had no balance,” she said.
“ You were just consumed by it, and you had no balance, nothing else, I really just threw myself into it and gave it everything I had, but sometimes, for me, that’ s not the best way to do things. Now I’ ve got more on my plate than ever before