THIS PROFILE OF NEW AUSSIE 100M NATIONAL CHAMPION OTIS GOWA IS ON THE AUSSIE FEDERATION WEBSITE. GREATJOB OTIS. kk
25.10.2007
Gowa-n for glory
In a world that can often seem plagued by bad news, rest assured there are plenty of stories that serve to uplift us.
Many of them are born close to home through the feats of people we know, or perhaps someone we’ve heard about through others. Average Joes with the determination and character of Joe Mighty.
This time, my inspiration comes in the form of Otis Gowa, a man whose last 18 months - obstacles and all - have been geared towards his hopes and dreams as an athlete.
Gowa left a job he loved. Farewelled family and friends. Took on cancer and won.
I had heard a lot about him through working an arm’s length away from Athletics Australia’s development manager Sally McGrady. Her assessment of the young man and his infectious character was glowing at worst and, now, more and more people are starting to see why.
Gowa is a key member of Athletics Australia’s Jump Start to London 2012 squad, an Indigenous development group administered by McGrady, mentored by Olympian Kyle Vander Kuyp, with whom he has forged a special bond, and supported heavily by the Australian Sports Commission.
Sprints and jumps are its main focus; the big picture to nurture raw ability along a pathway to potential Olympic Games selection.
For Gowa, genes and character considered, he is a sprinter in every sense. His mother is from the Torres Strait Islands, his father Ghanan. Gowa is gregarious. Confident. Strong. Has a washboard stomach.
“He is brash and he will say he is brash and he is loud,” McGrady said. “He wouldn’t be out of place with someone like a Maurice Greene, a real showman, but when it comes down to business you can see the focus. It’s quite scary, he’s very intense and knows exactly what he needs to do.”
Gowa recalls the moment when his commitment to the sport flourished; at high school in the North Queensland hamlet of Ravenshoe when a long-standing record held by Peter Grigg, a Queensland and Australian rugby union champion, was broken.
One of Gowa’s phys. ed. teachers at the time, an ex-track runner, saw the talent and fed the young charge’s interest in the sport, introducing him to the blocks and all else that comes with early track ambition.
Soon enough Gowa was Cairns-bound, deciding he had out-grown what his home-town could offer him.
It was déjà vu mid-2007 when he faced a similar decision - for the same reasons. A move from Cairns to the bright lights of Brisbane beckoned, especially if he wanted to capitalise on progress that was heading - gradually - towards something special.
“I moved from Ravenshoe to Cairns and Cairns had only got me so far and then I had to move to Brisbane,” he confirmed. “This is where the competition is and obviously I had to try different avenues with coaches and stuff too.
“I think I’ve made a good choice moving to Brisbane. I’ve had good words to Kyle about coming to Brisbane and I think it’s just something we had talked about after my trip to Samoa.
“My win in New Zealand just gave me lots more confidence and I (faced) the decision that if I ever wanted to run fast, I’d just have to move.”
Gowa competed in Samoa in December and New Zealand in March as part of the Jump Start squad, winning the B-final of the 100m at the latter.
To that stage he was employed as a development officer with the Australian Football League; a position that, unfortunately, wouldn’t follow him to his new home.
Life changed in a big way. The re-location formally elevated athletics to outright No. 1, which Gowa admits took some getting used to. His girlfriend, mates and family members wished him well from Cairns.
“At first I was a bit shocked because I had only ever worked for AFL and it was basically a seven-day-a-week job, working weekends and stuff,” he noted. “When I moved to Brisbane, everything took a step back. It was a bit hard to adjust from a daily routine of AFL to relaxing and getting into the swing of training six days a week instead of working seven days a week. Everything’s just been a big change. When I first came, it was a highlight to train around more athletes too.”
Gowa joined coach Darryl Wohlsen in Brisbane, a former national team representative and Commonwealth Games relay bronze medallist.
A straightshooter, Wohlsen is measured with his praise but respectful of Gowa’s growing endeavour - dubbing his understudy “not a bad talent, I guess someone who loves his sport and trying to do the best he can.”
Immersed in his Brisbane experience, Gowa highlights the value of Wohlsen as tutor.
“He’s taught me a lot more things about athletics, things I’d never learnt, trying different types of things and not just on the track but off the track too,” he said. “Just to be able to relate with your coach in that way, you know that they’re there to look after you. It’s not just to get you to the top and get you the glory.”
The bass note in Gowa’s tune, however, is his triumph over Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Sure, weight of the news rattled him but didn’t derail him. More than anything, it fuelled his motivation. Come December, four months after being diagnosed, Gowa competed at the Oceania Championships, running 11.19 (-0.6) over 100m to finish third.
“The doctor said ‘you’re going to be out of track for basically 12 months, you’re going to have to just write yourself off,’” Gowa recalled. “I started back training in October, trained right up until I was selected for the Australian Oceania development team that went over to Samoa and my goal was to make a semi-final and I achieved that.
“Lots of people have seen my performances and I didn’t really tell them why I’d been off the track for so long. Now, I’ve worked very hard and I don’t take things for granted. I strive so much through training and just hope that I make it to the top and that Olympic team or that world champs team or that Commonwealth team is just around the corner.
“With the illness, it’s obviously made me stronger as a person but, to me, it doesn’t matter how well you are, it’s something that will just occur,” he continued. “At the click of a finger you can be sick and with my cancer and stuff, I was pretty fit at the time and running pretty much six days a week and gym three days a week. For the doctor to say ‘you’ve got cancer’ was a massive weight on my shoulder and I think the best thing was that I was going to live out of it. What broke my heart the most was not being able to run for about 12 months.
“Coming out of that and talking to other people about it, some people don’t realise how good they’ve got it. I don’t come to training and just hope I get through the session, I try and set my goals through the session and try and achieve them. If I don’t achieve them, I just go to the next day or the following week and try and beat that goal. It was a tough process but I’m over it now. If I can talk to a lot more people about it, people who are diagnosed with an illness, hopefully they can feel better and that can be a good motivator for them.”
Team Gowa, Wohlsen and McGrady included, concede that the move to Brisbane hasn’t been a seamless transition though it is paying dividends.
A return to Cairns for the Oceania Grand Prix and Melanesian Championships had a huge impact; a homesick Gowa celebrating the opportunity to run before family and friends with a personal best of 10.68 (-0.4) over 100m and 21.53 (-0.6) over 200m.
“I’d really focused on winning the 100,” he said. “For me, I wanted to prove to everybody. I knew the Australian team was going to be there at that time, but I wanted to prove to some of the selectors like Cliff (Mallett) and Paul Hallam that ‘look to the sides a bit there, mate, because you’ve got another youngster that’s coming through’.
“I think that after that run I did turn a few heads and even people back up in Cairns have acknowledged me and said the move to Brisbane has really paid off. It’s good to see. After that I’ve got a lot more respect from Adam Miller and Matt Shirvington and guys like that who have been in the Australian program or have represented Australia for a long time. Adam came and congratulated me after the race. That whole weekend was pretty good and it was step one for me to focus towards Singapore.”
It was at the Singapore Championships that Gowa took it to another level, each of his three runs over 100m inside his previous personal best. The finest of those stopped the clock at 10.54 (+0.6).
Reward also came in the form of a team leadership role for the nine other Jump Start athletes that made the trip to compete at the championships.
“Otis was the obvious choice for that,” McGrady said. “He was Otis off the track, he was joking and he was laughing but as soon as he got to the track he said to the boys ‘this is it, this is business.’ Although he’s there for himself, he’s also encouraging the younger ones. A few of them did have a bad run and were disappointed and he was quite giving in that way. He tells them his story, he says ‘this is what I’ve done to get to where I am now’ and it just gives them that inspiration really.”
“I think with my job with the AFL…we were looked at as leaders within our community,” Gowa chimed. “For me it’s more trying to better myself to try to show other people, our younger generation through the program, that as long as you put the effort in and train these are the results. With my move to Brisbane I’ve wanted to show lots of people out there, especially Indigenous people, that this is the way to go, this is how you do it, as long as you put the hard work in.
“I think especially my performances at Singapore, it’s really turned a lot of the guys’ heads. Hopefully when we meet again, some of the guys will be bigger and better.”
Like most other fledgling athletes, Gowa drew his own inspiration from those who came before him; the feats of Indigenous heroes Cathy Freeman, Vander Kuyp and Patrick Johnson. (Ironically, Gowa was presented with the Catherine Freeman Encouragement Award at the recent Queensland Indigenous Sports Awards).
Johnson, still one of the elite Australian sprinters, appears to have left the biggest impression.
“I met Patrick a long time ago - I was only about 17 - at Runaway Bay,” Gowa said. “To sit down and talk about where he’s been, the Australian (100m) record and where he’s at and stuff like that, it’s just really good. Running against him, I had massive butterflies in my stomach but now Patrick’s about to finish and I’m about come in.
“For me, what he’s achieved I’d like to achieve something like that. He’s shown the way for me but what I need to do is follow on what he’s done and show the way for everyone else. Achieving a lot more goals in what I want to do will take time. Patrick gave it time.”
Already Gowa seems to be creating that influence, paving a road of his own.
“It is five years out from London but sprinters are not made overnight,” McGrady said. “In terms of athlete years, because he’s been sick, he’s really a first year athlete. That’s the beauty of Otis because he’s done all his growing, he’s done all his developing and because he’s in remission with his sickness, he can now do the heavy weights and the heavy training.
“He’s almost like Patrick Johnson and Linford Christie, who came onto the scene late. In five years he’ll be 28, he could almost do another Olympics after that. If he has a 10-year career, then we could be looking at another Olympics along the line. The fact he’s been picked up for the relay camp is a big boost and it’s a boost for the program so early on. People like Otis are attracting more and more people into the program and he’s valuable to our program in so many ways.”
Hallam and Mallett at the national high performance centre for sprints and relays have already earmarked Gowa’s potential, inviting him to train with the Australian Institute of Sport’s relay squads. Some things have probably happened sooner than expected.
“At the moment, because he’s shown a little bit of improvement, he’s fringe-borderline getting into those relay squads now,” Wohlsen acknowledged. “That’s changed our focus now to obviously trying to getting to two or more grands prix if we can, try and post a few more personals bests through the season and my aim hopefully he can make a national final.
“(It’s) a big step from a 10.70 runner to maybe running a 10.40 to make it happen in one year, but the way he’s progressing it could happen. Hopefully, (he can get) top eight at nationals and I guess the long-term is, if that keeps going, to become a senior member of the Australian teams.”
Medium-term, who knows what awaits Gowa. As his achievements continue to build, he remains grateful for the opportunities granted by his place in Jump Start.
“The program has made me a different person,” he said. “It’s made me more within myself and has encouraged me (to believe) that I can achieve bigger and better things.”
Down the track, McGrady will work to identify the next Otis Gowa. Until then, it’s a matter of enjoying the present.
“The most impressive thing about Otis is his actual commitment to training and the program,” she said. “He deserves to do well.”
By Steven Lavell