In the first in a series, Out into the Open, on female athlete wellbeing, Olympic rowing medallist Hannah Osborne talks about her depression and how pottery has helped her through the dreaded post-Olympic slump.
Since returning from the heady heights of winning a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics, rower Hannah Osborne has had plenty of time to think – first in MIQ, then in lockdown, and now sitting at the pottery wheel in her Cambridge home.
And she’s realised that being an Olympic medallist is different to what she’d imagined.
“I honestly thought it was going to complete me in a way, but I’m just the same me,” the 27-year-old says.
Reflecting on her journey and what got her to the top, she isn’t afraid to admit it’s been a rollercoaster ride.
The contours of her courageous life may never have led to the Olympic podium if not for a decision she made seven years ago while suffering from tendonitis in both hamstrings.
“I was in pain when I rowed and thought the injury was the end of the road for me. But decided I may as well make the most of this rowing thing and get an education,” she says.
On the back of her successful junior rowing career, the former Piopio College pupil, who’d grown up on a farm near Waitomo Caves, took up the offer of a rowing scholarship at the University of Virginia. Physically, at least, it proved to be a great decision.
“In the States, the volume of training was very much reduced since there’s a cap on how much you can train,” she explains.
The lighter load gave her a chance to rehabilitate and “grow into the sport”. But some aspects of her life in the United States were exceptionally tough, she says, especially psychologically.
Faced with a cluster of major challenges, including having one of her closest friends at home pass away, she found herself in a dark place, and was diagnosed with depression.
It was an experience she later opened up about in the recently published book, How We Got Happy: Stories of health and happiness from 20 young Kiwis who beat depression, by Jonathan Nabbs (son of late Silver Fern Margaret Forsyth) and Rio Olympics rower Eve Macfarlane.
Osborne was able to eventually ‘beat’ depression after she returned to New Zealand for a short mental health break and realised she couldn’t bear to go back.
“Things started rapidly getting better when I left America and moved back to New Zealand,” she says in her chapter of the book. “Being back on the farm in the mountains surrounded by bush and my network of family and friends was really important and helped me feel safe and supported.”
During her darkest days, Osborne’s dream to become an Olympic medallist had never extinguished, and she threw herself into training and made the New Zealand U23 quad scull team, and Rowing NZ’s prestigious “Summer Squad”.
“It made me think, maybe there’s a chance now I’m properly in the system and am getting paid,” she says, adding just how helpful it was to no longer have to juggle work with rowing.
After a stint competing for New Zealand in single sculls, until Emma Twigg came out of retirement, Osborne ended up in the newly formed quad scull crew that placed fifth at the 2019 world rowing championships in Austria, and earned New Zealand a spot at the Tokyo Olympics.
When Osborne was then named in the New Zealand quad scull team for 2020, she naturally envisaged herself contesting that event at the Tokyo Olympics come July. But being 2020, nothing went according to plan.
Instead, she found herself locked down, training alone in her garage, and desperately missing the regular physiotherapy she depended on.
After the first national lockdown, she continued to train in the quad scull squad for the postponed Games, until, earlier this year, another curveball arrived.
Unexpectedly, Osborne was asked to trial against Olivia Loe for a place in the double. Loe and Brooke Donoghue had won the 2019 world championships, but a long period without international racing meant their places were no longer assured.
Osborne says she genuinely didn’t have a preference between contesting the double or the quad. “I knew I was going to enjoy either boat and there was medal winning potential in both,” she says.
She excelled at the Olympic trials and was subsequently named in the double scull with Donoghue (Loe took Osborne’s place in the quad). Arriving in Tokyo only weeks later, Osborne says she put no expectations on herself. “We were such a new combination,” she explains.
Despite the pandemic, Osborne found her first Olympic experience “seriously amazing”.
“I remember walking into the village and seeing these massive apartment buildings covered in flags and just feeling the excitement. I’ve never seen so many people in their athletic prime,” she says. “The Japanese are such gorgeous people. They went out of their way to make sure you felt happy and safe.”
In the lead-up to her event, Osborne had to acclimatise to the peculiarities of the Games, such as the daily saliva testing, the endless hand sanitising, and the rowing course on the Sea Forest waterway where large aircraft frequently thundered just overhead on approach to nearby Haneda Airport.
On the day of the final, Osborne felt uncharacteristically calm.
“My mind was neutral and clear,” she says. “You can’t go five percent faster on an Olympic day – that’s not how it works – but you can go five percent slower if you overthink things and do something wrong. I just wanted to put out my best performance, and what would be would be. The nice thing was Brooke was very much the same,” she says.
Crossing the finish-line, Osborne had no idea where they’d placed.
“Brooke pulled me back into a big hug and I was like, ‘What is going on?’,” she says.
Glancing up, Osborne saw New Zealand on the scoreboard right beneath first-placed Romania, but it took her a few seconds to switch out of ‘controlled elite athlete’ mode and fully experience the emotions washing over her as she processed winning Olympic silver – her first-ever international rowing medal.
“You’ve had your blinkers on for such a long time and emotion is something you have to put to the side, but then I was able to let it out and think, I’m allowed to feel the things I’m feeling,” she says.
“I’m allowed to happy cry and be so proud that I did this for my family and for New Zealand. Sharing it with Brooke made it so much more special, and also with our coach James [Coote] and all the support staff. To be honest I wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for them.”
In the weeks since, Osborne says she’s inevitably gone through a post-Olympic slump.
“It’s a natural thing. You can achieve the world, but you have to be truly happy with yourself in order to feel complete. I thought it was going to fill my cup," she says. "But it comes back to what makes me happy and the tools I use. Everyone has a toolkit, but it’s about being aware of what makes you happy.”
Osborne admits it wasn’t entirely easy to put her mental health story out into the world.
“I’m not going to lie. When I saw my story written up and about to be published, it did give me butterflies and I was worried about being judged,” she says. “But I’ve found that talking is so freeing. And my being so vulnerable is going to help other people.
“Everyone is going to go through some highs and lows, but it’s about learning who you are as a person, learning about the signs that you’re going in a place you don’t want to go, or the signs you’re in a happy place and then knowing the tools to keep you there.
“Being active is a huge part of my mental wellbeing, and I’m constantly evolving and adding things to my tool belt."
She's now introduced pottery as a creative outlet. "The lovely thing is nobody can judge art. Pottery has taught me nothing is perfect, and you can’t make anything perfect,” she says.
Alongside the small ceramics business she’s started, Osborne has plenty to keep her occupied into next year and beyond: a wedding to plan with her fiancé and fellow rower Anthony Allen, a degree in environmental planning to complete, and a new Olympic cycle to commence.
While Paris 2024 certainly beckons, Osborne intends to do it on her terms.
“I’ve achieved what I wanted to achieve. Now it’s my choice to go back and row, so it’s going to be about the journey, not the end goal,” she says.
And while she’s under no illusion that life is perpetually smooth, right now she feels buoyant. “The future looks really exciting,” she says.
* How We Got Happy: Stories of health and happiness from 20 young Kiwis who beat depression, by Jonathan Nabbs and Eve Macfarlane (Bateman Books), is now available at bookstores and online retailers.
