November 30, 2021 • 38 mins
Ever wondered what it takes to be in the Olympics? Australian Paralympic athlete Madison de Rozario shares how she became a professional wheelchair racer, what keeps her motivated, and what it means to be a woman of color with disabilities in sports. Madison also tells Meg and Mon about her journey to self-love and her commitment to get more people with disabilities in sports.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think we feel ownership of our body and the
fol we feel comfortable being critical of it because we
feel comfortable being critical ab outselves. But it's not your
Your physical self is separate and you have to look
after your body, calm, look after itself. It needs you
to make those decisions and to do that, you need
to love and respect it. This is Sweat the Details,
(00:22):
a collaboration with Under Armour and I Heart Radio, a
sports and training podcast made for women by women that
puts our success in challenges at the front and center.
I'm Monica Jones, I'm a fitness coach, boxer, business owner,
and you a athlete. And I'm Meg Boggs, I'm a powerlifter, author,
body positivity advocate and mother. Every episode, Monica and I
(00:43):
will talk to athletes, trainers, and experts and learn more
about how the body mind work together in training and competition. Today, fam,
we're talking with Australian wheelchair racer Madison day Rosario. In
the Tokyo Olympics, Madison won gold in the women's marathon
T fifty four and women eight hundred fifty three and
bronze in women's fifteen hundred meter T fifty four. She
(01:05):
also won one silver medal in the two thousand eight
Beijing Paralympics, two silver medals in the Rio Paralympics, and
three gold medals at the World para Athletics Championships. Unbelievable.
Madison's talent energy is just unmatched. Seriously, can you believe
she competed in her first Paralympics at fourteen? Incredible? She
(01:27):
is an astonishing figure in sports, and we hope that
her journey inspires many other future athletes and para athletes
and just pursuing their dreams. Madison not only has so
much love for the sport that she is in, but
she has so much passion for paying that forward and
really you know, paving the way for other paralympians and
(01:49):
wheelchair athletes. Absolutely, I feel like this is a conversation
that we rarely ever here. I just don't think that
there's that representation available for people with disabilities, especially in sports.
So having her on and hearing from her, hearing her
heart and her story, and just really giving this conversation
a chance to reach people that maybe it wouldn't have reached.
(02:10):
So I'm really excited to have this conversation. Yes, I
really appreciate Madison's ability to show her passion for sport,
but also just as much passion for paving the way
for those with disabilities and sports. Absolutely, I'm so excited
and grateful for madisone for coming on and this is
going to be a conversation that I think is going
to reach a lot of people. Yes, I'm very excited
(02:33):
to hear from Madison. You ready to have our conversation.
Let's get it. What's a sweat, fam We have the
absolute pleasure of sitting down right now with Madison de Rosario,
Paralympic athlete and gold medalists were so happy to have
you here with us today. Madison, how are you. I'm
(02:54):
really good. Thanks for having me on, of course, and
that is awesome. Always good to hear that you're doing well.
First of all, I just want to say that you're phenomenal,
seriously phenomenal, and congratulations on crushing it this year at Tokyo.
My daughter, who was about to be four with some
mesmerized watching your race and I just like, I just
wanted to make sure that I told you at some point,
(03:15):
So I'm just going to get it out the right away.
My god, that's the sweetest. So walk us through your
journey into fitness. Madison. What role does sports play in
your life growing up? So, I'm I'm one of three sisters,
and I had a very active family growing up. Um,
I think every kind of family in Australia, that's just
kind of a part of it. You kind of expected
to play every single sport and I would just kind
(03:37):
of go along with whatever my sisters were doing. But
when I was about um eleven or twelve, um, you
kind of start to notice the differences a little bit.
So you know, everyon around me was getting like, you know,
taller and and stronger and faster on the grass. And
so that's when I started exploring wheelchair sports options, and
wheelchair basketball is the really big one where I grew up.
(03:58):
Our our national program centralized out of there now, so
that was the one that I kind of saw everywhere.
So I tried. I tried basketball, and I'm the most
uncoordinated human and so I was terrible. And I loved
it because it was just a bunch of people that
looked like me playing sport and that was fun. But
I was atrocious, and I remember one of the coaches
(04:19):
basically pulled me aside on like my third or fourth go,
and he was like, you're terrible at this, but I
have a track chare in the storage room. Do you
want to give it a go? So I I jumped
in this race chair in the parking lot of this
basketball stadium and just absolutely fall in love with it.
What is like something about the sport that you just
absolutely love? Like, what is it about wheelchair racing that
(04:42):
you just you don't get this huge amount of motivation
and inspiration to to race? Like, what is it about
that sport? I think I love that everything that you
put into it you get back out of it. I
love that it's independent. I love that it's not a
team sport, and I'm like entirely ac nable for everything
that I do out there. If I make a mistake,
(05:02):
that's on me to fix and and if I absolutely
nail it, then that's also on me. And I think
I love that aspect of it. I also love that
it's so black and white, Like I love that I
can if I put the work in and I work
on X, Y and Z and I listened to my
performance team and I do everything required to me both
physically but also mentally, I can see those results in
(05:25):
such a tangible way in in terms of like rankings
and times and spades. Yeah, I love all of that
so much. Wow. I mean the way that you embrace
the individual nature of the sport in the technique, it
speaks volumes about how successful you've been in all of
your performances. You went to your first Paralympics at age fourteen. Wow,
(05:46):
that's an extraordinary achievement. How was the moment when you
learned you qualified for your first Paralympics? Did you always
envision yourself as an international athlete? No, not at all,
So that was a little bit surreal. I definitely didn't
see myself being a professional athlete. My family was definitely
surprised because again I was not competitive in sport when
I was a kid at all. But I fell in
(06:08):
love with word to racing when I was about twelve
and I went to my first international competition. It was
here in Australia, was in Sydney, but we had this
big international field come out and it was two thousand
and eight, so it was a games, dear, and so
you had, you know, and because in January it's within
the qualification period still, so you had like a huge
international field come out still trying to get those qualifiers,
(06:30):
and we have one particularly fast track um here in
Australia down in Canberra, and so it draws quite a
big field. So I remember kind of just being so
blown away, not just by the athletic prowess of these
people around me, but that it was just these people
and and primarily women, Like I remember just seeing these
like strong, fierce women just leaning into their own identity
(06:54):
right and being anything and everything that they wanted to be.
And this, this sport was was kind of allowing them
that the structure to to shape these lives that I
had never imagined for myself. And so I fell in
love with a sport, but I also think fell in
love with like the lifestyle of it all and and
how I how they were able to just push themselves
using sport as a way to do it. And so
(07:16):
that that's where I think I really fell in love
with it. And so I started working with my coach
who I still work with now, Luis Savage, and we
were kind of training with the big goal being London twelve.
I'd be eighteen at that point and and you know,
maybe like a world champ before then, to to kind
of like you know, lead into that a little bit
tightier and and a spot actually opened up on the
(07:38):
four by one relay team. Um, so I sprinted through
it through my first games. Yeah, and so that's the
spot that I felt. I remember getting the phone call.
I was in year ten at school, um, and so
I remember like getting the phone call and I want
to say, like a physics class or some kind of
science class and answering because I knew that today was
the day they were announcing, you know, the last call
for the team. But yeah, no, it definitely wasn't a
(08:00):
part of a plan to be invaging. But when I'm
so grateful for that's so cool. Yeah, you're in the
middle class and you're like, well, where I'd rather be
is calling me now, Yes, I priorities. Did you say
that you first started wheelchair racing at twelve? Did I
hear that right? Yeah? And then you went to your
first Paralympics at fourteen years later. Yeah, it was an
(08:23):
enormous shock. And yeah, I think, like I was kind
of saying before, it's more the technical slide, like if
you can get that skill down, and I had such
a good team around me, just kind of teach me like,
that's all we focused on, and so I think I
managed to skip a lot of kind of that initial
process into it. We decided with like basics and and
I was I was definitely only there because of the
real way I would not have made that team, you know,
(08:44):
as an individual athlete at that point, so very much
because of the relay that I got there. But yeah,
short turned around. Wow, all right, are y'all ready for
some really impressive stats? Here we go Inaralympics, Madison, you
won old in the women's marathon TEA fifty four and
women's eight hundred meter T fifty three and bronze in
(09:05):
the women's fifteen hundred tea fifty four. Yes, all that
tell us more about this experience and how did you
mentally and physically prepare for those competitions. So Tokyo was
the biggest roller coaster of my life, and so my
program was really condensed. I had all all all my
(09:27):
track events kind of within four days by the end
of it um and so it was very much back
to back events. And my first race out was the
five thousand, which typically is one that I'm decent at.
So I going into these games I'd come second at
the last time i'd raced it UM the World Champs
(09:47):
in twenty nine, and the two years prior of that
at the World I'd actually want it. So it's an
event that, you know, it's my favorite track event, to
be honest, and so I definitely had high expectations going in.
And I lined up for this races and I hadn't
raced in in two years at this point, and I
ran the most tactically awful race of my life, and
(10:11):
it was, Yeah, it was you know, it was a
peril big final, and I just every decision that I
made it was incorrect basically, And while I was making it,
it's like I knew I was making the wrong decisions,
but I didn't know what the right decision was. It
was like I was just so out of practice with
with that part of you know, trusting your your decision
making and backing yourself and making it and then executing
(10:35):
it immediately that I just I hesitated, and I made mistakes,
and and the woman that did win it, she wanted
by an unreal amount um. I think there was like
a hundred meter gap between her and silver, that another
between silver and bronze. It was unreal. She was a
second off the world record UM and basically that that
winning time was like six seconds quicker than than my
(10:56):
personal best. So absolutely unreal race on on her part.
She's an American woman, Susanna Scarroni, and that was her
first gold medal at a Parapics as well, so unreal
race for her so deserved. Hurt me a little bit
emotionally to be you know, I remember on the bell lap,
so four hundred minutes ago your last lap. Do you
get the bell so you know it's your last lap.
(11:17):
I remember hearing her bell lap when I was still
six hundred meters from the finish line, and it was
like the most demoralizing thing. I was like, I don't
know what to do with this. So I remember coming, Yeah,
I I came out of that race, and I had
the eight hundred meter semifinal the next morning, and so
I only had about, you know, less than twenty four
hours to kind of process that and and re learned
(11:39):
to trust myself as an athlete in that time, which
was one of the biggest challenges UM, because I think
you're able to make decisions because you trust that your
body can do it, can follow through and what you're
about to ask it to do, and I just I
wasn't able to do that because I hadn't, you know,
shown that I could do that over this five k
and I think the part that I felt let me
(11:59):
down was like the decision making part. And so I
spoke to my coach about this, and we basically decided,
like the eight hundred, we'd make all the decisions before
I even saw the track. And so normally on a
day when I have like a semifinal in the morning
the final in the evening, you run a really easy semifinal,
like you just do the bare minimum to get through,
and we kind of decided to give it a good
(12:20):
go instead because I think I needed to kind of
feel that speed, familiarize my body with actually doing a
race again to have that confidence for the final. And
so we we ran a well executed, solid race that
morning and that was definitely very confidence inspiring. And we
sat in my apartment in the village between the two
races and basically planned the eight hundred. And the eight
(12:42):
hundreds great because there's really only one, maybe two decisions
you have to make out there on the track, and
and we made them in my apartment in the village
before we even got back out to the camp venue.
And so when it came down to it, it was
I was able to execute it without thinking too much
and that, you know, having run the eight hundred the
morning the way we did, I kind of had the
confidence in my body to be able to do that,
(13:03):
and so it was one of the most well executed
races I've ever done. So that contrast it to the
five thousand was so nice, and it was you know,
it's such a nice way to come back from it.
God Like, it just sounds like so much goes in,
you know, mentally and physically. I mean I didn't even
think about like the whole specific plan and then if
you know, I'm sure the plan can change at any moment.
(13:23):
I'm like, that has to just mentally be a little
brutal kind of exciting but also a little brutal. Well,
you know, speaking of like different challenges that we go
through any you just took us through a wild ride
and that is wow. I'm just like soaking it all in.
But what are you know, what are some other challenges
that you've faced in your sports career and what have
you done to overcome them? How do you overcome them?
(13:45):
So I I nearly gave up the sport after the
London Paralympics. I made it through two games without really
knowing who I was as an athlete. I grew up
in this in this sport, surrounded by these people and
there and the easing people. But they're also approaching the
sport in their own way that suits them. And I
think because I have known this, been on this like
(14:07):
senior team since I was fourteen, I was basically trying
to emulate what I saw around me rather than trying
to work out what I needed to do for for myself.
And I didn't realize at the time that was going
to be a big problem later on where I got
to wrapping up London. I was eighteen at the time,
and I had no idea who I was, And I
had no idea who I was as a person or
(14:28):
as an athlete, because I just spent you know, an
entire game cycle just trying to be what I thought
an athlete needed to be. And you know, if I
was ever upset before a race, I would have, you know,
staff members basically say, you know, turn that anger into
into a good race. And I can't do that like,
I just raced terribly if I'm not very calm leading
into it um, and I thought I was doing something wrong.
(14:52):
Add into that in London I was fairly injured. I
was I was still sprinting, and my body doesn't lend
itself to to sprinting. I just wasn't very good at
it um compared to what I thought I could be
as an athlete. And so coming out of London, basically
I had fallen out of love with the sport. I
felt like it was demanding so much of me that
(15:13):
I didn't think I wanted to give at that point,
and I didn't actually tell anybody, which was like the
most immature eighteen year old decision I possibly could have made.
I just kind of stopped investing in it. But I
wasn't brave enough to walk away or brave enough to
have those conversations and stuck in the middle, and so
(15:35):
I spent maybe like a year of just kind of
I switched. I quit sprinting in London. That was the
last time I ever sprinted, and I raised my first
marathon the following year, London Marathon in April. So I
was making good decisions. I just still wasn't mentally doing
the work that I needed to do, and it took
um until the Calm Off Games. We're in Glasgow and
(16:00):
I was going in as um I think the highest
or the second highest ranked athlete in the Commonwealth, and
I was kind of excited about it because I thought
that this would be the moment, like this might turn
it around. I've not been able to quiet get the
success that I want and maybe this will do it
for me. And on the flight over from Perth, Australia
(16:20):
to Dubai as a labor I actually got a d
VT like a blood clot um and and and a
huge one at that it was forty Oh my godness,
and I, oh my goodness. Yeah. And when they told
me in the hospital in the UK, they're like, it
goes from like mid thides, like your stomach, and I
was like, this seems far more dramatic than But I
(16:42):
was also not able to compete at those Calm Games
and I had to watch that race from from the
stands and it was mixed because my my teammate and
my roommate at those Calm Games, she she wanted. So
it was such a high to watch that and also
so devastating to to get to miss out, But I
think realizing how that I was about not being on
the track, I kind of realized that I didn't want
(17:04):
to walk away. I just wanted to not be doing
it like this, And that was when I finally chose
to to talk to my coach about it. And and
she's one of the people that I had been trying
to emulate to this day. She's the most competitive human
that I know. She's she's so fiery, she can fire
up in an instant, and she would win races because
she just wanted it more than anybody else. And she
(17:27):
was one of all people that was so patient with
me and basically recognized that that wasn't the athlete that
I was. How do we make it that I can
race in a way that does truly work for me
and benefit me? And how do I get to grow
into the athlete that I need to be in order
to be successful? And that was that was all her.
She created it and held that space for me to
(17:49):
be able to do that, and it's beautiful. It was amazing.
And we did receive a bit of pushback from members
around us with the decisions that we were making, and
she was so strong in allowing me to be the
athlete that I wanted to be. And we did twelve
months of this basically and came in World championships and
I as this new version of an athlete and won
(18:12):
my first world title. So it was unreal and yeah,
and so very much fell back in love with the sport.
But I would say that is probably the biggest um
speedbump of my career. Yeah, it's almost like, you know,
visualizing or being able to witness something almost being taken
away from you for a moment finally gives you the
clarity where you can see, actually, yes, I do really
(18:34):
want this, and I really want to figure out a
way to do it on my own terms, and I'm
willing to explore that. And of course your coach is
an incredible support system for that. She's amazing and and
I think now I can kind of recognize what I'm
falling into those slumps and it doesn't take a big
catalyst to change it. You can kind of act before
it really hits that point, which is an amazing learning
(18:55):
curve to have. Yes, serious growth right there, so incredible. Well,
I want to switch gears a little bit and kind
of head towards a little bit more advice that you
would have. I'm sure we have some listeners that may
want to become UM Paralympians one day. Let's first start
off with like setting goals. UM, I know you started
very young, So do you have any strategies that you've
(19:17):
kind of learned and developed over the years to help
set goals and really make them happen. It took me
a little while to learn this, but I think I
learned that you have to be so consider it when
setting your goals because it's less so about whether you
achieve it or not. Right Like, I think we so
taught that you know, when you achieve this thing, that's
where I don't know, happiness and pride and all of
(19:41):
that that comes in. And so I think we usually
set goals for the person that you want to be,
Like when we hit that, we're gonna be this person
and then that will be good. And it's not really
about anything between now and achieving it, And so I
think we put too much pressure on on actually achieving
it when the reality is it's short lived and it
(20:02):
also doesn't matter. I feel like you you take you
take a goal, you do it, and then the next morning,
you're the exact same person, right, surrounded by the same
people doing the same things. Like, it doesn't change anything,
so right, I think we've all been there, We've all
done this and realized that it doesn't mean as much
as we thought it would mean. Whereas setting goals that
(20:24):
allow you to shape your life now, to get to
live in and be the person that you want to
be in that space, I think that's unreal. That's I
think is what is really really important. And that's definitely
how I make all of my decisions. Um and so
you know, I do set obviously very big goals in
sport and and as and personally, but I think what
(20:46):
it means is is now the life that I get
to live. I'm I'm surrounded by amazing people in you know,
through the sport who I've met, but also like in
the performance team that I work with, like that they're
so motivated and and they're in it for more than
just professional reason. Like I'm surrounded by people who are
truly invested in me and what I'm doing. And and
I get to be proud of myself and I get
(21:07):
to do a job that I love and push myself
and and learn so much about myself and I think
that's amazing and and with the sporting platform, I'm able
to have an impact and and that's important to me too.
You know that that young girls who look like me
see someone like themselves growing up, because that's not really
something that that I had growing up. And so all
(21:28):
of those things are what made me, you know, happy
and so proud of of everything. And it's not really
the goals, it's kind of what you do in the middle.
So that is what I would say about goal setting,
is to be considerate of the fact that it's about,
you know, the structure that it provides to allow to
live the life that you want to live. Best goal
advice ever you heard it here first? Yes, it is.
(21:50):
There's so much alignment and how I know, I speak
for Megan and I when we talk about goals every
single week, but we are considerate of where we are
in the moment. And I think that you know, if
you backtrack, maybe like in the last decade, especially especially
with the rise of social media, it's almost seemed as
if your goals need to be astronomical and they need
(22:11):
to be extremely demanding and almost rob you of living
in the moment. And you know, we have to set
goals and allow for those goals to really be reflective
of the quality of life we want to live in
the moment too. I'm sure that that's reflective of what
I'm about to ask. But I know previously in some
interviews you've shared that you've used to struggle with body image,
(22:33):
and you know, I'm curious, how was the process of
building your confidence and loving your body. That's such a
difficult one for every single person, right we all run
into that at least once in our lives. I think
most of us so many more times than just a
few year, just a couple. It's definitely much large issue
(22:54):
for girls, for young girls particularly than it is for boys. Um,
not to minimize that, but there's there's so much pressure around,
you know, what girls should be and how they should look,
and and I went through that as well, but I
went through it as a girl in a disability, which
makes it that a little bit more challenging because there
was nothing that I could ever do, no matter how
(23:14):
much work I wanted to put in, that was ever
going to give me the body that I thought was
the social acceptable version, right, Like, it was completely impossible
and on the one hand, I feel like it stopped
me from developing bad habits around stuff like and a
lot of my friends would go to such extremes to
(23:34):
kind of create this ideal body that was so unattainable, um,
whereas I knew that no matter how much of that idea,
it would never happen. And so for me it was
it was sport that helped me to to snap out
of that. I think you can't be a good athlete
who has his love and respect for their body whilst
(23:55):
also hating the body that you're in. You can't demand
what you need to demand your body as an athlete
while kind of having those negative kind of feelings and
thoughts towards it. It It just doesn't work. And so I
think being able to take pride in what my body
was like physically capable of is what definitely for myself
got me out of that. But on saying that, I
(24:17):
don't think that your body needs to be able to
do a marathon to be a body that you respected of,
And that's what I struggle with. I think that if yeah,
I think if all your body does is provide a home,
then it's doing everything that it needs to do for you.
Anything more than that is above beyond, and we demand
so much and and I don't know if I would
(24:38):
have been able to get from you know, struggles a
body image to loving it without sport. I wish I
could say that, you know, I'm someone who could have
done that, and I definitely used sport as a crush
to do that. Um, but I would want for for
anyone listening is find a way to love your body.
Treat it as as an entire separate relationship, right Like,
(24:58):
I think we feel ownership of body and the if
always feel comfortable being critical of it because we feel
comfortable being critical of ourselves. But it's not your Your
physical self is separate and you have to look after
your body, calm, look after itself. It needs you to
make those decisions and to do that you need to
love and respect it. So I think find a way
to to create a healthy, working relationship with your body.
(25:20):
I mean that is you just blew my mind with that.
I personally have definitely seen my worth in physical movement,
but it did save me at the same time from
you know, dysmorphia and saying that having ownership of our
body creates comfort and being critical. Wow, Like that is.
(25:40):
There isn't a more true statement, I don't think, And
that was really great advice for, you know, other young
women trying to also build confidence and love for their bodies.
Couldn't agree more. Well. I was doing a little research
and people with disabilities make up fifteen per cent of
the world's population, and just to put that into perspective,
(26:02):
that's one billion people. That's a lot of people. That's
a lot of our world. And I feel like a
lot of like work, it's kind of invisible to us, Like,
how are how is that not more visible? Um? So,
what what do you want non disabled people to know
about para athletes and people with disabilities? I think I
would want people without disabilities to take the time to
(26:25):
see people with disabilities in all of their identities, and
disability is one of those identities, right, But I you know,
I don't want to detract from that. But you're also
such a multifaceted human under it, and I think we
often just we see the one thing and then we
kind of pack the entire identity into into that kind
of bias that we hold. And unfortunately, disability carries a
(26:48):
negative stigma and it shouldn't. Right there there's no good
reason for disability is like an entirely neutral thing. In
my opinion, it's it's neither good nor bad at it
simply is. But it's just kind like riddled with this
negative stigma. And so when you just see that side
of a person, you're kind of pushing like this discomfort
onto that. And so I think recognizing disability absolutely like
(27:12):
we you know, it's it's up for half of us.
It's so apparent and and then's a part of of
who we are. And I'm a very proud woman with
a disability. And but I think seeing someone in all
of their identities, in all of their facets, and I
think that's an active decision that has to make definitely
(27:32):
agree with that. And it's so important to acknowledge the
kind of energy you bring when you put someone in
one category before even taking the time to get to
know them or you know, looking past just what's that
what meets the eye? And that goes for everybody. Yeah,
it absolutely does. Under armours Sweather. Details will be back
(27:53):
after a short break. Welcome back to what the details. Alright,
So Maddie very excited. We're gonna get into our shake
it out portion and We're going to play a game
called Race to the End. All right, So we're gonna
ask you some questions and UM, figure out what keeps
(28:16):
you motivated, inspired and feeling good. Are you ready? Yes?
All right? What is your pre race ritual? I do
the exact same thing every single time. So I'll pick
one song that I'm obsessed with and I will listen
to it on loop. Um, and I just do the
exact same thing every single time before I get my
race check. Okay, what's one of the songs? So like
(28:37):
at games just now, it was this song called station
By like lastly I think, And it's like it's a
sad girl song, right, but I find it really calming.
And so I listened to that like on loop from
the five thousand on on my day one to the
marathon on the last day. I love it. I mean,
you know what if it gets you going, that's walk
(28:57):
into it. Yeah all right? UM? Your sports role model?
Who was that? Oh? So many? Um? So there's a
woman called Chantel Pedicle, Canadian world ch racer, and she
was dominant in Beijing at my first Games, and she
won five gold medals, three world records. I think, just
(29:20):
unreal amazing, amazing woman. And I remember after one of
her podiums, she'd like, I don't know, maybe like a
third or fourth gold medal. To get back to the
Canadian tent on the warm up track, you had to
walk by the Australian tent and on her way past,
she saw me double backed and gave me her flowers
from the podium and said these are you Until you win,
(29:41):
you're own. And so that was like unreal, amazing woman,
amazing human, just an incredible athlete. And so yeah, she
was definitely one of my sporting role models. Yeah. Still
that makes my day so dope, so dope to have
women like supporting women in that way. Yes, Okay, best
(30:02):
way to celebrate a win surround yourself with good people
who are going to like amplify that energy. Like I
think picking the right people to be around so important.
Whatever that looks like for you, Just find good people.
So true. Do you have any people that you that
you won't have to have with you that you're like
I with these people are with me. I know it's
going to be a positive hundred percent. Yes, So in
(30:23):
our team, like after a good result, I will seek
out these people I don't even know if they I
don't even know if they know who they are to me.
So I know you talked about songs a little bit
already for your pre rest ritual, But do you have
like a top three that you like to listen to
that really hype you up during a workout? Okay? So yes,
but they're not the most hype up songs, right, So
(30:45):
I love this. So like when I line up for
a race, like what I want to be, what I
want to feel is just like still, right, Like I
want to be still and calm, and so like us
into like the National a lot amazing Okay, and it's
again like come on, if they get you, go in.
(31:07):
You know it's what works, right all right? So what
is the best way to relax after a busy week
for you? Okay? So like a normal training week. I
have my dog. He needs like really long walks, and
sometimes that's a nuisance, Like if you have a busy day,
it is like the most inconvenient thing. But when you
kind of like just need time to unwind, So I
(31:28):
like walk in like an hour and a half, and
my family all live on the other side of the country,
so I will take that time to like call home
and and chat to my sisters and my mom and stuff.
So I find like, while it's like a thing that
I have to do or else my dog is a menace. Um,
it's also like one of like the pilots for me. Well, Madison,
thank you again for joining us today and just sharing
(31:50):
your heart and your story and incredible accomplishments. You're seriously
inspiring so many women and athletes around the world to
dream big and make waves in the world. So really,
thank you, truly, thank you, thank you so much, of course,
But before you go, could you share with our listeners
where they can find you on social media? Yes? So
(32:11):
I think just searching my name is easiest because my
my user name is stuck as like kind of a
ridiculous one from when I got verified. I can't change it,
so it's like it's like Madison full stop with like
full underscores. But like if you just search Madison dear sire,
it'll it'll come okay, perfect, good. Thank you so much
for all of your beautiful energy and just for really
(32:33):
embodying what it is that we would love to see
in more female athletes, because what you're doing in your
mission is really really going to change the lives of
so many. We're so glad we got the opportunity to
talk to you. No, thank you, thanks for giving me
like a platform to talk about it. Of course, thank
you Medisine. Well that's it for the season. Um wow,
(32:59):
I can't not believe the season is coming to an end.
It's been such an enriching experience to have all these
amazing conversations with our guests. You know, every single one
of them has taught me so so much. Yes, I
am over here crying in the club bag. I certainly
like my eyes keep watering. I know, I just thinking
about all of our incredible guests. It's been such an
(33:20):
experience just to be able to hear from so many
different women who are so passionate, I mean, hearing about
the true impact or training in the cold. I didn't
think that I was going to step outside into training
and feel such confidence and you know, just trust in
that process. If it wasn't for Luisa Nicola and her
(33:43):
pulling us through what the journey is like to train
in the cold for athletes, Yeah, I mean I didn't
have I didn't have any knowledge about that, so learning
if I had heard about it, but learning about it
and really understanding it a little bit better. UM, give
me a lot of insight and maybe I'll I'm still
thinking about it, so we'll see if that if that happens.
But I mean, gosh mon, after all of these conversations
(34:03):
that we had with incredible guests, I feel like a
lot of them kind of express sort of similar messaging UM,
and that just being that women need more visibility and sports,
more coverage, more pay more support, more opportunities for women
of color, women with disabilities, women of all sexual orientations.
I mean, the list just keeps going. We have all
(34:25):
of these amazing athletes like Madison the Rosario, Kelly O'Hara, Odyssey, Alexander,
Katie Sours all out there just absolutely crushing it in
their sport and not always necessarily getting the visibility and
the coverage and the enthusiasm in the same way, UM
that men's sports are kind of prioritized. But the more
conversations like this that we continue to have a huge
(34:46):
shout out to the under Armour and I heart Radio
women who allowed us the space to amplify these conversations,
the more we can hopefully help push that needle and
finally witness some real change and equality in women's sport. Yes,
and such a huge shout out to our team and
of course the women like Dr Elizabeth Bartie, that we
have to show the relatability of how we as athletes
(35:10):
or how we as women can deal with even something
as simple as body image or you know, the just
huge gap in pay or the huge gap in treatment
for women in sports or women in the workplace is insane,
and it's just so great to be able to bring
those relatable stories to the speakers of our listeners. And also,
(35:31):
I mean I've absorbed so much from those conversations that
made me feel so empowered and really left a lasting
impression on me. Yes, yes, absolutely, I think as we
wrap things up here at Under Arm or Sweat the
Details Season two, I'm gonna cry. I just want to
give an important reminder um to anyone listening that wherever
you are on your journey, whether you're exploring fitness for
(35:54):
the very first time, or whether you're currently working towards
the championship, there is space for everything angle one of
your journeys and hopes and dreams and accomplishments. In the
world of women's sports and fitness, our bodies are all
very different, and that's great. They're all unique. That is
incredible and I think it's freaking beautiful. So next time
(36:15):
you show up to a practice, work out, a game, anything,
get those experiences with your body. Just remember how wonderful
it is, whatever that might look like for you. Give
your body thank you every now and then speak up
for it every now and then uplift yourselves and each other.
I really do believe in these moments that we as
women can change the world. And I'm pretty sure all
(36:35):
of our guests this season are proof of just that.
I'm inspired. I'm about to just start crying. So yeah,
let's shed that last tier every season. Yes, yeah, I
mean I Meg always, you always speak to my heart.
And every single woman on this show, there's a recurring
theme of them growing up as a young girl and
then really absorbing what society had to say or to
(36:57):
give or didn't have to give to us, and you know,
really just going through their own experience at their own pace,
and they're sharing that journey. But they're the same matter
as all of us, We as your hosts, the same
matter physically as you all, And what really allows for
us to become more powerful is becoming more of ourselves
(37:18):
and leaning on one another and really finding strengthen each other.
So it's been an incredible honor y'all to be able
to bring you these vibes on the weekly for season two.
We cannot thank you all enough. Thank you so so
much for joining us to fam. If you liked what
you heard on this show, which we know you did,
subscribe for free or follow the show on the I
heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen, and
(37:41):
don't forget to leave a five star rating and review.
We so so appreciate it, and for the final time
on season two, stay inspired, stay motivated, and don't forget
to sweat the details. Bye. If you liked what you
(38:06):
heard on the show, subscribe for free or follow the
show on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you listen, and don't forget to leave a five
star rating and review. Sweat the Details. As a collaboration
with under Armour and I Heart Radio, our show was
hosted by me Monica Jones and me Meg Bogs. Our
executive producers are Jess strip Stein, Just Sell, Louis Archibald,
(38:26):
Molly Sosha, and Maya Cole. Our producers are Kelly and Tole,
Layla Cadreine, Emma Osborne and Alejandra Aruvalo, and our sound
editor and engineer is Sarah gible Leska. Keep up the
latest news in women's fitness by following under Armour at
under Armour Women and at under Armour
I think we feel ownership of our body and the
fol we feel comfortable being critical of it because we
feel comfortable being critical ab outselves. But it's not your
Your physical self is separate and you have to look
after your body, calm, look after itself. It needs you
to make those decisions and to do that, you need
to love and respect it. This is Sweat the Details,
(00:22):
a collaboration with Under Armour and I Heart Radio, a
sports and training podcast made for women by women that
puts our success in challenges at the front and center.
I'm Monica Jones, I'm a fitness coach, boxer, business owner,
and you a athlete. And I'm Meg Boggs, I'm a powerlifter, author,
body positivity advocate and mother. Every episode, Monica and I
(00:43):
will talk to athletes, trainers, and experts and learn more
about how the body mind work together in training and competition. Today, fam,
we're talking with Australian wheelchair racer Madison day Rosario. In
the Tokyo Olympics, Madison won gold in the women's marathon
T fifty four and women eight hundred fifty three and
bronze in women's fifteen hundred meter T fifty four. She
(01:05):
also won one silver medal in the two thousand eight
Beijing Paralympics, two silver medals in the Rio Paralympics, and
three gold medals at the World para Athletics Championships. Unbelievable.
Madison's talent energy is just unmatched. Seriously, can you believe
she competed in her first Paralympics at fourteen? Incredible? She
(01:27):
is an astonishing figure in sports, and we hope that
her journey inspires many other future athletes and para athletes
and just pursuing their dreams. Madison not only has so
much love for the sport that she is in, but
she has so much passion for paying that forward and
really you know, paving the way for other paralympians and
(01:49):
wheelchair athletes. Absolutely, I feel like this is a conversation
that we rarely ever here. I just don't think that
there's that representation available for people with disabilities, especially in sports.
So having her on and hearing from her, hearing her
heart and her story, and just really giving this conversation
a chance to reach people that maybe it wouldn't have reached.
(02:10):
So I'm really excited to have this conversation. Yes, I
really appreciate Madison's ability to show her passion for sport,
but also just as much passion for paving the way
for those with disabilities and sports. Absolutely, I'm so excited
and grateful for madisone for coming on and this is
going to be a conversation that I think is going
to reach a lot of people. Yes, I'm very excited
(02:33):
to hear from Madison. You ready to have our conversation.
Let's get it. What's a sweat, fam We have the
absolute pleasure of sitting down right now with Madison de Rosario,
Paralympic athlete and gold medalists were so happy to have
you here with us today. Madison, how are you. I'm
(02:54):
really good. Thanks for having me on, of course, and
that is awesome. Always good to hear that you're doing well.
First of all, I just want to say that you're phenomenal,
seriously phenomenal, and congratulations on crushing it this year at Tokyo.
My daughter, who was about to be four with some
mesmerized watching your race and I just like, I just
wanted to make sure that I told you at some point,
(03:15):
So I'm just going to get it out the right away.
My god, that's the sweetest. So walk us through your
journey into fitness. Madison. What role does sports play in
your life growing up? So, I'm I'm one of three sisters,
and I had a very active family growing up. Um,
I think every kind of family in Australia, that's just
kind of a part of it. You kind of expected
to play every single sport and I would just kind
(03:37):
of go along with whatever my sisters were doing. But
when I was about um eleven or twelve, um, you
kind of start to notice the differences a little bit.
So you know, everyon around me was getting like, you know,
taller and and stronger and faster on the grass. And
so that's when I started exploring wheelchair sports options, and
wheelchair basketball is the really big one where I grew up.
(03:58):
Our our national program centralized out of there now, so
that was the one that I kind of saw everywhere.
So I tried. I tried basketball, and I'm the most
uncoordinated human and so I was terrible. And I loved
it because it was just a bunch of people that
looked like me playing sport and that was fun. But
I was atrocious, and I remember one of the coaches
(04:19):
basically pulled me aside on like my third or fourth go,
and he was like, you're terrible at this, but I
have a track chare in the storage room. Do you
want to give it a go? So I I jumped
in this race chair in the parking lot of this
basketball stadium and just absolutely fall in love with it.
What is like something about the sport that you just
absolutely love? Like, what is it about wheelchair racing that
(04:42):
you just you don't get this huge amount of motivation
and inspiration to to race? Like, what is it about
that sport? I think I love that everything that you
put into it you get back out of it. I
love that it's independent. I love that it's not a
team sport, and I'm like entirely ac nable for everything
that I do out there. If I make a mistake,
(05:02):
that's on me to fix and and if I absolutely
nail it, then that's also on me. And I think
I love that aspect of it. I also love that
it's so black and white, Like I love that I
can if I put the work in and I work
on X, Y and Z and I listened to my
performance team and I do everything required to me both
physically but also mentally, I can see those results in
(05:25):
such a tangible way in in terms of like rankings
and times and spades. Yeah, I love all of that
so much. Wow. I mean the way that you embrace
the individual nature of the sport in the technique, it
speaks volumes about how successful you've been in all of
your performances. You went to your first Paralympics at age fourteen. Wow,
(05:46):
that's an extraordinary achievement. How was the moment when you
learned you qualified for your first Paralympics? Did you always
envision yourself as an international athlete? No, not at all,
So that was a little bit surreal. I definitely didn't
see myself being a professional athlete. My family was definitely
surprised because again I was not competitive in sport when
I was a kid at all. But I fell in
(06:08):
love with word to racing when I was about twelve
and I went to my first international competition. It was
here in Australia, was in Sydney, but we had this
big international field come out and it was two thousand
and eight, so it was a games, dear, and so
you had, you know, and because in January it's within
the qualification period still, so you had like a huge
international field come out still trying to get those qualifiers,
(06:30):
and we have one particularly fast track um here in
Australia down in Canberra, and so it draws quite a
big field. So I remember kind of just being so
blown away, not just by the athletic prowess of these
people around me, but that it was just these people
and and primarily women, Like I remember just seeing these
like strong, fierce women just leaning into their own identity
(06:54):
right and being anything and everything that they wanted to be.
And this, this sport was was kind of allowing them
that the structure to to shape these lives that I
had never imagined for myself. And so I fell in
love with a sport, but I also think fell in
love with like the lifestyle of it all and and
how I how they were able to just push themselves
using sport as a way to do it. And so
(07:16):
that that's where I think I really fell in love
with it. And so I started working with my coach
who I still work with now, Luis Savage, and we
were kind of training with the big goal being London twelve.
I'd be eighteen at that point and and you know,
maybe like a world champ before then, to to kind
of like you know, lead into that a little bit
tightier and and a spot actually opened up on the
(07:38):
four by one relay team. Um, so I sprinted through
it through my first games. Yeah, and so that's the
spot that I felt. I remember getting the phone call.
I was in year ten at school, um, and so
I remember like getting the phone call and I want
to say, like a physics class or some kind of
science class and answering because I knew that today was
the day they were announcing, you know, the last call
for the team. But yeah, no, it definitely wasn't a
(08:00):
part of a plan to be invaging. But when I'm
so grateful for that's so cool. Yeah, you're in the
middle class and you're like, well, where I'd rather be
is calling me now, Yes, I priorities. Did you say
that you first started wheelchair racing at twelve? Did I
hear that right? Yeah? And then you went to your
first Paralympics at fourteen years later. Yeah, it was an
(08:23):
enormous shock. And yeah, I think, like I was kind
of saying before, it's more the technical slide, like if
you can get that skill down, and I had such
a good team around me, just kind of teach me like,
that's all we focused on, and so I think I
managed to skip a lot of kind of that initial
process into it. We decided with like basics and and
I was I was definitely only there because of the
real way I would not have made that team, you know,
(08:44):
as an individual athlete at that point, so very much
because of the relay that I got there. But yeah,
short turned around. Wow, all right, are y'all ready for
some really impressive stats? Here we go Inaralympics, Madison, you
won old in the women's marathon TEA fifty four and
women's eight hundred meter T fifty three and bronze in
(09:05):
the women's fifteen hundred tea fifty four. Yes, all that
tell us more about this experience and how did you
mentally and physically prepare for those competitions. So Tokyo was
the biggest roller coaster of my life, and so my
program was really condensed. I had all all all my
(09:27):
track events kind of within four days by the end
of it um and so it was very much back
to back events. And my first race out was the
five thousand, which typically is one that I'm decent at.
So I going into these games I'd come second at
the last time i'd raced it UM the World Champs
(09:47):
in twenty nine, and the two years prior of that
at the World I'd actually want it. So it's an
event that, you know, it's my favorite track event, to
be honest, and so I definitely had high expectations going in.
And I lined up for this races and I hadn't
raced in in two years at this point, and I
ran the most tactically awful race of my life, and
(10:11):
it was, Yeah, it was you know, it was a
peril big final, and I just every decision that I
made it was incorrect basically, And while I was making it,
it's like I knew I was making the wrong decisions,
but I didn't know what the right decision was. It
was like I was just so out of practice with
with that part of you know, trusting your your decision
making and backing yourself and making it and then executing
(10:35):
it immediately that I just I hesitated, and I made mistakes,
and and the woman that did win it, she wanted
by an unreal amount um. I think there was like
a hundred meter gap between her and silver, that another
between silver and bronze. It was unreal. She was a
second off the world record UM and basically that that
winning time was like six seconds quicker than than my
(10:56):
personal best. So absolutely unreal race on on her part.
She's an American woman, Susanna Scarroni, and that was her
first gold medal at a Parapics as well, so unreal
race for her so deserved. Hurt me a little bit
emotionally to be you know, I remember on the bell lap,
so four hundred minutes ago your last lap. Do you
get the bell so you know it's your last lap.
(11:17):
I remember hearing her bell lap when I was still
six hundred meters from the finish line, and it was
like the most demoralizing thing. I was like, I don't
know what to do with this. So I remember coming, Yeah,
I I came out of that race, and I had
the eight hundred meter semifinal the next morning, and so
I only had about, you know, less than twenty four
hours to kind of process that and and re learned
(11:39):
to trust myself as an athlete in that time, which
was one of the biggest challenges UM, because I think
you're able to make decisions because you trust that your
body can do it, can follow through and what you're
about to ask it to do, and I just I
wasn't able to do that because I hadn't, you know,
shown that I could do that over this five k
and I think the part that I felt let me
(11:59):
down was like the decision making part. And so I
spoke to my coach about this, and we basically decided,
like the eight hundred, we'd make all the decisions before
I even saw the track. And so normally on a
day when I have like a semifinal in the morning
the final in the evening, you run a really easy semifinal,
like you just do the bare minimum to get through,
and we kind of decided to give it a good
(12:20):
go instead because I think I needed to kind of
feel that speed, familiarize my body with actually doing a
race again to have that confidence for the final. And
so we we ran a well executed, solid race that
morning and that was definitely very confidence inspiring. And we
sat in my apartment in the village between the two
races and basically planned the eight hundred. And the eight
(12:42):
hundreds great because there's really only one, maybe two decisions
you have to make out there on the track, and
and we made them in my apartment in the village
before we even got back out to the camp venue.
And so when it came down to it, it was
I was able to execute it without thinking too much
and that, you know, having run the eight hundred the
morning the way we did, I kind of had the
confidence in my body to be able to do that,
(13:03):
and so it was one of the most well executed
races I've ever done. So that contrast it to the
five thousand was so nice, and it was you know,
it's such a nice way to come back from it.
God Like, it just sounds like so much goes in,
you know, mentally and physically. I mean I didn't even
think about like the whole specific plan and then if
you know, I'm sure the plan can change at any moment.
(13:23):
I'm like, that has to just mentally be a little
brutal kind of exciting but also a little brutal. Well,
you know, speaking of like different challenges that we go
through any you just took us through a wild ride
and that is wow. I'm just like soaking it all in.
But what are you know, what are some other challenges
that you've faced in your sports career and what have
you done to overcome them? How do you overcome them?
(13:45):
So I I nearly gave up the sport after the
London Paralympics. I made it through two games without really
knowing who I was as an athlete. I grew up
in this in this sport, surrounded by these people and
there and the easing people. But they're also approaching the
sport in their own way that suits them. And I
think because I have known this, been on this like
(14:07):
senior team since I was fourteen, I was basically trying
to emulate what I saw around me rather than trying
to work out what I needed to do for for myself.
And I didn't realize at the time that was going
to be a big problem later on where I got
to wrapping up London. I was eighteen at the time,
and I had no idea who I was, And I
had no idea who I was as a person or
(14:28):
as an athlete, because I just spent you know, an
entire game cycle just trying to be what I thought
an athlete needed to be. And you know, if I
was ever upset before a race, I would have, you know,
staff members basically say, you know, turn that anger into
into a good race. And I can't do that like,
I just raced terribly if I'm not very calm leading
into it um, and I thought I was doing something wrong.
(14:52):
Add into that in London I was fairly injured. I
was I was still sprinting, and my body doesn't lend
itself to to sprinting. I just wasn't very good at
it um compared to what I thought I could be
as an athlete. And so coming out of London, basically
I had fallen out of love with the sport. I
felt like it was demanding so much of me that
(15:13):
I didn't think I wanted to give at that point,
and I didn't actually tell anybody, which was like the
most immature eighteen year old decision I possibly could have made.
I just kind of stopped investing in it. But I
wasn't brave enough to walk away or brave enough to
have those conversations and stuck in the middle, and so
(15:35):
I spent maybe like a year of just kind of
I switched. I quit sprinting in London. That was the
last time I ever sprinted, and I raised my first
marathon the following year, London Marathon in April. So I
was making good decisions. I just still wasn't mentally doing
the work that I needed to do, and it took
um until the Calm Off Games. We're in Glasgow and
(16:00):
I was going in as um I think the highest
or the second highest ranked athlete in the Commonwealth, and
I was kind of excited about it because I thought
that this would be the moment, like this might turn
it around. I've not been able to quiet get the
success that I want and maybe this will do it
for me. And on the flight over from Perth, Australia
(16:20):
to Dubai as a labor I actually got a d
VT like a blood clot um and and and a
huge one at that it was forty Oh my godness,
and I, oh my goodness. Yeah. And when they told
me in the hospital in the UK, they're like, it
goes from like mid thides, like your stomach, and I
was like, this seems far more dramatic than But I
(16:42):
was also not able to compete at those Calm Games
and I had to watch that race from from the
stands and it was mixed because my my teammate and
my roommate at those Calm Games, she she wanted. So
it was such a high to watch that and also
so devastating to to get to miss out, But I
think realizing how that I was about not being on
the track, I kind of realized that I didn't want
(17:04):
to walk away. I just wanted to not be doing
it like this, And that was when I finally chose
to to talk to my coach about it. And and
she's one of the people that I had been trying
to emulate to this day. She's the most competitive human
that I know. She's she's so fiery, she can fire
up in an instant, and she would win races because
she just wanted it more than anybody else. And she
(17:27):
was one of all people that was so patient with
me and basically recognized that that wasn't the athlete that
I was. How do we make it that I can
race in a way that does truly work for me
and benefit me? And how do I get to grow
into the athlete that I need to be in order
to be successful? And that was that was all her.
She created it and held that space for me to
(17:49):
be able to do that, and it's beautiful. It was amazing.
And we did receive a bit of pushback from members
around us with the decisions that we were making, and
she was so strong in allowing me to be the
athlete that I wanted to be. And we did twelve
months of this basically and came in World championships and
I as this new version of an athlete and won
(18:12):
my first world title. So it was unreal and yeah,
and so very much fell back in love with the sport.
But I would say that is probably the biggest um
speedbump of my career. Yeah, it's almost like, you know,
visualizing or being able to witness something almost being taken
away from you for a moment finally gives you the
clarity where you can see, actually, yes, I do really
(18:34):
want this, and I really want to figure out a
way to do it on my own terms, and I'm
willing to explore that. And of course your coach is
an incredible support system for that. She's amazing and and
I think now I can kind of recognize what I'm
falling into those slumps and it doesn't take a big
catalyst to change it. You can kind of act before
it really hits that point, which is an amazing learning
(18:55):
curve to have. Yes, serious growth right there, so incredible. Well,
I want to switch gears a little bit and kind
of head towards a little bit more advice that you
would have. I'm sure we have some listeners that may
want to become UM Paralympians one day. Let's first start
off with like setting goals. UM, I know you started
very young, So do you have any strategies that you've
(19:17):
kind of learned and developed over the years to help
set goals and really make them happen. It took me
a little while to learn this, but I think I
learned that you have to be so consider it when
setting your goals because it's less so about whether you
achieve it or not. Right Like, I think we so
taught that you know, when you achieve this thing, that's
where I don't know, happiness and pride and all of
(19:41):
that that comes in. And so I think we usually
set goals for the person that you want to be,
Like when we hit that, we're gonna be this person
and then that will be good. And it's not really
about anything between now and achieving it, And so I
think we put too much pressure on on actually achieving
it when the reality is it's short lived and it
(20:02):
also doesn't matter. I feel like you you take you
take a goal, you do it, and then the next morning,
you're the exact same person, right, surrounded by the same
people doing the same things. Like, it doesn't change anything,
so right, I think we've all been there, We've all
done this and realized that it doesn't mean as much
as we thought it would mean. Whereas setting goals that
(20:24):
allow you to shape your life now, to get to
live in and be the person that you want to
be in that space, I think that's unreal. That's I
think is what is really really important. And that's definitely
how I make all of my decisions. Um and so
you know, I do set obviously very big goals in
sport and and as and personally, but I think what
(20:46):
it means is is now the life that I get
to live. I'm I'm surrounded by amazing people in you know,
through the sport who I've met, but also like in
the performance team that I work with, like that they're
so motivated and and they're in it for more than
just professional reason. Like I'm surrounded by people who are
truly invested in me and what I'm doing. And and
I get to be proud of myself and I get
(21:07):
to do a job that I love and push myself
and and learn so much about myself and I think
that's amazing and and with the sporting platform, I'm able
to have an impact and and that's important to me too.
You know that that young girls who look like me
see someone like themselves growing up, because that's not really
something that that I had growing up. And so all
(21:28):
of those things are what made me, you know, happy
and so proud of of everything. And it's not really
the goals, it's kind of what you do in the middle.
So that is what I would say about goal setting,
is to be considerate of the fact that it's about,
you know, the structure that it provides to allow to
live the life that you want to live. Best goal
advice ever you heard it here first? Yes, it is.
(21:50):
There's so much alignment and how I know, I speak
for Megan and I when we talk about goals every
single week, but we are considerate of where we are
in the moment. And I think that you know, if
you backtrack, maybe like in the last decade, especially especially
with the rise of social media, it's almost seemed as
if your goals need to be astronomical and they need
(22:11):
to be extremely demanding and almost rob you of living
in the moment. And you know, we have to set
goals and allow for those goals to really be reflective
of the quality of life we want to live in
the moment too. I'm sure that that's reflective of what
I'm about to ask. But I know previously in some
interviews you've shared that you've used to struggle with body image,
(22:33):
and you know, I'm curious, how was the process of
building your confidence and loving your body. That's such a
difficult one for every single person, right we all run
into that at least once in our lives. I think
most of us so many more times than just a
few year, just a couple. It's definitely much large issue
(22:54):
for girls, for young girls particularly than it is for boys. Um,
not to minimize that, but there's there's so much pressure around,
you know, what girls should be and how they should look,
and and I went through that as well, but I
went through it as a girl in a disability, which
makes it that a little bit more challenging because there
was nothing that I could ever do, no matter how
(23:14):
much work I wanted to put in, that was ever
going to give me the body that I thought was
the social acceptable version, right, Like, it was completely impossible
and on the one hand, I feel like it stopped
me from developing bad habits around stuff like and a
lot of my friends would go to such extremes to
(23:34):
kind of create this ideal body that was so unattainable, um,
whereas I knew that no matter how much of that idea,
it would never happen. And so for me it was
it was sport that helped me to to snap out
of that. I think you can't be a good athlete
who has his love and respect for their body whilst
(23:55):
also hating the body that you're in. You can't demand
what you need to demand your body as an athlete
while kind of having those negative kind of feelings and
thoughts towards it. It It just doesn't work. And so I
think being able to take pride in what my body
was like physically capable of is what definitely for myself
got me out of that. But on saying that, I
(24:17):
don't think that your body needs to be able to
do a marathon to be a body that you respected of,
And that's what I struggle with. I think that if yeah,
I think if all your body does is provide a home,
then it's doing everything that it needs to do for you.
Anything more than that is above beyond, and we demand
so much and and I don't know if I would
(24:38):
have been able to get from you know, struggles a
body image to loving it without sport. I wish I
could say that, you know, I'm someone who could have
done that, and I definitely used sport as a crush
to do that. Um, but I would want for for
anyone listening is find a way to love your body.
Treat it as as an entire separate relationship, right Like,
(24:58):
I think we feel ownership of body and the if
always feel comfortable being critical of it because we feel
comfortable being critical of ourselves. But it's not your Your
physical self is separate and you have to look after
your body, calm, look after itself. It needs you to
make those decisions and to do that you need to
love and respect it. So I think find a way
to to create a healthy, working relationship with your body.
(25:20):
I mean that is you just blew my mind with that.
I personally have definitely seen my worth in physical movement,
but it did save me at the same time from
you know, dysmorphia and saying that having ownership of our
body creates comfort and being critical. Wow, Like that is.
(25:40):
There isn't a more true statement, I don't think, And
that was really great advice for, you know, other young
women trying to also build confidence and love for their bodies.
Couldn't agree more. Well. I was doing a little research
and people with disabilities make up fifteen per cent of
the world's population, and just to put that into perspective,
(26:02):
that's one billion people. That's a lot of people. That's
a lot of our world. And I feel like a
lot of like work, it's kind of invisible to us, Like,
how are how is that not more visible? Um? So,
what what do you want non disabled people to know
about para athletes and people with disabilities? I think I
would want people without disabilities to take the time to
(26:25):
see people with disabilities in all of their identities, and
disability is one of those identities, right, But I you know,
I don't want to detract from that. But you're also
such a multifaceted human under it, and I think we
often just we see the one thing and then we
kind of pack the entire identity into into that kind
of bias that we hold. And unfortunately, disability carries a
(26:48):
negative stigma and it shouldn't. Right there there's no good
reason for disability is like an entirely neutral thing. In
my opinion, it's it's neither good nor bad at it
simply is. But it's just kind like riddled with this
negative stigma. And so when you just see that side
of a person, you're kind of pushing like this discomfort
onto that. And so I think recognizing disability absolutely like
(27:12):
we you know, it's it's up for half of us.
It's so apparent and and then's a part of of
who we are. And I'm a very proud woman with
a disability. And but I think seeing someone in all
of their identities, in all of their facets, and I
think that's an active decision that has to make definitely
(27:32):
agree with that. And it's so important to acknowledge the
kind of energy you bring when you put someone in
one category before even taking the time to get to
know them or you know, looking past just what's that
what meets the eye? And that goes for everybody. Yeah,
it absolutely does. Under armours Sweather. Details will be back
(27:53):
after a short break. Welcome back to what the details. Alright,
So Maddie very excited. We're gonna get into our shake
it out portion and We're going to play a game
called Race to the End. All right, So we're gonna
ask you some questions and UM, figure out what keeps
(28:16):
you motivated, inspired and feeling good. Are you ready? Yes?
All right? What is your pre race ritual? I do
the exact same thing every single time. So I'll pick
one song that I'm obsessed with and I will listen
to it on loop. Um, and I just do the
exact same thing every single time before I get my
race check. Okay, what's one of the songs? So like
(28:37):
at games just now, it was this song called station
By like lastly I think, And it's like it's a
sad girl song, right, but I find it really calming.
And so I listened to that like on loop from
the five thousand on on my day one to the
marathon on the last day. I love it. I mean,
you know what if it gets you going, that's walk
(28:57):
into it. Yeah all right? UM? Your sports role model?
Who was that? Oh? So many? Um? So there's a
woman called Chantel Pedicle, Canadian world ch racer, and she
was dominant in Beijing at my first Games, and she
won five gold medals, three world records. I think, just
(29:20):
unreal amazing, amazing woman. And I remember after one of
her podiums, she'd like, I don't know, maybe like a
third or fourth gold medal. To get back to the
Canadian tent on the warm up track, you had to
walk by the Australian tent and on her way past,
she saw me double backed and gave me her flowers
from the podium and said these are you Until you win,
(29:41):
you're own. And so that was like unreal, amazing woman,
amazing human, just an incredible athlete. And so yeah, she
was definitely one of my sporting role models. Yeah. Still
that makes my day so dope, so dope to have
women like supporting women in that way. Yes, Okay, best
(30:02):
way to celebrate a win surround yourself with good people
who are going to like amplify that energy. Like I
think picking the right people to be around so important.
Whatever that looks like for you, Just find good people.
So true. Do you have any people that you that
you won't have to have with you that you're like
I with these people are with me. I know it's
going to be a positive hundred percent. Yes, So in
(30:23):
our team, like after a good result, I will seek
out these people I don't even know if they I
don't even know if they know who they are to me.
So I know you talked about songs a little bit
already for your pre rest ritual, But do you have
like a top three that you like to listen to
that really hype you up during a workout? Okay? So yes,
but they're not the most hype up songs, right, So
(30:45):
I love this. So like when I line up for
a race, like what I want to be, what I
want to feel is just like still, right, Like I
want to be still and calm, and so like us
into like the National a lot amazing Okay, and it's
again like come on, if they get you, go in.
(31:07):
You know it's what works, right all right? So what
is the best way to relax after a busy week
for you? Okay? So like a normal training week. I
have my dog. He needs like really long walks, and
sometimes that's a nuisance, Like if you have a busy day,
it is like the most inconvenient thing. But when you
kind of like just need time to unwind, So I
(31:28):
like walk in like an hour and a half, and
my family all live on the other side of the country,
so I will take that time to like call home
and and chat to my sisters and my mom and stuff.
So I find like, while it's like a thing that
I have to do or else my dog is a menace. Um,
it's also like one of like the pilots for me. Well, Madison,
thank you again for joining us today and just sharing
(31:50):
your heart and your story and incredible accomplishments. You're seriously
inspiring so many women and athletes around the world to
dream big and make waves in the world. So really,
thank you, truly, thank you, thank you so much, of course,
But before you go, could you share with our listeners
where they can find you on social media? Yes? So
(32:11):
I think just searching my name is easiest because my
my user name is stuck as like kind of a
ridiculous one from when I got verified. I can't change it,
so it's like it's like Madison full stop with like
full underscores. But like if you just search Madison dear sire,
it'll it'll come okay, perfect, good. Thank you so much
for all of your beautiful energy and just for really
(32:33):
embodying what it is that we would love to see
in more female athletes, because what you're doing in your
mission is really really going to change the lives of
so many. We're so glad we got the opportunity to
talk to you. No, thank you, thanks for giving me
like a platform to talk about it. Of course, thank
you Medisine. Well that's it for the season. Um wow,
(32:59):
I can't not believe the season is coming to an end.
It's been such an enriching experience to have all these
amazing conversations with our guests. You know, every single one
of them has taught me so so much. Yes, I
am over here crying in the club bag. I certainly
like my eyes keep watering. I know, I just thinking
about all of our incredible guests. It's been such an
(33:20):
experience just to be able to hear from so many
different women who are so passionate, I mean, hearing about
the true impact or training in the cold. I didn't
think that I was going to step outside into training
and feel such confidence and you know, just trust in
that process. If it wasn't for Luisa Nicola and her
(33:43):
pulling us through what the journey is like to train
in the cold for athletes, Yeah, I mean I didn't
have I didn't have any knowledge about that, so learning
if I had heard about it, but learning about it
and really understanding it a little bit better. UM, give
me a lot of insight and maybe I'll I'm still
thinking about it, so we'll see if that if that happens.
But I mean, gosh mon, after all of these conversations
(34:03):
that we had with incredible guests, I feel like a
lot of them kind of express sort of similar messaging UM,
and that just being that women need more visibility and sports,
more coverage, more pay more support, more opportunities for women
of color, women with disabilities, women of all sexual orientations.
I mean, the list just keeps going. We have all
(34:25):
of these amazing athletes like Madison the Rosario, Kelly O'Hara, Odyssey, Alexander,
Katie Sours all out there just absolutely crushing it in
their sport and not always necessarily getting the visibility and
the coverage and the enthusiasm in the same way, UM
that men's sports are kind of prioritized. But the more
conversations like this that we continue to have a huge
(34:46):
shout out to the under Armour and I heart Radio
women who allowed us the space to amplify these conversations,
the more we can hopefully help push that needle and
finally witness some real change and equality in women's sport. Yes,
and such a huge shout out to our team and
of course the women like Dr Elizabeth Bartie, that we
have to show the relatability of how we as athletes
(35:10):
or how we as women can deal with even something
as simple as body image or you know, the just
huge gap in pay or the huge gap in treatment
for women in sports or women in the workplace is insane,
and it's just so great to be able to bring
those relatable stories to the speakers of our listeners. And also,
(35:31):
I mean I've absorbed so much from those conversations that
made me feel so empowered and really left a lasting
impression on me. Yes, yes, absolutely, I think as we
wrap things up here at Under Arm or Sweat the
Details Season two, I'm gonna cry. I just want to
give an important reminder um to anyone listening that wherever
you are on your journey, whether you're exploring fitness for
(35:54):
the very first time, or whether you're currently working towards
the championship, there is space for everything angle one of
your journeys and hopes and dreams and accomplishments. In the
world of women's sports and fitness, our bodies are all
very different, and that's great. They're all unique. That is
incredible and I think it's freaking beautiful. So next time
(36:15):
you show up to a practice, work out, a game, anything,
get those experiences with your body. Just remember how wonderful
it is, whatever that might look like for you. Give
your body thank you every now and then speak up
for it every now and then uplift yourselves and each other.
I really do believe in these moments that we as
women can change the world. And I'm pretty sure all
(36:35):
of our guests this season are proof of just that.
I'm inspired. I'm about to just start crying. So yeah,
let's shed that last tier every season. Yes, yeah, I
mean I Meg always, you always speak to my heart.
And every single woman on this show, there's a recurring
theme of them growing up as a young girl and
then really absorbing what society had to say or to
(36:57):
give or didn't have to give to us, and you know,
really just going through their own experience at their own pace,
and they're sharing that journey. But they're the same matter
as all of us, We as your hosts, the same
matter physically as you all, And what really allows for
us to become more powerful is becoming more of ourselves
(37:18):
and leaning on one another and really finding strengthen each other.
So it's been an incredible honor y'all to be able
to bring you these vibes on the weekly for season two.
We cannot thank you all enough. Thank you so so
much for joining us to fam. If you liked what
you heard on this show, which we know you did,
subscribe for free or follow the show on the I
heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen, and
(37:41):
don't forget to leave a five star rating and review.
We so so appreciate it, and for the final time
on season two, stay inspired, stay motivated, and don't forget
to sweat the details. Bye. If you liked what you
(38:06):
heard on the show, subscribe for free or follow the
show on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you listen, and don't forget to leave a five
star rating and review. Sweat the Details. As a collaboration
with under Armour and I Heart Radio, our show was
hosted by me Monica Jones and me Meg Bogs. Our
executive producers are Jess strip Stein, Just Sell, Louis Archibald,
(38:26):
Molly Sosha, and Maya Cole. Our producers are Kelly and Tole,
Layla Cadreine, Emma Osborne and Alejandra Aruvalo, and our sound
editor and engineer is Sarah gible Leska. Keep up the
latest news in women's fitness by following under Armour at
under Armour Women and at under Armour
Hosts And Creators
Monica Jones
Meg Boggs
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!