Natalie Cook is many things. She was dux of Corinda State High in Brisbane; she began studying for a medical degree before pursuing a career as an elite athlete and she owns her own beach volleyball business, Sandstorm.
The 37-year old is best known for being an Olympic gold medallist. If she qualifies for London 2012, she will also become Australia’s first female Olympian to compete at five summer games – a monumental feat for a sport that requires such unrelenting physical exertion.
Almost 12 years ago Cook teamed up with Kerri Pottharst to win gold in Sydney. Four years earlier they collected bronze in Atlanta, the first time beach volleyball had been an Olympic sport.
The 2004 games saw Cook and her new partner Nicole Sanderson make a promising start, only to finish out of medal contention. It was a similar story in Beijing in 2008, when Cook and Tamsin Barnett finished fifth. It was a bitter blow in what many thought would be Cook’s final Olympics.
They were wrong.
Ahead of London 2012, Cook and her partner Tamsin Hinchley (née Barnett), are in the latter stages of a genuine scrap to qualify. The qualification process has undergone major change since Beijing, with the route to London now predominantly based on countries rather than individual teams.
No more than two teams per country can qualify, whereas in previous Olympics the top ranked 23 teams in the world plus one host country pair was granted a place. The process is now a complex mixture of three separate tournaments.
To simplify it, the top ranked 15 teams according to the International Federation of Volleyball (FIVB), plus one team from Great Britain, will gain a quota place at this years’ Olympics.
Currently, Cook and Hinchley are ranked 23 in the world and are competing in Russia. However the points gap is so marginal that if they finish in the top five there and then achieve a similar result in Italy; the pathway to London will be quite straightforward.
They are on the final stretch, Cook said in her latest newsletter: “The hard slog on the sand and in the gym is done; it is now time to focus on the precision and power of our skills and the ability to call up our performance on demand. This is where the gold medallists separate from the rest.”
Aside from beach volleyball, it’s Cook’s communication with her fans that separates her from the vast majority of elite athletes. Not only does she have her own website in which she posts video diaries and blogs on a regular basis, and the standard Twitter and Facebook accounts, but she also interacts with the grass-roots, rather the sand-grains of beach volleyball at a local level.
Sandstorm is a product of Cook’s desire to leave a legacy for beach volleyball well beyond her Atlanta and Sydney medals. “Beach volleyball needs a home in this country,” she said when she launched the company.
More specifically, it’s is a pathway initiative, one which Cook is well qualified to administer given her experience in the sport. She has seen it develop from a minority vocation in Australia to a well-publicised reflection of our culture and love of outdoor activities.
In addition to this, her 2001 book Go Girl is a snapshot of sporting audacity and courage which ties in with her motivational public speaking endeavours in recent years.
In 2010 she launched Team Nat – a team of professionals, supporters and family who would work hard to ensure that Cook gives herself every chance to get to London 2012 and leave a worthwhile legacy along the way.
“It’s going to be a challenge [getting to London], probably my greatest challenge … that’s why I have formed Team Nat to help me [and] we are going to change people’s lives,” Cook said at the time.
“We want to try and make a difference with our charity work and encourage health and fitness through beach volleyball.”
The pathway to London is more difficult for Cook than any of her previous Olympic qualification processes. The competition is fitter, younger and tougher. She has her back firmly against the wall and her feet well and truly on the ground.
Yet, it is the underdog spirit that motivates her most, a burning desire to prove people wrong. She seeks inspiration from other Australian sportsmen like Lleyton Hewitt and Steve Waugh – athletes who relished a dog-fight.
Significantly, at the end of every one of Cook’s newsletters, there is a quotation. Her latest one is most fitting; “One chance is all you need,” it reads in bold.
She is already a gold medallist, a four-time Olympian and many other things, but all Cook is focused on now is signing off on an illustrious career with a trip to London to represent her country on the biggest stage of all.
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