Australian snowboard champion Alex ‘Chumpy’ Pullin’s widow Ellidy has spoken about how similar her baby girl Minnie is to her late father and how she had hoped they would share physical characteristics.
The doting mum, 29, lost Chumpy in a spearfishing accident on July 8, 2020, and harvested his sperm so she could live out their shared dream of having a child together.
In speaking to Sunrise on Wednesday Ms Pullin said she secretly hoped their daughter would look just like her dad and was overwhelmed when she had ‘his eyes’.
‘It’s weird I literally said I can’t wait to look into my baby’s eyes and see him and she literally has his eyes,’ Ms Pullin said. ‘It’s like they fell into her.’
The doting mum, 29, lost Chumpy in a spearfishing accident on July 8, 2020, and harvested his sperm so she could live out their shared dream of having a child together
In speaking to Sunrise on Wednesday Ms Pullin said she secretly hoped their daughter would look just like her dad and was overwhelmed when she had ‘his eyes’
While her decision to have their baby alone was controversial at the time, Ms Pullin has no regrets about her pregnancy with Minnie.
‘We take each day as it comes, but honestly she is the best thing ever,’ Ms Pullin
‘She brings me so much joy and I don’t know what I do without her. She is the best.’
The young mum was coming home from walking the couple’s dog, Rummi, in the park on that fateful day in July when she felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her chest.
Her husband was spearfishing at Palm Beach on the Gold Coast at the time when Ms Pullin said she experienced the sudden chest pain.
Her husband was spearfishing at Palm Beach on the Gold Coast at the time when Ms Pullin said she experienced the sudden chest pain
‘The sharpness stopped me in my tracks, knocking the wind out of me and almost forcing me to my knees,’ she wrote in her forthcoming memoir Heartstrong.
‘I clenched my heart and Rummi looked up at me as if to say, “What the hell, Mum! Are you okay?”
‘After 30 seconds, I was. I brushed the pain off as anxiety – maybe I needed more sleep, or some vitamins or a massage – and kept walking.
‘Looking back I think that was the moment Chumpy left this earth – the moment my heart shattered.’
Chumpy, 32, drowned that day. It’s believed he was spearfishing by himself at an artificial reef at the beach when he was spotted on the ocean floor by a snorkeler.
He was a two-time boardercross world champion and had represented Australia at three Winter Olympics.
In October last year – 15 months after Chumpy’s passing – Ms Pullin gave birth to their first child, Minnie Alex, conceived with sperm posthumously taken from the former Olympian
The excerpt was published in the Courier-Mail’s Q Weekend magazine.
Ms Pullin recalls arriving at the beach and telling a policeman that her partner was out diving.
She then confirmed to police Mr Pullin had a large axe inked on his ribs when they asked if her partner had a distinctive tattoo.
Ellidy said she will ‘never forget’ the look on the police officer’s face in response.
‘The feeling was my heart shattering before my brain even knew. He obviously held his breath for a second too long and blacked out … He lost consciousness peacefully.’
In October last year – 15 months after Chumpy’s passing – Ms Pullin gave birth to their first child, Minnie Alex, conceived with sperm posthumously taken from the former Olympian.
Ms Pullin said she had to ‘hustle’ to collect sperm from Pullin’s body following his death.
‘We’d wanted a baby, and I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more right then than a person I could love and cherish,’ she said
‘I didn’t want Chump to just die and be gone. I felt this was bringing a part of him back,’ she told AWW previously.
‘We’d wanted a baby, and I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more right then than a person I could love and cherish.
‘Now that she’s here, I just know that was so meant to be. I see and feel so much of Chump in her. I know I’ve done the right thing so wholeheartedly.’
In the memoir she recalls meeting Pullin at a 21st birthday party on Sydney’s northern beaches where the future Olympic star arrived wearing a denim jumpsuit that made him look ‘like a full-on mechanic, but hot’.
The spark between the pair was instant. In 2017, they moved to the Gold Coast and bought a house at Palm Beach
The spark between the pair was instant. In 2017, they moved to the Gold Coast and bought a house at Palm Beach.
On the day he died, Ms Pullin reveals, Chumpy had planned to go surfing but instead decided to pursue his new obsession, spearfishing.
She said she would warn him to watch out for sharks but that the snowboarding champion told her the real danger was shallow water blackouts, when a diver blacks out at the end of a breath-hold dive.
Ms Pullin writes she did not fear for her partner because he was a professional athlete who she knew could hold his breath for a long time.
They shared a final hug as he backed out of the garage to head to the beach that morning.
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