Brooke Hanson’s beaming smile today is a flashback to the 2004 Olympics when the Aussie swimmer had a gold medal in her keeping and a world of opportunity ahead of her.
But that smile has taken a long time to return after two decades of trauma that would be enough to crush even the most stoic of humans.
Hanson has opened up to News Corp about the life events that devastated her, changed her and made her that much more appreciative of what she has today.
The former Olympian’s tortured period started in ’04 when she was dumped from the 4×100-metre medley final in favour of Leisel Jones for the breaststroke leg amidst a sea of speculation that there was bad blood between the pair.
It would get so much worse, though, with Hanson surviving an electric shock that nearly killed her and expedited her retirement and then the tragic death of her son Jack at just nine months old.
Hanson is happily married to husband Jared and has three children Cooper, 12, Billy, 8, and Matilda, 6. They live on the Gold Coast but Hanson, now 44, always refers to herself as a mother of four.
Hanson with her husband Jared and Cooper, 12, Billy, 8, and Matilda, 6 on the Gold Coast
Hanson reacts after winning the final of the 100m Individual Medley at a World Cup swimming meet in Melbourne in 2003
Jack was born premature with chronic lung disease and pulmonary hypertension, suffering a fatal heart attack before his first birthday. Doctors told Hanson that she could die giving birth to him.
‘They said “Brooke, you might not survive and we have got to get this baby out straight away”. That was a shift right there to think that could have been my last day,’ she said.
‘Jared may have been raising Cooper as a single dad on his own. He could have lost both of us that day.
‘So I had that moment of how life can be taken from you just in an instant.
‘I never forget those moments and I realise that those really dark moments, the despair of just how crazy it was to be told that Jack and I weren’t going to make it that day – it’s those moments I’ve made an effort to honour.
‘That’s what makes me today. It totally shaped me. I’m proud to be that person today and to wear the scars.’
To honour Jack, Hanson became an ambassador for the Life’s Little Treasures Foundation.
Hanson is congratulated by Leisel Jones after winning the womens 50m breastroke final during the Telstra Australian Championships in Sydney in 2003
The day Jack was born was not the first time Hanson faced her mortality, though. She also spoke about the incident in 2007 when she received an electric shock at a pool and spa show in Melbourne that left her in hospital. That shock jolted more than her body, it was a catalyst for her retirement from swimming.
‘I’d missed two Olympics, been to one, had some fantastic results and then finished my journalism degree and was doing a little bit with Channel 9 and had my foot in what life could be beyond the pool,’ she said.
‘Then I got the electric shock in the swim spa and that shifted my perspective on life.
‘I thought if that was the last day I was going to live, there was so much more I wanted to do.’
To understand where Hanson’s strength comes from, it pays to go back to the ill-fated Athens Olympics where her fierce determination and strength of character first emerged to the public fore.
Sally Foster, Leisel Jones and Brooke Hanson of Australia pose at the medal ceremony after Leisel Jones broke the world eecord to win the 200m breaststroke final in 2006
Hanson and Jones’s relationship as rivals descended into a bitter fallout as neither of them could claim individual gold in the 100-metres breaststroke, finishing second and third respectively behind Chinese world champion Luo Xuejuan.
Jones begged a journalist to tell the truth about her in exchange for an autograph, swimming legend Dawn Fraser labelled her a spoiled brat and a fuming Jones fell out badly with Hanson.
So Hanson took the initiative, asking to be roomed with Jones at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. The pair remain great friends to this day.
‘I’m so happy with life because it feels like such a gift to have the three children and be in a marriage that has lasted and continues to last the test of time. Jared and I are closer than ever because of everything we have been through, and we are now celebrating 25 years together,’ she said.
‘The grey hairs are sprouting but we just embrace them.
‘I’m just really happy. I’m doing me and I love doing me to the best of my ability.’
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