Kira Llewellyn, Australia’s premier bodyboarder, talks about coming out as an athlete and her push for another world title.
Ten years in to your career, what’s kept you bodyboarding so long?
I’m a Gemini, so everything is always changing in my life. I always need change and I need excitement and I just love the fact that my sport is something that takes me around the world. I’m in the water. It’s fresh. Everything to do with it makes me feel good… I have friends in other sports, they’ll say ‘I’m not training for my sport tomorrow, can I come bodyboarding with you?’ And I’ll be ‘OK, I’ve been bodyboarding all week, but I’ll go back out with you’.
Do you read waves differently than you did when you were first starting out?
When I was younger I definitely had the opinion that I was undefeatable and I’m just going to go anything. It’s like ‘oh, everyone left this wave – I’ll go’. There was a reason people were leaving it – it just wasn’t a good wave. You get more selective with experience, definitely, and you hit the reef a little less. But at the same time, our sport is a sport where you aren’t 100 per cent clear when you go out in big waves or surfs on reefs because there’s times when the wave just gets the best of you if you are in the wrong area. You do get better at avoiding silly things, but it’s still pretty dangerous.
Last August, you came out in an article in LOTL. A lot of ‘out’ athletes have talked about how it is harder to come out as an athlete. Did you find that to be true?
For me, it wasn’t a matter of ‘hey, I’ve come out’. It was more like I got offered to do an interview in a lesbian magazine and it was the first time I’d ever been asked to do that. Most of my interviews have been for the heterosexual-style magazines, so I thought if I’m doing all these, why not do one that’s reflecting the true me? And I said yes to it. I think that is a huge step towards coming out, but at the same time, it’s just doing something for me that was right.
What stopped me [earlier] was not because I didn’t like what I was doing, it was just outside pressures, and I conjured up all these big reasons why not to, which half the time was just stupid that I thought that because I was thinking for everyone else, whereas I shouldn’t have. So, it got to the point where I was like I’m going to be living like this anyways, do I want these people guessing all the time or do I want them to just know who I am and love me for who I am? And most of the time, that’s how it’s going to be… Most of the people who are so important to you are going to embrace you. Most of the time you think too much for everyone else, when you should have just been living.
Is coming out publicly a decision you are glad that you made?
Definitely. Obviously there have been ups and downs through it, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to be a confident person and the best way I can do that is by having honesty and people knowing who I am rather than hiding or lying about things.
I wanted to do it because it’s the best thing for all athletes. I think you shouldn’t be hiding yourself because there is so much pressure on you as an athlete, that if you have the other pressure of your sexual life, you’re just struggling because you’re dealing with way too much. If you go, ‘this is me, this is who I am’, it’s a big weight off your shoulders I think.
Rumour has it you are in the middle of starting a new business?
I’ve started a new business Women Emotion. We are starting to make documentaries on women’s bodyboarding for extreme sports channels, and it shows the travel side of it and interviews as well.
My future dream goal is to have it as a TV program for women’s sport. It would be called Women Emotion and would have different sports on the actual show. I know there are a few things out there at the moment like that, but it’s a dream goal for later on. I think women in sports need as much of a push as they can get.
What are you up to next?
I fly to Hawaii on February 18 for a tournament. But the event has lost the major sponsor for the women (not the men!), so the contest will now not count for the world tour, just small points on the USA tour. I'm not sure if I will even compete. In the meantime, Rita Pires and I will be filming for Woman Emotion, the new Hawaiian documentary. This will feature lifestyle/travel and interviews on other girls who bodyboard. Then I head to Brazil, Florianopolis on March 13 to compete in the first major event on the world tour.
I'm very excited to compete as the last event for 2007 was in December, so we are just finishing our break. I'm confident in the training I have been doing that I will do my best, and the hopes of another world tour win is always in the front of my mind. uROk.tv will be my major sponsor for 2008 in the chase for the WWT championship.
Details: www.woman-emotion.com ; www.myspace.com/kirallew
OutInPerth, www.outinperth.com
Photo by Shelli Bankier
Sports news
The 2009 European Gay Rugby Union Cup will be held in London after the recent announcement that the Kings Cross Steelers rugby club has won the right to host it.
The Steelers are the current world champions. The event is expected to attract more than 17 teams and will be held on May 22-23, 2009 at the club's West Ham ground.
The first Union Cup was held in 2005 in Montpellier, France and then in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2007. The Steelers were the world's first gay rugby club when they formed in 1995.
Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, said: "The tournament will provide a platform to introduce lesbian and gay sport to new audiences."
by MEGAN SMITH
