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Mahe Drysdale reveals his renewed purpose after losing Tokyo motivation in lockdown

July 22, 2020

The Tokyo Games’ postponement has taken Drysdale on a rollercoaster emotionally.

In many ways, he’s the same Mahe Drysdale – a competitive, driven, athlete looking to get the most out of himself when he’s on the water.

But after a rough few months due to Covid-19, there's also a very different Drysdale preparing once again for Tokyo.

“I’ve achieved everything I need to achieve, now I‘m doing it because I love it,” Drysdale told 1 NEWS.

“I’ve been to four Olympics. It’s not the end of the world if I’m not there and that’s sort of a nice place to be.”

Right now, the 41-year-old could’ve been in Tokyo, going through the final preparations for his swansong – a moment he admits he’d thought about a lot.

“I was starting to think about what was after rowing,” he said.

“[On] August 1st, I was a free man.”

But when the Games were postponed earlier this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, he instead felt more trapped than ever and lost all motivation.

“I think if I had have had to make the decision in lockdown, I would have pulled the pin.”

However, a pragmatic need to keep his options open helped him keep fit when he couldn't be on the water.

“In the first few weeks, I went and did some tough sessions,” he said.

“I wanted to know when you're lacking that motivation, can you go out and hurt yourself still?

“And if you’ve lost that ability to go and hurt and you don’t want to do it anymore, it’s probably time to quit.”

Drysdale accepted the pain and decided to push through until 2021, meaning another battle for selection and more months of competitive uncertainty.

Driving him forward though is a renewed purpose.

“There's only a couple of scullers that’ve ever won three gold medals straight so that’s certainly the goal to try to join that group.”

But most of all, he's content having confronted within himself what it will mean even if the Games end up not going ahead at all.

“It’s taken a lot of pressure off because if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen,” he said.

“I'll go on and move on with my life and I’m good with that and probably even a year ago, even before lockdown, I wasn’t in that space.

“I would’ve been absolutely mentally devastated if I trained a year and it didn’t happen.

"But I train because I love it, not because I have to go to Tokyo.

"And if it all happens, which I really hope it does, I'll be there and I’ll do my best but if it doesn’t, it doesn’t and that’s just life.”

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