Luxury lodge in one of the harshest environments on Earth reopens
Built in the oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama, amid the driest non-polar desert on Earth, the lodge was conceived by Miguel Purcell, an Olympic skier and mountaineer. Tierra Atacama opened in 2008 with a mission to keep its environmental impact low while offering guests extraordinary experiences in one of the planet's most amazing landscapes.
The 32-room retreat was built around a centuries-old cattle corral using traditional methods. It was filled with a curation of culturally relevant art, objects and materials, and each room was set with views of the Licancabur Volcano.
The Purcell family went on to create Tierra Hotels, and now has two sister properties in the region under its umbrella. In 2022, it sold a majority shareholding in the company to Baillie Lodges. Founded by James and Hayley Baillie, Baillie Lodges owns and runs some of the world's most esteemed luxury adventure properties, including Longitude 131° at Uluru-Kata Tjuta, Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo Island in South Australia and Silky Oaks Lodge in Queensland. Internationally it owns Huka Lodge in New Zealand and Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge on Canada's Vancouver Island.
The fit is so strong that Purcell remains involved in the property and actually led the redesign project in person. He was joined by Tierra Atacama's original Chilean architects – Rodrigo Searle and Matias Gonzalez – who again used the surrounding environment as the starting point for design.
Interior designer Carolina Delpiano, who has been responsible for the original interiors at all the Tierra properties since their inception, also took part. Chilean landscape architect Teresa Moller preserved the original walls and native vegetation while integrating changes to the built environment into the existing gardens and setting.
Where possible, local tradespeople and artisans were employed to realise the vision.
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Sydney Morning Herald
2 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
How online threats after a rival's death almost broke marathon king Eliud Kipchoge
Every morning at the same spartan camp in rural Kenya where he's trained for two decades, Eliud Kipchoge rises at 5.45am. By a little after 6am, the godfather of marathon running is out pounding the red dirt roads, flanked by many of the world's best athletes, as training partners and with sheep and cattle passing by. 'I'm out and I'm training twice a day, trying to cover between 25 to 30 kilometres every day,' Kipchoge says. 'I'm training seven days a week. I really sacrifice to be fit.' Kipchoge lives 30 minutes from the Kaptagat training camp, located at high altitude in south-west Kenya, with his wife and three kids. But in the four months before a marathon, Kipchoge will move to the basic accommodation and dedicate his life to the training. It's been a successful formula. Kipchoge is widely regarded as the GOAT of marathon running, after winning back-to-back Olympic gold medals, breaking the world record and becoming the first man – unofficially – to run the famous 42.195km in under two hours. Kipchoge is at the camp now, shortly before his first trip to Australia. The legend has been signed to race in the Sydney Marathon on August 31, as part of an all-star field assembled for the first year of Sydney as the seventh – and newest – of the Abbott World Marathon Majors. Sydney was last year elevated to join the London, Chicago, Berlin, Tokyo, New York and Boston marathons as the world's elite races, and given he's won 11 majors in four of those cities, you'd be a brave person to discount yet another Kipchoge victory. But there are also no guarantees. Now aged 40, Kipchoge's aura of invincibility has faded. A win in Sydney would be his first since 2023, and in his past three starts, Kipchoge's best finish was sixth. There are good reasons why, including a new generation of rivals he inspired and emboldened, injury and the still-undefeated Father Time. And, in an interview with this masthead, Kipchoge also opened up on how deeply he was impacted last year by the road accident death of fellow Kenyan marathoner Kelvin Kiptum, and an abusive online campaign falsely accusing him of being involved, given Kiptum had recently broken his world record. But none of it can stop Kipchoge from setting the 5.45am alarm. 'I want to inspire the next generation and to inspire people around the planet. I want to make this world a running world,' Kipchoge says. 'That's why I'm still running. That's why I'm still waking up every morning, doing all sorts of trainings with pain and everything, to preach the gospel of running.' GOAT of the game In a world where GOAT status will be awarded to a passable sandwich, Kipchoge is one of a rare few whose Greatest of All-Time credentials are not in question. After winning Olympic bronze and silver in the 5000m in 2004 and 2008, the Kenyan moved to marathons and became unbeatable. Between 2014 and 2019, he won 10 consecutive races, including his first Olympic gold in Rio. He went back-to-back in Tokyo, and at the end of 2022, had won 16 of 19 official marathons he had entered. Kipchoge held the world record between 2018 and 2023 – his time of 2:01:09 is now second – and in 2019, Kipchoge even ran 1:59:40 for a marathon, at a special event with assistance, that did not count as a record. Loading There are legends in the GOAT conversation, including Emil Zatopek, who won Olympic gold in his first marathon, and Norwegian female pioneer Grete Waitz, who won 12 major races. And, of course, Ethiopian Abebe Bikila, who ran in bare feet and won Olympic gold in 1960 in a world record time, and then won again in 1964, just a few weeks after an appendectomy. But none can quite match Kipchoge's sustained dominance. 'The only comparison would be Usain Bolt,' Sydney Marathon race director Wayne Larden says, after securing the major coup of signing Kipchoge to run in Sydney's first year as a world major. More than 35,000 people are set to run on Sunday, August 31, and among them are many of the world's best, including Paris women's gold medallist Sifan Hassan and Ethiopian men's star Birhanu Legese. In the men's field, there are 16 men who have run under 2:06:00. Form-wise, Kipchoge will have his work cut out to cross the line first at the Sydney Opera House forecourt. In 2024, he came 10th in the Tokyo marathon and did not finish at the Olympics due to a back complaint. He came sixth in London in April this year in a time of 2:05.25. Now in his 40s, Kipchoge says he is happy with his new life as a travelling preacher, and he also takes pride in having 'opened the door' for his young rivals to chase what was once thought impossible. But, unsurprisingly, the steely competitor has not disappeared either. 'I believe that I'm still ready to go and run 2:02:00, 2:03:00,' he says. 'I'm still able to train with the young generation and finish training together. That's my happiness. Maybe in future generations I will inspire them. But I'm the happiest man because now I've opened their minds to show them, hey, if you train well, work on that core, and you'll actually tip under two hours. That athlete is thinking now of making history.' Kiptum made history when he lowered Kipchoge's world record with an astounding time of 2:00:35 in Chicago in 2023. It was agonisingly close to the magic two-hour mark, under race conditions. Does Kipchoge think it will happen in his lifetime? 'Absolutely, yes,' he says. 'I trust and believe that someone will run under two hours. The magic is that it's in yourself to accept and do it. 'I'm seeing now a lot of young people have accepted that we need to push ourselves. We need to see how our minds and how our bodies can push us.' The death of Kiptum At the age of 24 – and just five months after his world record run – Kiptum and coach Gervais Hakizimana died in a car accident near Kaptagat. Police said Kiptum lost control of his car late at night and hit a tree. A whispering campaign in Kenya emerged, falsely suggesting Kipchoge had been involved. The champion lost friends and training partners, as a result, and was subjected to online abuse and threats. 'I was shocked that people [on] social media platforms are saying, 'Eliud is involved in the death of this boy',' Kipchoge told BBC Sport Africa last year. 'That was my worst news ever in my life. I received a lot of bad things; that they will burn the [training] camp, they will burn my investments in town, they will burn my house, they will burn my family.' The strain ultimately contributed to Kipchoge's toughest year, including the heartbreak of failing to finish as he chased an unprecedented third consecutive Olympic gold. '[It] was a really, really hard year in my career; it was a hard time for me and my family,' he says. 'My people around me, it was the hardest time ever. And you know, personally, we are only giving positivity to the sport, but people can think exactly negative of what you are doing. 'It brought a lot of impact to myself, to my family. And those people, they drove me down and took me down. But all in all, I know myself, I know what I've been doing. I try to be a good person and wake up and move on with the sport, and that's where I am now.' Did he ever think about walking away? 'My love of running is still there, so I ask myself, 'Why do I quit? Why do I run away? Because somebody was actually saying a lot of things?',' Kipchoge says. 'So let me still keep running, and do what I've been doing. I believe in the values which I'm standing for. I'm still standing on them.' Fast cars and Sydney run clubs Ever humble, Kipchoge demurs when asked about being the greatest. So if he is not, who does he rate as the GOAT? 'I think Haile Gebrselassie is the GOAT,' he answers. 'I believe Haile opened a lot of doors for all of us, the younger people. 'Outside of long-distance running, I believe the Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton is a GOAT. I got a lot of inspiration from him. For driving for that long, the speed of over 300[km/h] for the whole year, year in, year out, and the values that he's standing for.' Kipchoge was 15 during the Sydney Olympics, when Gebrselassie won his second gold in the 10,000m, but his stronger memory is being at school when all of Kenya stopped to cheer home hero Noah Ngeny as he beat the legendary Hicham El Guerrouj in the 1500m. He plans to look over the Sydney course next week in a car before the race, but if you've ever wondered if you could foot it with Kipchoge, keep an eye out: he also wants to pop down to Bondi for a trot with a running club. 'If you see the pictures, if you see everything on the internet as far as Sydney is concerned, it is beautiful' he says. 'The bridge, the beauty, how the roads are, I'm really looking forward to it.
The Age
2 days ago
- The Age
How online threats after a rival's death almost broke marathon king Eliud Kipchoge
Every morning at the same spartan camp in rural Kenya where he's trained for two decades, Eliud Kipchoge rises at 5.45am. By a little after 6am, the godfather of marathon running is out pounding the red dirt roads, flanked by many of the world's best athletes, as training partners and with sheep and cattle passing by. 'I'm out and I'm training twice a day, trying to cover between 25 to 30 kilometres every day,' Kipchoge says. 'I'm training seven days a week. I really sacrifice to be fit.' Kipchoge lives 30 minutes from the Kaptagat training camp, located at high altitude in south-west Kenya, with his wife and three kids. But in the four months before a marathon, Kipchoge will move to the basic accommodation and dedicate his life to the training. It's been a successful formula. Kipchoge is widely regarded as the GOAT of marathon running, after winning back-to-back Olympic gold medals, breaking the world record and becoming the first man – unofficially – to run the famous 42.195km in under two hours. Kipchoge is at the camp now, shortly before his first trip to Australia. The legend has been signed to race in the Sydney Marathon on August 31, as part of an all-star field assembled for the first year of Sydney as the seventh – and newest – of the Abbott World Marathon Majors. Sydney was last year elevated to join the London, Chicago, Berlin, Tokyo, New York and Boston marathons as the world's elite races, and given he's won 11 majors in four of those cities, you'd be a brave person to discount yet another Kipchoge victory. But there are also no guarantees. Now aged 40, Kipchoge's aura of invincibility has faded. A win in Sydney would be his first since 2023, and in his past three starts, Kipchoge's best finish was sixth. There are good reasons why, including a new generation of rivals he inspired and emboldened, injury and the still-undefeated Father Time. And, in an interview with this masthead, Kipchoge also opened up on how deeply he was impacted last year by the road accident death of fellow Kenyan marathoner Kelvin Kiptum, and an abusive online campaign falsely accusing him of being involved, given Kiptum had recently broken his world record. But none of it can stop Kipchoge from setting the 5.45am alarm. 'I want to inspire the next generation and to inspire people around the planet. I want to make this world a running world,' Kipchoge says. 'That's why I'm still running. That's why I'm still waking up every morning, doing all sorts of trainings with pain and everything, to preach the gospel of running.' GOAT of the game In a world where GOAT status will be awarded to a passable sandwich, Kipchoge is one of a rare few whose Greatest of All-Time credentials are not in question. After winning Olympic bronze and silver in the 5000m in 2004 and 2008, the Kenyan moved to marathons and became unbeatable. Between 2014 and 2019, he won 10 consecutive races, including his first Olympic gold in Rio. He went back-to-back in Tokyo, and at the end of 2022, had won 16 of 19 official marathons he had entered. Kipchoge held the world record between 2018 and 2023 – his time of 2:01:09 is now second – and in 2019, Kipchoge even ran 1:59:40 for a marathon, at a special event with assistance, that did not count as a record. Loading There are legends in the GOAT conversation, including Emil Zatopek, who won Olympic gold in his first marathon, and Norwegian female pioneer Grete Waitz, who won 12 major races. And, of course, Ethiopian Abebe Bikila, who ran in bare feet and won Olympic gold in 1960 in a world record time, and then won again in 1964, just a few weeks after an appendectomy. But none can quite match Kipchoge's sustained dominance. 'The only comparison would be Usain Bolt,' Sydney Marathon race director Wayne Larden says, after securing the major coup of signing Kipchoge to run in Sydney's first year as a world major. More than 35,000 people are set to run on Sunday, August 31, and among them are many of the world's best, including Paris women's gold medallist Sifan Hassan and Ethiopian men's star Birhanu Legese. In the men's field, there are 16 men who have run under 2:06:00. Form-wise, Kipchoge will have his work cut out to cross the line first at the Sydney Opera House forecourt. In 2024, he came 10th in the Tokyo marathon and did not finish at the Olympics due to a back complaint. He came sixth in London in April this year in a time of 2:05.25. Now in his 40s, Kipchoge says he is happy with his new life as a travelling preacher, and he also takes pride in having 'opened the door' for his young rivals to chase what was once thought impossible. But, unsurprisingly, the steely competitor has not disappeared either. 'I believe that I'm still ready to go and run 2:02:00, 2:03:00,' he says. 'I'm still able to train with the young generation and finish training together. That's my happiness. Maybe in future generations I will inspire them. But I'm the happiest man because now I've opened their minds to show them, hey, if you train well, work on that core, and you'll actually tip under two hours. That athlete is thinking now of making history.' Kiptum made history when he lowered Kipchoge's world record with an astounding time of 2:00:35 in Chicago in 2023. It was agonisingly close to the magic two-hour mark, under race conditions. Does Kipchoge think it will happen in his lifetime? 'Absolutely, yes,' he says. 'I trust and believe that someone will run under two hours. The magic is that it's in yourself to accept and do it. 'I'm seeing now a lot of young people have accepted that we need to push ourselves. We need to see how our minds and how our bodies can push us.' The death of Kiptum At the age of 24 – and just five months after his world record run – Kiptum and coach Gervais Hakizimana died in a car accident near Kaptagat. Police said Kiptum lost control of his car late at night and hit a tree. A whispering campaign in Kenya emerged, falsely suggesting Kipchoge had been involved. The champion lost friends and training partners, as a result, and was subjected to online abuse and threats. 'I was shocked that people [on] social media platforms are saying, 'Eliud is involved in the death of this boy',' Kipchoge told BBC Sport Africa last year. 'That was my worst news ever in my life. I received a lot of bad things; that they will burn the [training] camp, they will burn my investments in town, they will burn my house, they will burn my family.' The strain ultimately contributed to Kipchoge's toughest year, including the heartbreak of failing to finish as he chased an unprecedented third consecutive Olympic gold. '[It] was a really, really hard year in my career; it was a hard time for me and my family,' he says. 'My people around me, it was the hardest time ever. And you know, personally, we are only giving positivity to the sport, but people can think exactly negative of what you are doing. 'It brought a lot of impact to myself, to my family. And those people, they drove me down and took me down. But all in all, I know myself, I know what I've been doing. I try to be a good person and wake up and move on with the sport, and that's where I am now.' Did he ever think about walking away? 'My love of running is still there, so I ask myself, 'Why do I quit? Why do I run away? Because somebody was actually saying a lot of things?',' Kipchoge says. 'So let me still keep running, and do what I've been doing. I believe in the values which I'm standing for. I'm still standing on them.' Fast cars and Sydney run clubs Ever humble, Kipchoge demurs when asked about being the greatest. So if he is not, who does he rate as the GOAT? 'I think Haile Gebrselassie is the GOAT,' he answers. 'I believe Haile opened a lot of doors for all of us, the younger people. 'Outside of long-distance running, I believe the Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton is a GOAT. I got a lot of inspiration from him. For driving for that long, the speed of over 300[km/h] for the whole year, year in, year out, and the values that he's standing for.' Kipchoge was 15 during the Sydney Olympics, when Gebrselassie won his second gold in the 10,000m, but his stronger memory is being at school when all of Kenya stopped to cheer home hero Noah Ngeny as he beat the legendary Hicham El Guerrouj in the 1500m. He plans to look over the Sydney course next week in a car before the race, but if you've ever wondered if you could foot it with Kipchoge, keep an eye out: he also wants to pop down to Bondi for a trot with a running club. 'If you see the pictures, if you see everything on the internet as far as Sydney is concerned, it is beautiful' he says. 'The bridge, the beauty, how the roads are, I'm really looking forward to it.
Sydney Morning Herald
5 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
From falling in love to a ‘rude awakening': Tracey Holmes reflects on 25 years
This story is part of the August 16 edition of Good Weekend. See all 14 stories. Despite being on TV, I am not a TV watcher. Maybe that's why I have never shared in the over-the-top adoration of people who work in the industry. It is just another job. Nobody who works in TV is flying to the moon and back. None of us are solving homelessness, poverty or cancer. None of us are ending war. One day, I was sitting at the Channel Seven staff canteen with one of the producers of the Sydney Olympics magazine show The Games when I saw the host of the network's current affairs show, Today Tonight, walk by. I'd seen him before, but he'd always kept to himself and had a way of looking that said, 'Leave me alone, I'm busy.' I said to my lunch companion, 'That's Stan Grant, isn't it? He's pretty good-looking, isn't he?' As he walked by, I called out, 'Hey, Stan.' 'Oh, no, don't,' said my colleague. 'We've just voted you the best-looking guy here,' I said. 'Oh, thanks,' he laughed as he kept walking with his bagged sandwich. Stan was embarrassed, my colleague was embarrassed, I didn't think much more of it. A couple of months later, I was told I had to go and get some publicity shots done with the Olympic torch because I would be going to cover the lighting of the flame at ancient Olympia in Greece. I didn't know Stan would also be sent. The photos were taken without much discussion. The day of our departure arrived, and I met the team at the airport. Stan had ensured he wasn't seated next to the rest of us, preferring to keep to himself and read the pile of books he always travels with. During one of the stopovers, I wandered over to him to ask what he was reading. So began one of our many discussions about philosophy, psychology, history, the state of the world, and everything else that makes the globe tick. Those conversations continue to this day. Forget the irrelevant part of Stan's looks; I'd fallen for his mind. We told our bosses at Seven that we were moving in together. We said that while it carried sadness, given the end of Stan's marriage to Karla and the inevitable challenges for his three kids – Lowanna, John and Dylan – we were convinced that in the long run we were doing the right thing and that our relationship would work. The Seven Network was not happy. The next day, our relationship was leaked to the media. We were stalked constantly by paparazzi. A manager called us into his office and told Stan, 'It might be time you go back to your tribe.' Photographers would hide out in our neighbour's yard, trying to take photos over the fence through our bathroom window. We were run off the road. At one point, I swear photos of us knocked Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman off newspaper front pages and magazine covers. The Daily Telegraph even ran a poll asking readers whether they supported us. What does that tell you? When else have you seen a poll asking whether a couple – who had ended other relationships so they could be together – had the support of the public? But apparently our relationship was different. Meeting after meeting was called with what seemed like everybody in the organisation who had the word 'manager' or 'executive' in their title. A manager called us into his office and told Stan, 'It might be time you go back to your tribe.' This to-ing and fro-ing went on for weeks. There was a full-day publicity photo shoot planned for all the Seven staff who would be working on the Olympic Games coverage. It was clear plenty of my colleagues had suddenly decided I was poison to be around. They kept a wide berth. Many of these former colleagues reached out afterwards to tell me that in private they had defended me and Stan. Yeah, sure. The support I did receive was from some of Australia's greatest Olympians, including Dawn Fraser, Murray Rose, Herb Elliott and Ron Clarke. The Lithgow Flash, Marjorie Jackson-Nelson, who went on to become governor of South Australia, said to me at the publicity shoot that if Stan and I wanted a quiet weekend away, we would be welcome at her place. I booked tickets. The airline happened to be an Olympic sponsor, and somehow the head of Seven's sport and games coverage was alerted to the fact that Stan and I would be heading to Adelaide. It was after 11pm when he rang me at home, waking the three kids, who lived with us during the week. He told me that Stan and I were not to travel together, and if we did, he would make sure the papers photographed us, piling further hell on our relationship. I suggested he was my boss, not my father, and I would do what I wanted with whom I wanted on my weekend off. We flew to Adelaide. A News Corp photographer was there to greet us. Our photos appeared not long after, with the associated over-hyped scandalous tone we had come to expect. When it was clear Stan and I would not be dissuaded from continuing our relationship, Kerry Stokes invited us to separate meetings at his North Sydney office. He told me that until the Olympics were over, Stan and I were to be separated. For the next few months, he was going to send me to the US, 'where you can sit there and do interviews with Marion Jones and all the other American Olympic stars'. I told him I had no intention of sitting out the next few months in the US, and if that was what he was planning, he could have my resignation there and then. He said, 'You'd never give up a job in television.' I told him I just did. As I made my way to the door, he suggested that if I went to see a lawyer, he would make sure I never worked in television again. I let him know that's exactly where I was heading. Stan's meeting went much the same way. Despite Stan and I being two of the highest-profile presenters at the network in whom they had invested heavily, Kerry Stokes had decided the two of us together were bad for business. That's OK. We decided his business was one we needn't be a part of. The lawyer we chose to represent us was awesome. Having both resigned, Stan and I thought that chapter of our lives was over. We woke up the next morning to headlines saying Seven had sacked us. Because I'd grown up in numerous locations with friends of every colour and nationality, my perceived reality of Australia was somewhat distorted. I knew there was racism but had no idea how pervasive and ever-present it was. From the newspaper poll asking whether the public supported us, to shop assistants who spoke to Stan's family members like they were inhuman, I had a rude awakening. Two of Stan's nieces joined me on a trip to a bread shop on Sydney's northern beaches one morning so I could buy some rolls for lunch. I gave my order and the shop assistant put the items on the counter. Stan's nieces picked them up. 'Put them down!' the shop assistant yelled. 'Those are not yours.' I informed her the two girls were with me. She didn't apologise. She certainly blushed. Later the same day, we went to a coffee shop overlooking the water at Palm Beach. Along with Stan's sister-in-law, who is also Indigenous, I went to place our order. After the waitress asked what I wanted, I ordered and then looked across to Stan's sister-in-law so she could add her family's order. 'I didn't ask you,' the assistant said. For the second time that day, I said, 'She's with me.' After Stan left Seven, he wrote his first book and was offered a job at CNN, and I had our son Jesse. He was six weeks old when we moved to Hong Kong for Stan's job, with his two older brothers joining us as soon as we found a home to settle in to. That was the year of relationships ending, a new one beginning, resigning from our jobs not knowing where the next ones would come from, becoming parents together, and moving to a foreign land. What a year. After many years overseas, we came back so John, Dylan and Jesse could do their HSC in Australia after being at schools in Hong Kong, Beijing, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Jesse, our youngest, had been in an advanced maths class at one of the most incredible schools on the planet, the Western Academy of Beijing. Back here, without testing, he was put into the lowest maths class in his year. When I queried the decision, I was told the school had learnt through experience that Indigenous kids didn't really like maths and weren't very good at it. That was just one example of many such experiences that revealed a level of judgment our family received based purely on race. Despite being fee-paying parents, our boys were often scolded with 'Be careful, son. Your scholarship could end.' It was a way of controlling the small number of Indigenous kids more ruthlessly than their counterparts. Once it became better known that our boys were not on an Indigenous scholarship, they were then told they couldn't attend the Aboriginal boys' barbecue on Friday nights. Somehow, Aboriginality was defined by means testing. We had imagined things might have changed in the decade or more that we were away. Sadly not. Stan and I both resigned from the ABC in 2023 after he was subjected to the most appalling racism week in, week out, with the ABC offering little to no support. All of this played out during the Voice referendum asking Australians whether they would say yes to recognising Indigenous people in the nation's constitution. During the lead-up to the vote, David Adler – the co-founder of Advance (a right-wing lobby group) and president of the Australian Jewish Association – repeatedly raised the colour of my husband's skin. It took off on social media. I was bombarded with messages accusing Stan of artificially darkening his skin. I still frequently get messages referring to 'Tan Grant'. It's no wonder the ABC did not know how to support Stan through this. As the racism review into the ABC in 2024 revealed, it is endemic there. This type of racism has been unrelenting during our marriage, and I know throughout Stan's life. It is cruel and hurtful, yet we know there are far more good people who have supported us – both at work and in the public. During the worst of it, Stan and I went out to get our morning coffee. We were really touched to see people had put signs up on telegraph poles throughout the suburb with the hashtag, #IStandWithStan. Similar signs were put on notice boards and outside elevator shafts at the ABC. Whenever they were pulled down, they would miraculously reappear by the next morning. After the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2023, I took time out to travel with Stan while he was doing some work in Denmark. It was a much-needed respite. While there, I emailed one of the ABC news executives and told him I would volunteer for one of the redundancies that were being handed out. He refused. So I resigned, giving one month's notice. Four weeks later, I went in to edit the last edition of my weekly one-hour sports politics program, The Ticket. While in the studio, I recorded a short video saying how excited I was to be covering my 14th Olympic Games in Paris 2024, although it wouldn't be for the ABC since I was finishing up in a couple of days' time. I posted it to social media. About an hour later, I got a strange message from the head of news suggesting we talk before I made any decision. But the decision was already made, and he knew it. When I showed the message to one of my colleagues, she asked whether I had forgotten to tell him I was resigning. 'Why is he mentioning this now?' she asked. 'Because,' I said, 'I reckon News Corp has reported it; it's the only thing management responds to.' She went on to and there it was: Stan Grant's wife, Tracey Holmes, has resigned from the ABC. Sam Kerr's bad night An hour before kick-off in Australia's first match as host of the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, news broke that the Matildas' much-loved captain, Sam Kerr, would miss the game with a previously undisclosed calf injury. When I think back now to all the camera cutaways of Kerr sitting on the bench during the match, I ask myself what was running through her mind, given the secret she had been harbouring with far greater consequences than a mere calf injury. The national coach, Tony Gustavsson, looked pale at the post-match press conference. Despite the Matildas winning 1-0, he was peppered with questions about the secrecy around Kerr's injury. Was it so the fans still turned up – a money decision? How bad was the injury? How long would she be out? What chance would Australia have to finally win a World Cup without Kerr playing? These questions, so newsworthy at the time, would appear insignificant seven months later when it became public that she'd been charged with a criminal offence. Loading In early 2023, just months before the World Cup and the Matildas' biggest opportunity for silverware success, Kerr had been involved in a drunken, abusive, violent incident with a London cab and a police constable before spending a night in a cell, originally charged with criminal damage to the taxi before she sobered up and agreed to pay repair costs. A second charge of racially aggravated harassment was still to come. Presumably, with the advice of those closest to her – bad advice in my opinion – Kerr decided against telling those who pay her salary as the national captain about the incident, even though she was at the heart of a nationwide marketing and publicity campaign ahead of the biggest women's sports event in history. I cannot imagine what the weight of such an enormous pressure would feel like. Then again, maybe Sam didn't feel any pressure at all. It was another night out, got out of hand, but so what? And what business is it of anyone's anyway, least of all a bunch of suits sitting in head office somewhere, who she'd much rather never have to speak to. I like Sam Kerr's spunk. I like it that she is not afraid of anybody, will give as good as she gets – and then some. Kerr has a testy relationship with the media, alongside what is perceived to be her 'if I have to' attitude to Football Australia. She bristles if a press conference takes her in a direction she doesn't want to go. Media analysis of the team's performance, if not complimentary, seems to sit inside her turning acidic. Kerr was named captain of the national team ahead of the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in France. The Matildas had been criticised for a sub-par performance in their opening game to Italy, which they lost 1-2, but came back to beat heavyweights Brazil 3-2. As captain Kerr put it in a post-match interview: 'You know, there was a lot of critics talking about us, but we're back, so suck on that one.' Quick as a flash, the crew at retro clothing brand Futbol Cult printed up T-shirts with the words 'Suck on that one'. I joined thousands of others who bought one. Why? I like her spunk. I like that she is not afraid of anybody, will give as good as she gets – and then some – and will stand up for her crew. But witty banter and jovial one-upmanship can easily turn that great Aussie barometer, the pub test; instead of seeing humour, they start to see an attitude problem. Four years after her captaincy debut, with a home World Cup to play, captain Kerr was now a multimillion-dollar player. She was a star striker for Chelsea in the UK's Women's Super League, had a million-dollar contract with Nike and had been named by ESPN as Australia's most influential sports star (male or female), while others ranked her the most influential athlete in women's sport. A Nike executive said she was so marketable because she was so humble. Humility is not a word I would choose to describe Sam. Her quietness in a room of people she neither knows nor trusts is more a sign of the guarded lion, sizing up her environment before having to pounce. As the World Cup began a month-long celebration in Australia, Football Australia had been counting the money pouring through the gates. Kerr was very much at the centre of the marketing strategy. The highest-selling piece of merchandise for Football Australia was the Kerr jersey emblazoned with her number 20, more popular than those of the Socceroos. In some ways, though, the extra demands put on Kerr's shoulders might have fuelled a deep resentment burning inside her. She was a star footballer who just wanted to play, not have to deal with all the extracurricular activities demanded of her. The construction of the Matildas story reached almost mythical proportions in 2023, given they had never come close to winning a World Cup or an Olympic gold medal. It all could have splintered into a thousand pieces if headlines emerged during the World Cup connecting captain Kerr with a drunken vomit in a taxi, an argument over the fare, a smashed window, and the less-than-humble video of her calling a cop 'f---ing stupid and white' while flashing her bank balance and declaring, 'I'm not paying for f---ing some f---ing dodgy c---'s window' and that she would 'get the f---ing Chelsea lawyers on this'. When it emerged, video of the exchange went viral, circling the globe faster than an Elon Musk satellite. The first the public (and the media) knew of it was early in the afternoon of Monday, March 4, 2024, London time, when a journalist from the UK's Daily Mail happened to be sitting in courtroom number five, at the Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court in south-west London, waiting to see if any interesting cases were being heard that could make for a good story. Boy, did he find one. One name is read out by the clerk of the court and suddenly the reporter is wide awake. 'Samantha Kerr, you are charged on this indictment with racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress.' The surprise of the public was only surpassed by the surprise of officials at Football Australia (FA). It was early the next morning, Australian time, when the news filtered through. Still celebrating in the afterglow of the 2023 FIFA World Cup, FA CEO James Johnson and Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson were scheduled to announce a two-match series against China to be played in Adelaide and Sydney in the lead-up to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The Kerr headlines completely overshadowed the announcement. Both Johnson and Gustavsson admitted the first they knew of the Kerr arrest was when they saw the news at the same time as everybody else. The media, cynical after the secrecy around Kerr's World Cup injury, weren't sure the football officials were telling the truth. Whispers that started to spill out from HQ began to make clear that they were being honest. The relationship with Kerr was barely functional: FA didn't know Kerr was injured ahead of the World Cup, let alone that she'd been charged with a criminal offence. What else didn't they know? Who was running this operation? The tail, it seemed, was wagging the dog all over the place. Publicly, FA were supporting Kerr, but privately they were fuming. They wanted answers to some questions of their own, but would be kept waiting for more than 48 hours before getting the chance to talk to the player herself. Interaction between Kerr and FA is clearly on her terms, not theirs. Kerr's team would argue she was not a playing member of the Matildas at the time the news broke, so she owed them nothing. She was also recovering from knee surgery, which was preventing her playing for her club in England. However, in today's sporting environment, the promotional aspect of captaincy doesn't work that way: whether she was playing or not, Kerr was always referred to as the captain of the Matildas, and brand-building for prestige and commercial return (to both the player and FA) doesn't stop. Despite her injury, Kerr was expected to play a similar role at the Paris Olympics to the one she performed during the early stages of the 2023 FIFA World Cup, a leadership role from the bench. Having her in the team was good for the group, it was said, whether she was playing or not. FA held an emergency board meeting to address two separate issues. It had to confront the very real situation that an Olympic Games campaign might be derailed by Kerr's unresolved legal case and, secondly, whether Kerr's captaincy should be stripped. In early 2025, a seven-day criminal trial in London's Kingston Crown Court finished with the jury's unanimous decision that Kerr was not guilty of racially aggravated harassment. Her star lawyer, Grace Forbes, had argued that Kerr and her partner, Kristie Mewis, had feared for their lives before smashing their way out of a taxi which had delivered them to Twickenham police station. The two women said they believed they were being taken hostage. There is plenty written elsewhere about the merits of the case – whether it should have gone to court at all; whether Kerr, who identifies as a lesbian and a white-Anglo-Indian, was in a subordinate power-play against a white police constable in a force which had been found by an independent review in 2023 of being 'institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic'. Questions have also been asked whether Kerr's power and privilege as one of the most recognised footballers on the planet were superior to that of a lowly paid police constable – no matter what his colour. Her behaviour in the police station, abusing a cop, flashing a bank balance, threatening the police with the might of the Chelsea lawyers, did not resemble that of someone afraid for her life, but someone who knew she had access to all the money and legal power she needed. Court case aside, my interest was in how Football Australia dealt with the matter and what the Kerr case teaches us about sport, leadership and the rise of women. There is one aspect from which I can hypothesise with the highest degree of certainty: a captain of the Socceroos, the men's or women's national cricket team, or the Olympic team would have been immediately stood down from their role. Innocence of the criminal charge is one thing, reputation as a national sporting captain displaying such behaviour is another. A frequent complaint about sport is that all sorts of public behaviour is excused if the player is seen as crucial to a team's success. While such leniency does exist, it rarely extends to national captains. As women athletes call for equal recognition and equal pay, they must expect equal scrutiny will come. What was revealed in this incident was that neither Football Australia, nor few in the media, were prepared to treat it in the same way they might treat a similar scenario had it involved an Australian men's captain. On the road to the Olympics At the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in 2000, celebrated rock band Midnight Oil performed one of their protest songs, Beds Are Burning: 'The time has come, to say fair's fair To pay the rent, to pay our share The time has come, a fact's a fact It belongs to them, let's give it back.' What the band didn't tell Olympic officials ahead of time was that they'd be wearing outfits emblazoned with the word 'Sorry', the most politicised word in Australia at the time. In big, white, block letters on their black pants and shirts, front and back, no matter which way Peter Garrett staccatoed across the stage and his band of merry men turned for the cameras, you saw the apology. The then prime minister, John Howard, who could not bring himself to utter the word to Australia's Indigenous population for deep historical wrongs, was sitting in the royal seats with the then IOC president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, and other dignitaries. The volume of the roar from the pulsating crowd and the reaction of the athletes to Midnight's Oil apology sent a deafening message to Howard that October night. Now that Brisbane will host the Olympics in 2032, how have those messages of 'unity, forgiveness and resilience' referred to by the IOC played out in the quarter-century since Sydney's cauldron was extinguished? The answer is: badly, although you'll never hear that from the politically neutral IOC. Indigenous people are still the most impoverished in the country, still the most incarcerated people on the planet. Queensland, the state hosting the XXXV Olympiad, suspended its human rights act in 2023 so it could continue to detain children as young as 10 in adult facilities. The Indigenous population in Queensland is 4.6 per cent, but of children in detention in that state, 63 per cent are Indigenous. In 2023, every state and territory in Australia – except the ACT – voted overwhelmingly no in the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum. Indigenous people will be asked to dress up, make everyone feel welcome, and then disappear to the wings. A year after Queensland's human rights legislation was shelved without sufficient warning or debate, described as a 'dog act' by state Greens MP Michael Berkman, a newly elected Liberal state government in November 2024 repealed the Path to Treaty Act in legislation that also amended the original Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games Act. Much has been made of the Brisbane 2032 Olympics organising committee's commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander involvement and legacy, yet with the stroke of a pen, one of the most important pieces of legislation supporting that commitment was deleted. When asked to respond to the news, an IOC spokesperson said they 'weren't involved'. An Australian Olympic heavyweight said he didn't recall a treaty ever being a part of Brisbane's candidature. That's funny. Memories can play tricks, can't they? If you take a look at the IOC's Future Host Commission report into Brisbane's candidature, presented to the IOC's executive board before they voted to award the games to Brisbane, it says: 'The intention is to build on the progress made during the [2018 Gold Coast] Commonwealth Games, and in alignment with the AOC's First Nations Reconciliation Action Plan and the Queensland Government's Path to Treaty.' Loading Brisbane's Olympics website states: 'We recognise it is our collective efforts and responsibility as individuals, communities and governments to ensure equality, recognition and advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples across all aspects of society and everyday life, including sport. We are committed to building a deeper connection with First Nations Peoples through meaningful listening and authentic engagement.' What does all that really mean? It sounds like blah, blah, blah … connection, blah … meaningful listening, blah … honouring their unique cultural and spiritual relationships, blah blah. Brisbane's Games are still years away, but I reckon it's a pretty safe bet that what the glossy brochure spiel means is that Indigenous people will be asked to dress up in traditional costume, make everyone feel welcome, and then disappear to the wings to let the important people take over for the real business.
