Brush with London games

Scratch the surface of most events these days and you will more than likely find a connection to the Southern Downs, either through Stanthorpe or Warwick or one of our surrounding ‘villages’. The London Olympics are no different and there are a couple of connections, one probably a little more recognisable than the other.
The first is through the USA Women’s Hockey Team which is coached by Lee Bodimeade.  Bodimeade made his way from Warwick to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics as a member of the Australian men’s hockey team and came away with a silver medal. He turned his hand to coaching and was honoured as USA Field Hockey’s National Coach of the Year in 2006.  Despite a stellar career as a player and now coach, Bodimeade, who was a pretty handy cricketer, has been known to pop up at the Warwick Australia Day Cricket Carnival.
If you are a prolific watcher of the Olympics and marvelled at the throng of women who lined up for the marathon, I wonder how many of you, other than family members, realised there was a Stanthorpe or at least a Pozieres’s connection and that Texas also played a role.
Three Aussies lined up for the marathon. One, Benita Willis, who was born and bred in Mackay, has a Pozieres pedigree. She is the eldest daughter of Merilyn Willis, formerly McMahon of Pozieres.
If you watched the event you would have noticed Benita struggled from the outset and agonisingly made it across the finishing line. Commentators explained she was competing after recovering from a torn hip flexor, which threatened to end her dream of competing in a fourth consecutive Olympics.
Willis developed a love of running from early childhood days spent playing hockey and jogging on Bucasia Beach in Mackay with her sister Caitlin and father Tony. He provides the Texas link. A school teacher, Tony was transferred to Texas back in the early 70s. Tony Willis was a handy footballer and played on the wing for Texas during his stint there as a teacher.  It was also where he met a young Stanthorpe/Pozieres teacher Merilyn McMahon and the rest, as they say, is history. Sadly Tony passed away in 2008 after a lengthy and challenging illness. He remains Benita’s inspiration. Benita’s very proud mother, Merilyn, said her daughter sent her a message saying she had to be “carted off in a wheelchair after the race”, she was in such pain but she was elated to have finished. “Dad would have been proud of me.”
Both daughters have had distinguished careers in athletics. Caitlin won a gold medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in the 400m relay team alongside Yana Pittman and Tamsyn Lewis. Benita has competed at the highest level for 14 years and is the holder of every Australian record on the track, from 2km to 10km.
In 2003 she won the World Cross Country title, an event normally dominated by the Africans. Benita performed to a high level in cross country and road races a period before qualifying for the Sydney Olympics over 1500m and 5000m.
This young woman’s gritty performance to make it to the finish line of the marathon brought high praise from her team-mates.
Jess Trengove said Willis was her childhood hero and inspired her after she watched Willis compete in Sydney in the 5000m race.
Trengove said following the race, “What she did yesterday demonstrates the true Aussie spirit and was an incredible feat.
“To have her there on the start line with us was just fantastic,” Lisa Weightman said. “She wanted to be part of the team and out there with us and finish that marathon no matter what. Everyone back home should be very proud of her.”
That, I think, is quite an understatement.