Shane Gould blazed her way into sporting history, breaking eleven world swimming records and winning five Olympic medals in Munich in 1972, yet her career lasted just three years. At 13, she became a household name; at 16, she retired and almost disappeared.
From her beginnings as a swimming prodigy up to the present, Tumble Turns is the moving and courageous story of Shane’s attempt to forge a normal life for herself and her family, far away from the trapping and temptations of sporting superstardom. It is the story of her tumble turns, her twists and changes of direction – from her swimming triumphs and the struggles of raising her children in the Western Australian bush, to marriage breakdown and her recent return to the media spotlight.
It has take Shane nearly 30 years to understand what her remarkable achievements have given her in personal terms, as well as the enormous cost to her and those close to her. Tumble Turns tells the story of those years and how her extraordinary experiences have contributed both to her acceptance of that young swimming phenomenon called Shane Gould, and of the woman she has become.
What can one say about Shane Gould that hasn’t already been said? And that’s exactly why I’m not going to say too much. This book stands on its own two feet (or flippers) and doesn’t need me to give you too many details.
Gould details her life from her early swimming days right until the ‘present’ in other words 2000. She holds no punches, telling us why she swims and why she’s good, why she married and why the marriage dissolved. This book should be read by every person intending to get into sport or business. I know, I’ve set the sights really high and things have changed dramatically since Gould got into swimming, partly thanks to her hard work, but there are so many pitfalls and she helps us understand them.
This book is nicely written, as I said before it holds no punches and details lots of places where people went wrong with the Olympic personnel. It helps me understand why I don’t like organised sport above school level. Gould shows us that everything is about winning and nothing about participating, that once you’ve got a gold medal you’re the star until the next person comes along and gets a gold. This is what I object to with professional sport be it The Olympics, Football, Soccer, Tennis or anything else where winning is the be-all-and-end-all. This book helped clarify my thoughts so now I have words to use when people tell me I have to love football.