How Katie Page's crusade in women's sport forced the 'turning point'

women in sport started for me with rugby league we are underway for the first ever nrlw Grand Final and a lot of people find that unusual that with a game of football that in those days women could be as big on um television on the field as male players so it started as how how are women invisible [Applause] Aran terminates her competition I think it's been a long time coming um I just feel so incredibly privileged and proud to be a part of this time in Australian Sport and I think in 10 20 30 years to come we're going to look back on this time where women really dominated 14599 that's a new par olympic record for Madison De Rosario I think it's a huge turning point for women in sport I think we've begun to invest in women's sport far more and we've very quickly seen the results of that and what we've seen with women's sport is that shift from expectation and demand for results despite under resourcing to suddenly this belief in our women athletes that we've always been capable of doing but now that there's this enormous belief around the country it's been an enormous shift in the last 12 months 2 years and what we saw in in Paris Olympics is a result of that it's our belief in our women athletes and they've delivered working with rugby league we started women in league and it very quickly went into all the other codes everyone realized that here you had Elite athletes that were as good as the men and were not being given the same respect it was pretty obvious to me that that all of these different sporting codes bringing their women through couldn't grow I'm very lucky that I've been in a sport where it's been quite equal for men and women I haven't really been exposed to gender disparity and um inequality in sport but I think definitely in this country and around the world when women are now having the same equal rights as men to participate in sport not just um to have fun but at a high performance level they're taken seriously just like men are and I think that's really important and it goes to show that on the world stage we can perform as well as men can we can entertain just as much and I feel like it's pretty great the world's head in that way I think there's been so much belief in women's sport recently and one of the things that I found over my career is there's this fear of of disapp pointing the people that support you and there's also this enormous feere of disappointing or proving right to the people that never fully believed in you if you look at the statistics today the growth participation in young girls right from 10 to 15 is just extraordinary the number of referees the number of coaches but it's everyone that's involved with the game and that makes a game we're all welcome it doesn't matter what level you are and you can decide what part of the game you want to be involved with when I first um kind of came onto the scene 8 years ago I think maybe the interest in swimming was lost a little bit but I think in the past 3 to four years the country is getting around the swim team not just in in an olympic year but in the Years prior I think there is just so much more love for the pric games than there ever has been I think as athletes were're turning up exactly the same as we always have and I think one of the very wonderful things at Racing for Australia is I know how much love there is foric Sport and as you go over there I think the minute you pull on the green and gold I feel like you bring all of Australia with you in that moment and having raced in front of it you know during my career you kind you know what that kind of feels like to have that Australian support so I decided I'd become a surveyor and I I think about why did I want to become Sur a surveyor I think it was because it was such a blokey job so I applied for that with the government and they said no women aren't welcome um it's only for men but you know you have these little things in your life that um put you on a course on and in my case the road it put me on was always making sure that women had an opportunity I uh felt a lot of pressure to perform for our country not just for myself and I feel like the weight has been lifted I I don't know how to describe it but it's a bliss feeling it's a a mind-numbing feeling knowing that I don't have to strive for anything in the near future um I definitely went there and and achieve some things that I set out to do I think defending my 400 freestyle title was a big goal for me and I felt like a lot of people were willing and wanting me to win so I felt very proud to do that for Australia I definitely used to race with a lot of external pressure I think I rised a lot of fear I was fearful of a bad result and I was just constantly trying to avoid that negative outcome and I it's not the healthiest way to I think be motivated and and as I've gotten older I've switched towards trying to run towards something and I I want those positive results and I you know I want that success and I also want to become a person that's capable of achieving the goals that I set the first thing I went to was a 400 meter with Arian and to see her so effortlessly right when the 400 meter it was a powerful moment and to know this this wonderful young woman and how hard she'd worked and it just brings home to me um one we keep supporting what we're doing with sport it's nice to have a back the backing of one of Australia's most powerful women it's a um a calming feeling I think it's been really nice to start up my relationship with Katie obviously professionally as a with a partnership with Harvey Norman but personally getting to know Katie has been really special and I feel her genuine support and I I look up to her for her to be such a Powerhouse in the business world as a woman um is very striking and I think she's someone that lots of young women should look up to I keep telling people there's no blueprint there's no um one way to support women to support girls to do what you want to do but make sure you do something and so that's what I do but it's my way