Olympic coach opens up about lack of funding & unfair administration

Published Aug 19, 2024, 2:08 AM
  •  Trevor Ward coach of Gold Medallist Arisa Trew
  •  "Arisa is a freak talent" 
  • "Arisa was told she wasn't old enough and wasn't good enough. This is from people who are administrators"
  • "She didn't get any funding."
  • "Arisa is the first girl that ever did a 720, and then did a 900 after 4 days... it took Tony Hawke 10 years."

You've got a middleist on your hands.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing experience. That was something that I'll never forget. And like, Arissa's a freak, freak talent. You know, when I first met her, she was a little girl and her two two coming up to our old place in Arundel where I met you.

And then and then all of a sudden, she just became this freak.

And I told her parents, hey, you should stop her from going to normal school and come to our school.

Wow.

And then I think this is interesting, and it happens to a lot of athletes no funding until now, Like, what's that story about.

Yeah, it's crazy.

You know, Arissa was told she wasn't old enough to be in the Olympics or in the team, and she probably wasn't good enough. And you know these are by people that are administrators. They don't know anything to do with it. And I've been dealing with, you know, our sporting body for twenty five years and you know, they just kind of said, nah, she's not good enough.

And she didn't really get any funding.

I think more of the funding went to the administrators to go on holiday. But they figure out, they always figure out how to make themselves look good in the light of things, you know.

Yeah, yeah, so and now we're talking about Vert that that's her main event and that could be in the next games.

Yeah, hopefully Vert is Like they've talked about a few sports, potentially scooter riding because they can double up on the use of the park, right, But everyone's pushing for Vert vertz the elitist thing, like because park skating wasn't really a discipline. They brought it out in about two thousand and eight because they wanted to, like girls weren't as good as vert was very elitist, yes, so they're like, oh, the girls won't get good, but they would have had twelve years from twenty and eight to twenty twenty to get good, but they came up with park skating, and that's kind of made it a little bit. Yeah, it kind of made vert skating go down. But now like Ariss is the best in the world, like she does she's the first girl that ever did a seven twenty and then she did a nine hundred, and she did a nine hundred in what was it eighty eight, goes like it took her.

Four days to do it. It took Tony Hawk ten years so.

Now does Tony know, does he know that she's done the nine hundred and all that.

Yeah, yeah, Tony's put it on his Instagram. He knows.

He tried to buy her board that she did the nine hundred on because he's got his one and he wanted to put hers next to it. And he's like, I'll make you a sizable donation if you if I buy it.

And he's got a lot of money, you know, Tony. But she's kept it.

She kept the board.

Yeah, we've still got it all sitting there. So she really doesn't care about that stuff.

She just would leave the board there and go and.

Do something else. But I'm like, we're always picking a mark and holding onto.

It's got to care for it. She's fourteen years.

Yeah, it's all about her having fun, you know. Like we've done documentaries. There's one coming out on Netflix.

On her and my daughter. Yeah, so that was like a road to X game.

So my daughter, Jada and Arissa are like best friends, and they did one on Arissa and then they Jada and her get along and they changed the whole story and it's Reese Witherspoon that has this and she loves the girls and so yeah, but I had to protect them from the documentary makers because they just walk in the house and I'd be like, oh no, no, you're out, You're not in here untill nine o'clock. And then they'd go directly to the kids and I'm like, you can't. You've got to come and talk to me, and then I'll pitch it to the kids and then we'll come up with an idea to.

Do it ourselves.

So it feels right to them, because if they're kids, you know what I mean, you can't just come in and throw them into even at the radio station.

It's got to be done on their terms. Yeah, you're doing a great job.

She's a great kid, and yeah, look after her because I think she's going to be probably one of the biggest stars Australia's ever seen.

That's right. And level up is where you're doing all your good work, mates, So make sure you look up, Trevor Ward. Level up and if your kids are leaning in that direction, it's the perfect place.

To go, come on down. Thanks so much, guys, Thank you

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