Tokyo Olympic beach volleyballer Chris McHugh travelled to Kangaroo Island in late February with the Olympics Unleashed program to inspire and motivate students across the three Kangaroo Island Community Education (KICE) campuses.

The 34-year-old spoke of his journey from first discovering Beach Volleyball as a school student himself, to making the state and national squads and ultimately qualifying for his first Olympic Team in 2020.

Throughout his presentation, Chris described the great highs of his Olympic journey, including home gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, but also touched on the painful setbacks that came along the way, encouraging students to never give up in the face of adversity.

Reflecting on his time in Kangaroo Island, Chris said he loved having the opportunity to visit young students from a rural community.

“The overall experience in Kangaroo Island was great, the students were all so engaged, they asked lots of questions during the presentation and even came up to me afterwards wanting to know more about my journey and how I got to where I am,” Chris said.

“I grew up in a country town, so for me going and visiting students from smaller schools and showing them that it is possible to go and achieve these big things is really important.

“If you’ve got the support and the belief in your own abilities, then anything is possible.”

Year 12 students Grace Kauppila and Cooper Gregor from the Kingscote KICE campus said they had never had an Olympian visit their school before but loved having the opportunity to listen to Chris’s story.

“It was really cool to have Chris visit our school and to hear his journey to the Olympics,” Miss Kauppila said.

“A key takeaway for me was that if something is in your way, you can get through it, you just have to believe in yourself.”

“I wasn’t sure what to expect when I found out an Olympian was coming to visit our school, but it was really cool hearing Chris talk today,” Mr Gregor continued.

“I really appreciated Chris’s message that if you have a dream, chase it.

“I also really liked how he spoke about finding our support network, for me that's my parents and my friends, and how we should use our support networks to help us achieve our goals.”

KICE high school teacher Barb McKimmie said the presentation exceeded her expectations and encourages all teachers to book a visit.

“It was incredible, everything Chris had to say was just amazing,” Ms McKimmie said.

“Having people like Chris come in and help us teach things like resilience is so important.”

“It's also really inspiring for the students to have someone come in that they can look up to and who can share such great advice, we don’t get experiences like this very often, so it was really nice for our students,” she continued.

“If teachers are thinking about registering for a visit, I would say just do it! It is such an easy process and so worthwhile for the students.”

Article courtesy of the Australian Olympic Committee
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