Racing Against the Dream—the Career of a Former Olympian
Written by Sam Marz
The Beijing sun beat down upon the runners as they waited for the gun to fire. Seven women from countries across the globe stood before a crowded stadium to run the first heat of the 800 meter dash in the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Poised on the line, representing Australia in the Olympics for her first and last time, was Madeleine Pape.
“It was surreal,” Pape said. “It was hot, so hot...The noise was like nothing I’d ever really experienced before…Unfortunately, the 800 was kind of a short race. I wish I’d had more time out there.”
The gun would soon signal the start of Pape’s race, but she began chasing her Olympic dream years before making the trip to Beijing National Stadium.
Pape, now a fifth year Ph.D student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, quickly found her niche in running at a young age.
“I always knew that running was my strength,” Pape said. “Saw myself as a runner. I would like to compete against the boys and play around and stuff like that.”
In early 2008, Pape qualified for the Beijing Olympics during the Sydney Athletics Grand Prix with a personal best of 1:59.92, the only time she broke two minutes in the 800.
“I spent weeks just visualizing the race, and visualizing running a 1:59,” she said. “I even had a sign up on my bedroom wall with 1:59 in big bold numbers.”
The race came together like “magic.”
“Perfect conditions. Perfect pacing throughout the race,” she said.
Intense training and stress filled the months ahead of Beijing. Pape underperformed in her races in Europe, and she struggled with a running injury.
“It was really hard to be away from home and try to hold everything together, like get the treatment you need, get the food you need, be able to relax, not get too stressed,” Pape said.
The day before her heat, Pape’s parents visited her in the Olympic Village.
“As soon as I saw them, I burst into tears, and they were like, ‘What’s wrong? Oh my God!’” Pape said. “The tension wa
s so high, like so much was riding on it.”
The next morning, Pape joined her fellow 800 runners at the start. Then the gun went off.
“It happened so fast,” Pape said. “We started out really slow, and really picked up in the second lap, and it was just like a sprint, a sprint finish in the end.”
Pape crossed the line with a time of 2:03.09. She placed sixth out of seven runners in her heat, failing to qualify for the semi-finals.
“Initially, I was extremely disappointed, and I really felt like I’d let my family down, and my coach down, and my team down,” she said.
She continued to race competitively after Beijing and expected to compete in the 2012 Summer Olympics. An injury in 2010 stopped her from getting there.
“I had a coach who was training me very hard, doing a lot of track work, a lot of high-intensity work,” Pape said. “I ended up damaging my achilles — my achilles insertion.”
Pape underwent surgeries to fix the insertion, but the damage was done.
“Turns out that achilles insertions don’t take too kindly to that kind of intervention,” she said. “It never really healed from it.”
She stopped running for four years because of the injury, but reconnected with the sport through her research at UW-Madison and her involvement with clubs on campus.
A Ph.D candidate in Sociology at UW-Madison, Pape came to the United States intending to specialize in environmental sociology. After taking classes on feminist theory and gender verification in sport, she switched to sociology of gender.
“It was a moment where the earth moved, kind of thing,” she said.
Pape became an advocate for athletes with hyperandrogenism—elevated levels of testosterone—coming to the defense of Olympic athletes Caster Semenya and Dutee Chand.
“It’s turned out to be a really nice fit with my life,” she said. “It kind of brings together my new life now in sociology with my old life as an athlete, and gives me a unique perspective as well, in both of those fields.”
In 2014, Pape joined the Wisconsin Track Club as a runner and a mid-distance coach.
“We didn’t find her. She found us,” said Sandy Gregorich, the women's long-distance coach. “We really did have this empty spot in the middle with middle distance.”
Pape works with Gregorich and the athletes to give them workouts and advice.
“She always makes sure that everyone’s trying their best, but isn’t hurting, and is also very encouraging all the time,” said Stephanie Rink, a runner on the club team.
Pape competes in track and cross country meets with the club. While her professional career ended early, she now views her experience at the Olympics positively.
“I learned that I need to be able to relax, not be so uptight about getting everything perfect, and accept that no one’s coming to the line in the best shape of their life,” said Pape. “You also need to be able to just make space for yourself to appreciate it, and just enjoy it, and be in the moment and be happy when these kinds of amazing things happen in your life.”
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Not enough coverage on the I. Oltman doping scandal