How 'Granny Lisa' keeps her head above water

Lisa Curry's voicemail informs me I've reached "Granny Lisa", and to leave a message.

That is, the voice of three-time Olympian, winner of seven Commonwealth Games gold medals, world champion outrigger canoeist, an inductee in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, former chair of the National Australia Day Council, OA, MBE, business woman, wife, mother and yes, granny.

"I do have different versions of myself," she says. "Sometimes I don't know who I am. I wear a lot of different hats, meet a lot of different people, have to prepare for a lot of different things, life is busy and sometimes I can't even keep up with myself."

What grounds her is family, a dedication to her own health and well-being, and a firm belief in her own inner strength.

"I remember going to a business breakfast when I was 16, around the time of my first World Championships, and I learned something there that has stuck with me forever," she says.

"I learned early that I had to depend on myself. If you want something done, if you want something done well, just do it yourself, do it the way you want to do it, then you don't have to blame anyone, ask anyone. Just do what you have to do.

"In sport, in business, in life, it's the same. My mother used to say, 'You get what you get and you don't get upset'. I guess that's how I've approached life."

It's a life that, in many ways, has been played out in the public eye. She was just 10 when she was spotted at the local pool in Brisbane by Dawn Fraser's legendary swim coach Harry Gallagher. She soon became one of the fastest swimmers for her age in the world. To this day, she is the only Australian swimmer to have held Commonwealth and Australian records in every stroke except backstroke.

At 16, she swam at her first world championship and Commonwealth Games, winning silver in the 4x100m medley relay at the 1978 Edmonton games.

At the height of her career, she met a handsome ironman, Grant Kenny, and the pair were known as Australia's golden couple for more than 20 years. They married in 1986 and separated in 2009. Together they had three children, Jaimi Lee, Morgan and Jett. In 2020, Jaimi died after a long battle with mental illness, alcoholism, self-harm and eating disorders. She was 33.

"The past few years have been really hard, obviously, it's taken a good three and a half years for me to get my head above water again," she says. "It's probably been only the past month or so that I've started to think straight again, feel like my old self again and it's been hard to do.

"But I realise that when you walk along the street, every second person is going through something traumatic in their life. It's a reminder to be kind to everyone because you don't know what's going on in their life, or even what's happened to them in the past week.

"I've really had to dig deep and find the strength that I had when I was competing to help the Lisa I am now."

In her 2022 memoir Lisa: A memoir - 60 years of life, love and loss, she spoke candidly about the experiences that have shaped her life: swimming, family, marriage, divorce, and love found again. It's a story of resilience.

"Just this morning I spoke at a conference and it's nice to still resonate with people," she says.

"My story's been told over the past 42 odd years, there have been lots of ups and downs and lots of challenges and lots of excitement, and lots of failures and everything in between. If there is something from my story that can help someone else, it's why I still do what I do."

Her latest book, Happy Healthy You, comes from her 10-year partnership with naturopath Jeff Butterworth. In 2015, they founded the Australian-based health and lifestyle community which offers health advice, products, programs and recipes with the aim of empowering women to take back control of their health.

"We've got to try to keep life simple, our health simple, but to do that you have to understand what is going on," she says.

"The book puts it in very simple terms. When your health starts to let you down, it can be lonely and dealing with symptoms that impact your quality of life can be demoralising. We want to give you that control back."

A decade later, it's become an online community of more than 500,000, driven by women of all ages with a team of naturopaths and nutritionists working around the clock to answer any questions.

Dealing with life transitions is a major topic, issues such as new motherhood and menopause. I wonder how Curry, whose life revolved around swimming for so long, coped when she finally hung up her goggles.

"It didn't affect me as much as other athletes," she says.

"I had two children while I was still competing. I was a mum at my last Commonwealth Games and Olympics. Motherhood brings you back to earth with a bang. I never had that downer after leaving international competition because my life was my family."

She remembers one event where she was out the back in the marshalling area breastfeeding Morgan when her name was called to come to the blocks.

"I'm saying, 'I'm coming, I'm coming, hurry up and finish the feed!'"

While she thinks it great that athletes who are parents are receiving more support from sporting organisations, she's still believes in her mother's advice.

"You can't depend on outside organisations, you have to depend on yourself."

These days, Granny Lisa, 61, lives in Brisbane, close to family, with her new husband Mark Tabone. The pair met in 2015 and married in 2018. It's an odd mix, the Olympian and the Elvis impersonator.

"He makes my heart sing," she said at the time of their wedding.

"He cares about me, he listens to my stories, even if I tell them to him three times. He laughs at my jokes and fixes anything and everything."

She dotes on her three grandsons, Morgan's children.

"There's nothing better when they come running over with their arms up saying 'Granny, Granny!'"