The Challenge of the Olympic Dream: Kerry Turner Feature Article

Kerry Turner and her parents Bill and Pat Jones were the forerunners of including Women’s Water Polo into the Olympic Games. Throughout her playing and professional career, Kerry has made a substantial contribution to Australian sport as an athlete and now in her role as Manager of Participation and Partnerships at the NSW Office of Sport.

From 1984 to 1994, Kerry capped 108 appearances for the Australian Women’s Water Polo Team; competing in 5 FINA World Cups and winning gold, silver and bronze. Kerry was a versatile athlete who also captained the Australian Universities Netball Team in 1986 and competed in 2 FINA World Swimming Championships.

There was no surprise that Kerry debuted for the Australian national team at just 17 coming from a very Water Polo orientated family. Her mother Pat Jones (who is a Water Polo Australia Life Member) took the first Australian Women’s Water Polo team to America in 1978 of which whom her eldest sister Tracy was in that team. Her father Bill Jones was the former President of Australian & NSW Water Polo (WPNSW) and is a life member of WPNSW. The world stage was where Kerry could be able to express herself physically through Water Polo.

“When I first started I was finding my feet and dealing with a lot of older women; it was really full on,” she said.

“But I built a lot of resilience out of my time of playing water polo. Every time I did get to a World Cup final or semi-final or played a World Championship, that was the stage and I got that stage because where else in your life do you get that chance to test yourself. “

With her career spanning over a decade, Kerry is a world champion but never had the opportunity to play on the Olympic stage.

“The stage I wanted to happen at is the Olympics; and that didn’t happen for me. We actually won the World Cup [in Los Angeles] there but the closest I came to my Olympic Dream was hanging out with Sam the Eagle.” 

Retiring at the age of 27, Kerry wanted to change the equality of Women’s Water Polo. The very next year (1999), the FINA World Cup would be hosted in Sydney and Kerry and her family decided they would be the organising committee.

“We thought this is our first step in showing FINA that in Sydney we are going to host the best games. It was the best ever World Cup for women; we got to a broader fanbase,” she said.

“The next phase is where I totally admired my mum, she just didn’t give up. She said to me ‘If we don’t get the Games in Sydney, we will never get it.’ There was no reason not to have us. We demonstrated at the airport, we demonstrated at press conferences at FINA and Mum was leading the charge with all the demonstrations, disrupting their business.”

And from that moment, Women’s Water Polo was introduced into the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. It took years of dedication that proceeded to that moment which elevated a change in promoting sport gender equality.

The inclusion not only created history to Australian Sport but for valuing women on an international sporting platform. The Australian Women’s team took out the gold medal which Kerry will never forget.

“We were in the stands and when the girls walked out to that Olympic music, we all burst into tears because it was validation and then they unleashed their value,” she said.

Kerry has untaken several projects in developing the value of women sport. In the past century, women sport had been neglected and often overlooked with young girls finding it difficult to be inspired by female athletes; and this situation was present in Kerry’s adolescent years.

“When I was a young girl, I used to watch the Olympics and every 4 years I would see these amazing women on television,” she said.

“I resonated with that athlete, I resonated with their strength and determination and I just thought the Olympics was wonderful because I couldn’t see anywhere else that women were doing that kind of amazing stuff,” she explained.

Kerry’s deep-felt passion for developing and promoting sport has been evident in her successful programs. As current Manger at NSW Office of Sport, Kerry helped develop the ‘Think. Act. Play.’ program which was to address the ugly behaviours happening within Water Polo.

(Launch of Think.Act.Play with Richie Campbell [middle] and Bec Rippon [right])

“I really have loved working in my roles in government because I have actually steered towards things that are more project management around social. I was really proud of the work I did with Water Polo of ‘Think.Act.Play’,” she said.

As a mother of two boys (Jett & Liam), Kerry knows the social bonding sport creates in young lives through building values and life skills. One of the major benefits of sport is social inclusion and through broadcasting women’s sport thoroughly this can be achieved.

“Young girls in our society right now we know they are not as active, pulling out of sport and we know that they are really suffering from self-esteem issues,” she said.

“This project [Unleashing the Value of Women in Sport] I have done at the Office of Sport was around unleashing the commercial and social value of women sport and I was really proud of that because I was able to get an amazing program together to showcase that value.” 

The value of women’s sport has the potential to connect with larger audiences; which has already been prevalent with the Women’s AFL, Australian Netball and the Australian Rugby 7’s.

“It has a different value to brands and it also has the potential to reach the purchasing power of females which sports want. But to get that purchasing power you must have that authentic connection and these women role models are just breaking through and that was so great about this piece of work,” she continued.

Aside from her sporting and professional background, Kerry showcases her character through theatre; where she cast in Playhouse Creatures and My Wonderful Day at the Arts Theatre in Cronulla as well as completing a Model 1 Actors Centre Australia Course.

The nervousness of stepping out for a Water Polo final compared to the theatre is vastly different through Kerry’s eyes.

“With sport at least, you can warm up and get your nerves to a point physically to bring yourself but with acting you have to hit that stage in theatre in character,” she said.

“I was actually pleasantly surprised that this was going to give me as much as a thrill as I did because it just led into all the stuff I learnt as an athlete but gosh it is such a different context.”

It is the power of story-telling of women which will continue to engage female audience and inspire younger generations to be more active.

“We haven’t had our stories told and there is authenticity in that if you really want to connect with female audiences, you have to put a different lens on and what resinates with women, “she stated.

“The power of seeing women in TV, never underestimate it because like I was as a little girl if she can see it she can be it. Sadly, for women we are born marginalised because we are all pink and we can’t do this (sport). We can kick footys’, we can tackle and we can play Water Polo. It doesn’t look the same but it is great in its own right.”

So what is the future of women sport?

“Future of women sport is shining brighter as ever.”

If you missed the Unleashing the Value of Women’s Sport Seminar, you can read about it HERE