There’s a certain kind of clarity that comes from drowning out the noise – quite literally. Giaan Rooney knows this better than most. One day, swimming in the pool, the then 23-year-old Olympic champion decided she was done.

“I was in training, swimming up and down, and I had this light-bulb moment,” says Giaan on the latest season of FW’s award-winning podcast, Too Much: The Switch.

“I realised, for the very first time, that I was proud of myself…  And then a split second later, if I’m proud of myself, I’m comfortable with my career and I’ve got no regrets, then have I also just possibly lost that 1 percent of absolute hunger that is required to win at the top level in this sport?” 

The honest, rational part of Giaan answered her own question – yes. But pride wasn’t the only reason this decorated national treasure decided to retire at the peak of her athletic success.

“I was mentally exhausted. I was burnt out,” she says. “And back then, if you were burnt out, you retired. There was no chance for a mental health break.” 

Giaan had been on the Australian swimming team since she was 15. 

Growing up in Queensland, when she was 11, an older friend suggested she join a squad after seeing her win at her primary school swimming carnival. Soon she was training several afternoons a week and, encouraged by her coach, swimming all year round and competing at the Australian Championships.

“I made my first Australian team and I couldn’t believe it. My family couldn’t believe it, no one could believe it,” she says. “All of a sudden, the people I had as posters on my wall were my teammates.” 

Eight years later, with a glittering stream of Olympic and World Champion medals in her wake, Giaan was doing her laps, realising it was time to get out of the pool. But she didn’t go far. Giaan’s sponsor, Channel 9, gave her a shot presenting across their sports and lifestyle programs. 

“So what’s the worst thing that can happen? I walk away and it doesn’t work? Well then, I’ll find another way to reinvent myself.”

“Every time I did live TV, I felt the same adrenaline, the same butterflies in my stomach, that same feeling of I’ve got one chance to get this right,” says Giaan. 

But beyond the on-camera buzz, she found this industry viewed her through a very different lens.

“I’m 5’10”. I’m average in the swimming world, I’m an Amazon woman in TV land. And if I had a male co-host, I definitely had to not wear heels,” she says.

“The hardest challenge for me was I had gone from recognising my body was a vehicle – and it was about what my body could do, not what it looked like – into a medium that was very much about what you look like.”

Giaan shone while covering sports and presenting travel shows. But things took a turn when she replaced a much-loved meteorologist as the weather presenter for Seven News Melbourne.

“I was so out of my depth,” she says. “The only feedback I used to get was, ‘I don’t want some swimmer telling me the weather!’ And, ‘it’s freezing outside, why doesn’t she have a cardigan on?’ Or, ‘her hair looks terrible that way’. Or, ‘she doesn’t have enough lipstick on’. I just absolutely got hammered in that role… because I wasn’t the right fit for it.” 

Tied to a network contract, while Giaan was taking heat from viewers, she was also missing out on sports presenting opportunities. 

“I felt like my credibility in something that I loved and I knew was slipping away,” she says. “It was a really hard time and I have never been more gutted and down in the dumps about something where I couldn’t change the narrative. I couldn’t fix it – and that was incredibly difficult.”

Meanwhile, Giaan had started her family with husband Sam Levett – a fifth-generation farmer. He supported her to take a leap of faith, leave the security of her contract and step out on her own.

“It was once again parking the ego to the side and saying, this isn’t working for me anymore,” she says. “Having a crack has really stood me in good stead up until this point. So what’s the worst thing that can happen? I walk away and it doesn’t work? Well then, I’ll find another way to reinvent myself.” 

As Giaan’s recent years of ambassadorship and airtime – including coverage of the Paris Olympics – demonstrate, it did work. And while working in television roles that she loves, in another major twist, she and Sam are also running a macadamia farm. 

“If you had told me 10 years ago that I’d been living on a farm, and I’d be a farmer’s wife attempting to be as good as my husband is in the farming world, I would have thought you were off your head,” she laughs. “But here we are, and I couldn’t be happier.”  

For women who are considering changing lanes, Giaan has this advice: 

“Don’t let a job or a career or a label define you. Define yourself – and find a way to explore everything and anything that you’re interested in,” she says. “Leave no stone unturned. If you’ve got one little inkling of a feeling that you should do something, you need to explore it.”

Image credits: Getty Images and supplied