It’s been 30 years since Chantal Brunner’s first Olympics and 20 years since her last Commonwealth Games, but the former long jumper is still leaping feet first into more sporting arenas.
New Zealand Olympian no. 692, Brunner first represented her country between 1990 and 2006, in a senior career that saw her compete at two Olympics, four outdoor World Championships and four Commonwealth Games. But more than a decade later, she represented New Zealand once again at the World Masters Games in Auckland in 2017, where she not only won the long jump in her age group, but also achieved a New Zealand Masters record.
“It’s been a long time,” says Brunner, now 55.
“Those events are milestones and there are athletes competing now who weren’t alive when I was competing, so it’s a reality check. I’m not a great one for looking in the past, but it’s kind of fun to remember the things that you did.”
Born in Wellington, Brunner moved to Wainuiomata when she was four. Inspired by a local newspaper story which showed children with their medals from the Colgate Games, she joined the Wainuiomata Athletic and Harrier Club, running from the age of seven, and ‘properly’ starting to train when she was 11.
Initially, she started running the 400m and 800m distances before her long jump coach Michael Beable said “What are you doing? I think you could be a really good long jumper.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“The long jump training really stuck, and sprinting in the 100m and 200m went along with it. Then I went to the US for two years,” she says.
Brunner had started her Bachelor of Laws with three years at Victoria University before gaining a scholarship at Washington State University in the early 1990’s.
“The training there was different, and the competition stimulus that I had over there every week, running against girls that were a lot faster, you can’t help but get faster yourself. You start to build that confidence and also you just get bigger and stronger and you start doing more weights and start getting a bit smarter about how you train.”
With the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada, just a year away, the selectors made it known that if athletes wanted to be considered for selection, they needed to have eyes on them – so it was time to come back home.
“I had unexpected success at those Commonwealth Games. I came sixth and broke the New Zealand record that Jane Mitchell had had for quite some time. That saw me qualify for the World Championships in Gothenburg the following year and then it just became a cycle where you do one event, and then you qualify for the next one, and then start preparing for the next one, and so on. It became a bit of a chain reaction. In 1996 at the Atlanta Olympics, I made the final and ended up finishing ninth there, and then the following year I jumped the New Zealand record, which was 6.68m.”
It’s a national record that still stands and goes alongside her 17 senior national titles; nine in long jump, six at 100m and two at 200m.
Brunner says her career longevity was helped by having relatively few injuries. She suffered a bad stress fracture in her shin and had surgery on her foot, but was fortunate to have excellent medical advice to help when things went wrong.
She didn’t have children during her athletics career, but is conscious that female athletes now have a different landscape to work in.
“Pregnancy and motherhood, and coming back to sport, is something that you’re seeing more and more of, and I think the likes of [American sprinter] Allyson Felix and her experiences have just started to shine a light on what it’s like.
“It’s really cool to see the New Zealand Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee supporting that, knowing that it’s not necessarily the end of your career if you do want to start a family. It’d be so hard, full credit to all of the mums out there who are doing that, because it’s not easy.”
Away from sport, Brunner has worked for Les Mills International Limited since 2000 and is currently their Senior Legal Counsel. She’s also clocked up immeasurable hours volunteering since her retirement from athletics.
She’s grateful for the support of husband Sam Rapson and their two children, daughter Riley, seven, and son Toby, 11, as well as that of other family and friends, for her to be able to do the things she does. Her why is very important to her.
“It’s all voluntary, and I guess it’s my way. I’m not in a position where I could coach at the moment. The commitment of juggling family and kind of other things is too high, but that’s my way of giving back and acknowledging all the volunteer hours that went into the successes that I had.”
She served on the NZOC board between 2010–2015 and has also chaired both the NZOC Athletes’ Commission and the NZOC Olympians’ Commission, which is the legacy arm of the work that the NZOC does, engaging with Olympians who have competed in the past, trying to ensure that they stay connected with the Olympic movement, so that their stories are retained. Brunner will finish as their chair in September after 10 years.
She was recently appointed an NZOC Selector and was an observer of the Commonwealth Games selection panel, and is part of the selection panel for the Dakar Youth Olympic Games being held this October and November.
Brunner served on the Sports Tribunal of New Zealand for nearly a decade and in January this year, came off the World Olympians Association Executive Board after 10 years.
At the moment she’s on the foundation board of the International Testing Agency, which is the independent agency that was set up by WADA and the IOC after the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. It’s an independent organisation that provides anti-doping services and education.
“The agency sits at the heart of my desire to help create a sporting environment. At the Atlanta Olympics, I finished 10th on the day, and then about three months later, I was promoted to ninth after Iva Prandzheva from Bulgaria, was disqualified because of doping.
“I’m really privileged to have been appointed to the board, and then my tenure has been renewed for another two years, until 2028.”
Brunner watched the Glasgow Commonwealth Games as she always does, cheering on the New Zealand athletes, but as a former sprinter herself, an undoubted highlight was the gold medal for Zoe Hobbs in the 100m. As Hobbs described how some people had told her to give up on the 100m earlier in her career, it brought back similar memories for Brunner.
“People have been saying that forever. People said that to me. There’ll always be the people out there who, for whatever reason, think they can predict the future, but you know, all credit to her, she has stuck at it despite some of those voices, and those voices become really loud, and you start to doubt yourself. But I think it’s fabulous. I think she has stuck at it and has just kept improving.
“I know that she’s got a great team behind her, but she’s still out there doing it every day, making that decision to go out and train. There are probably days when she doesn’t feel like it, when she’s tired, when she’d much rather do something else and she’s managed it so I’m thrilled for her.”
Brunner is hoping Hobbs’ success will drive more interest in athletics, but she’s conscious it’s a crowded market.
“I hope so, because it’s a really cool sport. I think about what my kids are doing, and my daughter’s seven, and she has something on after school every day. It’s not just sport. It’s art, music, dance and drama as well and we didn’t have those options growing up.”
Brunner and her family are already planning a family trip to the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, to expose the children to something a bit bigger than what they see in everyday life. Thirty two years after she took part in an Olympics in the same country, it’ll be an amazing opportunity for them to understand a bit more about what Mum has done, before she became Mum.
