Lisa Forrest

Lisa Forrest was fourteen when she burst onto the international swimming scene in 1978. She won the hearts of the Australian public with a 10,000 watt smile and a ton of personality. She went on to participate in numerous international competitions, culminating in her captaining, at the tender age of 16, the Australian swimming team at the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

However against the background of the Moscow Olympic political storms, and with the weight and expectations of her whole country on her, Lisa slipped at the start of her 200m backstroke final. The impact of her experiences led Lisa to look at what her swimming career was doing to the mind and body of a growing person. In her search for balance between the glory and hype of external success and true inner fulfillment, Lisa learnt two valuable lessons: the first, to follow your heart and instincts; the second, that you don't always win.
In the long period of career re-evaluation that followed, Lisa decided that an environment where "winning was the only thing" was not the real world. She retired from swimming at 19, winning two gold medals at the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games.
Since then, Lisa Forrest has become one of Australia’s most popular media figures: In 1986 she was the first woman to front a national TV sports show, she has reported on the Midday Show with Ray Martin, hosted the ABC TV health program Everybody, commentated at various Olympic and Commonwealth Games, and presented a nightly show on ABC Radio in Sydney for two years. Lisa has also studied acting in New York and appeared in the Network 10 drama series Medivac, and stared in the David Williamson play Travelling North.
In 2000 she released her first novel, Making The Most Of It which dealt with the problem of sporting celebrity, failure and self-esteem, friendships and relationships, eating disorders and drugs in sport. In 2002, she published her second novel DJ Max to critical acclaim. An accomplished speaker, Lisa Forrest talks about the realities of winning and losing, about the strength that comes from our human vulnerability and how we can turn them into valuable lessons irresistibly packaged with energy and enthusiasm.