Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following article contains references to a person who has died.
Australian rugby sevens star Maurice Longbottom has revealed the devastating personal loss which had him on the cusp of flying home from last year’s Olympics.
Already going into the Games under an injury cloud due to a calf problem, Longbottom learned of his grandfather’s sudden passing just two days after entering the athlete’s village in Paris.
“When I saw the messages, I sort of knew, I don't know why, but I knew something was wrong with ‘Pop’,” Longbottom recalled to Sporting News.
“And then when I rang my mum and heard her voice straight away, I just knew and I just broke down. It was a horrible experience to go through.”
Half the world away from his loved ones, Longbottom had his heart set on returning to Sydney.
His family, however, had other ideas.
“I called my mum and she’s got all my uncles around her and my sisters… she said, ‘What do you want to do?’ and I said, ‘I want to come home,’” Longbottom said.
“They all said, ‘You’re not coming home, you’re staying right there.’
“I had a really good support group around me and they said, ‘You’re where you should be and you’re where your ‘Pop’ would want you to be.’
“For me to have their support and for them to tell me that I need to be there, it was clear in my head that I needed to have my moment and go out and make him proud.”
After making the difficult decision to remain in France, Longbottom could only watch on as the rest of his family mourned the loss.
“The most confronting thing was watching the funeral, 3 a.m., on my phone on live stream, watching my family come up and say their goodbyes,” he recalled.
“The thing that got me was not being able to be there and have my own goodbye.”
Longbottom and his Australian men’s sevens teammates would go on to finish fourth in Paris, going down to South Africa in the bronze medal match after losing to Fiji in the semi final.
The 30-year-old from La Perouse in Sydney’s south-east was eventually able to pay his respects in person.
“As soon as I got home, I wanted to have that moment of me saying goodbye to him and I
was lucky enough to do that and it's been really nice just to have that off my shoulders because it was bugging me for quite some time,” he said.
Longbottom, who shot onto the sevens scene from relative obscurity after being deemed too small to play rugby league at his beloved South Sydney Rabbitohs, spoke of his grandfather’s influence.
“Head of the family, always looked up to him,” he said.
“We lived in Nan’s house for a bit when we first moved back to Sydney and I was in his back pocket everywhere he went.
“He was always supporting me, always behind me.
“Whether it was playing footy up at the park up the road or on the World Series and he's watching from the TV at home and talking to him after a game on facetime.
“He was always there for me.”
Longbottom, a Dharawal man, continues to honour his grandfather’s memory every time he plays, as well as embracing his culture in the form of artwork on his boots.
“I’ve always got my Pop’s initials on the back of my boots,” he said.
“Being able to have him there with me, it just makes it that little bit more special.
“It’s just my little connection to back here and my family and my people.
“Coming from a young kid who was too shy to embrace your culture to now, where it’s encouraged and it’s all about educating the young coming through.
“It’s, ‘Be proud of who you are and your culture and never be ashamed of who you are.’”
The Aussie sevens teams head to Los Angeles this weekend for the seventh and final stop of the HSBC SVNS series, with the men currently in sixth place and the women in second.
Longbottom hopes he can remain a key part of the men’s side long enough to return to LA in three years time for another Olympic campaign.
“I’d like to get to the next Olympics, that’d be quite cool, to go to three,” he said.
“I love playing football and it’s something that I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing.
“Whether it’s professionally or running around in the park, it’s something I love and it’s definitely a part of my life.”