Own the Podium: Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde

'We became household names to people who didn’t even necessarily follow sport - that is the difference'

Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde - 'The Woodies' - won 11 Grand Slam doubles titles together, including a record six at Wimbledon, and helped Australia win their first Davis Cup title in 13 years in 1999. The duo reached two Olympic men's doubles finals, winning gold at Atlanta 1996 and silver at Sydney 2000, shortly before Woodforde called time on his career.

TW: I think you realise pretty much immediately that winning gold is a life-changing result. I think that for me the one thing that stands out about the Olympics and the one thing I tell people is that when you win something in tennis at a major championship people congratulate you and pat you on the back, and your family and friends are very happy and you celebrate with them, but when you win a medal you celebrate with the country, and that continues on. It is amazing the aura an Olympic medal has about it.

MW: It is breathtaking to look back and think as a gold and silver medallist I can go to certain events back home in Australia, like the Australian Sporting Hall of Fame functions, and be introduced as an Olympic medallist. I mean the hairs on the back of your head stand up. The functions that I have gone to, it is phenomenal to be walking in rubbing shoulders with all these other great Olympic athletes.

TW: It changed my life in that I was a well-known tennis player, Mark and I were a well-known combination as the Woodies, but we became household names to people who didn’t even necessarily follow sport, so that is the difference. You are a sportsman but you become a household identity.

MW: After 1996 our profile back in Australia increased tremendously. We were quite well known in the tennis circles but that is what the Olympics is about. It really reaches deep into our minds, our memories.

TW: Mark and I were fortunate that tennis came into the Olympics to give us that opportunity so all of a sudden I am thinking, gee, here I am about to go up on a podium [in 1996] and do something that you only ever dreamed about and even in my sport you didn’t think, when I began playing, was going to be possible, and so it is a surreal feeling at the time. But I do distinctly remember making sure that I sang the anthem properly, so that was the key thing.

MW: The difference between 1996 and 2000 – 1996 was the strongest season we had had. We had won a number of Slams that year, we were by far the No. 1 team, we had won a bag full of doubles titles together, I reached my highest singles ranking that year as well, and Todd wasn’t playing bad singles. There was certainly an aura, an expectation that we were going to do it and I really remember around the dormitories where we stayed, a lot of the other Australian athletes, they knew who the Woodies were, they knew that we were contenders for not just a medal but for the gold medal.

It was a little different in 2000. We were having a decent season – we won the French Open for the first time and Wimbledon again for the sixth time – so still we were in contention to win the gold again, but there was just a bit more pressure I guess, because the curtain was going to be drawn on our partnership.

TW: the definite thing is the expectation if you’re a medal contender. I think that is why I look at Atlanta and say that was probably the Woodies’ greatest result because the whole country expected us to have a gold medal.

MW: I knew that for Todd and me there was no shame in winning a silver medal [in 2000]. It was terrific, and I had those flashbacks of moments in our career, so I think that is what helped me get through the fact that we came in second place, that wow, it was a silver medal today. I think that is what I said in the press conference as well: today we won a silver medal, but boy, our career, it was a gold medal all the way.

TW: I think there is an expectation on you as an Olympic medallist that brings with it, post-career, credibility; and an opportunity to be a leader within a community, and I think that is very important. I know I take my medal to Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital – I’m involved with a charity that looks after kids with cancer – and I’ll take it there and it has this amazing power to make people happy and distract them from things that are troubling in their lives.

I’ve got a nice trophy cabinet at home but that is what people want to see, they want to see Olympic medals.

MW: They are treasured memories. If I have some friends or guests that come over I generally show the Olympic medals first and I recognise that they mesmerise a lot of people. They come in and say, “Can we see some of your trophies?” and once I show them the gold and the silver it is like they are just in a trance. And it is like, “Forget those other trophies that you’ve got there, we want to see the Olympic medals!”