Damian Brown OLY
Current role: Director of Katapult
Current organsiation: Katapult
What sport did you hold a scholarship for at VIS: Weightlifting
Time as VIS athlete: 1994 - 2006
Tell us about your life after your time as an athlete at the VIS?
I am a Director of Katapult, a promotional products company established in 2003. Starting up a business coincided with my retirement from sport and more-or-less took up the large amount of time and energy I had devoted to weightlifting. Katapult was a completely different direction from my early career as a Physical Education teacher. I still love my job and running the business over twenty years later. I’m also a dad of a 5-year-old boy who is awesome and a force of nature. (Some insight for all the young childless athletes that may be hard to believe - parenting is unbelievably harder than being an athlete, so relish your present endeavours and be nice to your parents!).
Both pursuits keep me more than busy enough!
What’s the one career achievement you’re most proud of?
Winning four gold medals at the Commonwealth Games is what I am most proud of – there’s always immense pressure and they are so hard to win! Being a triple Olympian is also a special achievement and makes me feel very content when I reflect on my time in sport. Being the Australian Flagbearer at the Opening Ceremony of the 2002 Commonwealth Games has been my proudest moment and the greatest honour of my life.
I know that’s already more than one achievement but, as an official, I was a Functional Area Lead for the Australian team at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games and worked closely with Commonwealth Games Australia (CGA) for over a year in this role, in the preparation of our team and during the Games. Since then, I have often said this was my greatest and proudest achievement and contribution to sport, period!
What’s the most valuable lesson you learnt during your career as an athlete at the VIS?
You only truly get the confidence and courage to get out of your comfort zone and do something new, hard and difficult after you have done it - not before! It’s rarely the other way around.
