AN OLYMPIC hardman has amputated his finger in order to make it to Paris 2024.
And that comes after nearly losing his eye in a horrific accident.
Australian hockey star Matthew Dawson, 30, must have feared for his chance to represent his country at the Olympics when he broke the ring finger on his right hand just weeks before the Opening Ceremony on the Seine.
But rather than putting it in a cast and hope it healed in time, Dawson took the very drastic and dramatic decision to chop off the top of the finger permanently instead.
And now he is set to feature in his third Olympics, following appearances at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, winning a silver medal for the Kookaburras three years ago.
Explaining his radical call, Dawson told 7News before flying out for Paris 2024: “I made an informed decision with the plastic surgeon at the time not only for the opportunity to play in Paris but for life after as well.
“The best option was for me to take the top of my finger off. It’s a bit of a change at the moment and an exciting challenge, I guess.
“There are plenty of other issues and other people going on with other stuff in their lives that are bigger than losing a finger, so I’m very fortunate that it’s just a little bit of my finger.
“It would have been a different, tough conversation if it was a bit more, I reckon.
“I didn’t have much time to make the decision. I had made the decision, and then I called my wife, and she said, ‘I don’t want you to make a rash decision,’ but I had all the information I needed to make the decision not for Paris but for life after.
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“Hopefully, I can not take too long to get back to form.”
Dawson heads to Paris with 146 caps for Australia under his belt – and may well surpass the 150-mark during the Olympics if his finger allows.
Incredibly, though, this is not the first career-threatening injury of Dawson’s career just before a major tournament.
The defender – born in Killarney Vale, New South Wales, an hour north of Sydney – was fortunate to retain the vision in his left eye.
Ahead of the home Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018, he took a shocking whack from a hockey stick in training and was told by doctors he was lucky the eyeball did not burst and he avoided permanent nerve damage despite heavy bleeding behind the eye.
Dawson had surgery using a piece of bone graft from his skull along with 30 staples in the head and 30 internal stitches.
Thankfully, the operation was a success and he could continue his career.
However, Dawson – who married wife Maddy in December 2022 and welcomed baby son Darcy last September – realised in those traumatic times that his sporting endeavours and even life itself is fragile and must not be taken for granted.
As a result, he enrolled at university to study primary school teaching, recognising he needed to prepare for life after hockey.
Writing for Athletes Voice nine months after the accident in 2018, a reflective Dawson said: “Pretty much literally, in the blink of an eye, my hockey career could have been over.
“This experience, to me, was a huge wake-up call. It was a brutal realisation of how fragile we all are and how all your plans can be turned upside down in an instant, no matter how much work you’ve put in.
“From every difficult situation, it’s important to learn lessons. What I learnt from that Olympic experience was – just as when I suffered my eye injury – it can all end when you least expect it.
“I had felt invincible before the Games, yet completely vulnerable after them.
“Thankfully, I kept my place in the team. But what if I’d been part of the clean-out? All my plans would have gone out the window. And then what?
“When you’re only 22 or 23, about to compete for a powerhouse team at the Olympics, it’s hard to feel anything other than hockey being your destiny.
“That’s when I decided to enrol in university and start preparing for life after hockey, whether that’s in one week or ten years. I’m studying primary school teaching and really enjoying it on several levels.
“One thing you can be sure of is… the Kookaburras will play like there’s no tomorrow. Because you never know when that will be the case.”
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