Michelle Bromley has Paris firmly in her sights following her Olympic debut in Tokyo in July.
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"Paris 2024 is now looking appealing. I've got the itch to go again."
The Gulgong Olympian revealed to the Mudgee Guardian that she has a renewed sense of motivation to represent Australia again at the Paris games set for 2024. That is despite some hesitation last year about her Olympic future after Tokyo.
Bromley shared her thoughts on the Games and what it was like to compete in what will go down as the most out-of-the-ordinary Olympic Games to date.
"Definitely I want to be involved in the sport forever, it's given me so much. I would feel strange if I was to say 'that's it, I'm done now' like 'I've ticked off my goals and see ya later table tennis'," she said.
"I feel still at this point in time as well that I at this age would still definitely want to keep competing."
While Bromley was unable to add an Olympic medal to her collection, going down to Poland's Natalia Partyka in singles and Germany in doubles alongside Melissa Tapper, she said she has no regrets.
"It was an amazing experience. Before we left for the games, everyone was like 'God. Such a shame that it's COVID and you're not going to get the full Games experience after trying to make it so many times...,' Michelle said.
"But realistically, once we got over there I did have that in my mind that I was happy with that, like whatever the Games is I'm happy, but to be honest, it was the best experience that you could ever imagine.
"We had two huge screens out the front of our Australian headquarters, and so anytime we weren't either training or competing for our own sport we're all sitting out there watching all of the athletes compete and cheering for them from the village.
"When they would come home - we would wait for their bus to arrive back to the village and give them this warm welcome out the front, it was so nice.
"The whole team was united like that because there was no TVs in our room as well so it kind of forced you then to integrate as one, which was great.
"The whole experience was crazy good. I couldn't have asked for anything more."
By the time of publishing, Michelle will be approaching the tail end of her NT quarantine and said while she's loved her time away, she's eager to back home with family.
"With everyone obviously being locked down I won't be able to see my extended family until whenever that's ending, but [it will] definitely be awesome to see (husband) Stu and Romeo - my little dog. I can't wait to take him to the park again," she said.
Getting to the Olympics takes more than just dedication and fitness, it takes support, and Michelle had that in spades with her family behind her all the way.
None were as supportive perhaps as Michelle's mother who was possibly one of only a few people in Australia to watch Michelle's first match live due to a streaming error.
"The Seven Plus app, for whatever reason, wasn't showing my game for people who are just tuning in at the time slot that I was on," Michelle said.
"It was so random that that morning my mum, because she's not very tech savvy, had gotten organised early in the day to put the Table Tennis Channel on, and it just so happened to be streaming on the table number that I was going to be on, and Stu [called her and] was like, 'do not change the channel - you just never know what might happen, keep it on that channel'.
"So she ended up having to work out how to watch that video with the rest of my family, so they could watch it through her TV but on their phones."
Michelle spoke of the realisation she had that she achieved the dream she had been aiming for almost her whole life.
"Yeah, I'm still actually in a bit of disbelief. I was literally talking to my husband last night about this exact thing and I was like, 'I just can't believe I've actually achieved my dream'," she said.
"I'm still in a bit of disbelief that I actually managed to do it."
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