The goal of most athletes after a year on the sidelines is to pick up where they left off, but Brooke Buschkuehl was so eager to avoid that place that she returned in a different event.
If half of Buschkuehl truly believed she could become an elite triple jumper, then the other half was equally terrified of a return to long jump.
Pregnancy and the arrival of her son Bobby had provided a reprieve, not in the truest sense of the word, but at least from the stress of competition as one of the world’s premier long jumpers.
“I always wanted to come back but I didn’t want to have the same pressure and expectation. I thought that maybe doing a new event would allow that to happen,” Buschkuehl says.
“I had a couple of rough years in 2023 and 2024. I wasn’t in a great place mentally and I lost a lot of enjoyment in the sport because of the pressure I was putting on myself.”
Just a year earlier in 2022, Buschkuehl had leapt to 7.13m (+1.8) to better her own Australian record of 7.05m which she set in 2016, but depression and anxiety slowly took the spring out of her step.
“It felt like that if I wasn’t competing at my best, it was a complete failure,” Buschkuehl says.
“Looking back, there were so many moments that I should have enjoyed but they were just ruined by my own expectations.”
Buschkuehl now laughs about her triple jump experiment, which she buried in the sand after just one month.
The 33-year-old’s off-season is in full swing and slightly busier than she remembers, with Bobby serving up constant reminders that he can now walk and no two days the same.
“It was nice to be able to come home and reflect on the season that was. There is a lot to be proud of,” Buschkuehl says.
“It really took a village to come back and achieve what I did.”
What Buschkuehl did was win Commonwealth Games bronze just 13 months after Bobby’s arrival, factoring in a year of change on and off the track as her body recovered and she became self-coached.
It started with rediscovering her confidence and determination, and the rest became history.
“What people like Gen Gregson, Jess Stenson and Vanessa Low have achieved really inspired me to get back into sport after having a baby. They showed me that you can be a mum and still have big goals,” Buschkuehl says.
“Winning the bronze medal the year after having a baby and managing everything that comes with being a mum is just incredible.”
Leaning on her husband Nathan Buschkuehl and the Victorian Institute of Sport, the long jumper set eight wind-legal season’s bests, improving from 6.34m (+0.9) at the Australian Short Track Championships to 6.83m (+1.8) in the qualifying round of the Commonwealth Games.
The next day, Buschkuehl backed it up with 6.80m (+2.5) for bronze in Glasgow – adding to her Commonwealth silver medals in 2018 and 2022.
“I’m just so proud of myself because not only have I continued at an age where a lot of people stop, but I genuinely believe I have some good years left,” Buschkuehl says.
“I’ll be around 35 years old when LA is on. Whether I make it or not will come down to how well I can look after my body.”
Already a three-time Olympian, Buschkuehl competes with two auto immune diseases (Coeliac and Hashimoto’s), but says her growing family has silenced the overthinking and overanalyzing that has dictated recent years.
“Being a Mum has given me a whole new outlook on life and athletics. It’s given me a great opportunity to have a better balance and leave bad days at the track,” Buschkuehl says.
The seven-time Australian champion will be kept honest every step of the way by World Under 20 champion Delta Amidzovski, who she defeated by one centimetre at the Oceania Athletics Championships, two centimetres at the Australian Athletics Championships and five centimetres at the Commonwealth Games.
“She’s such a huge talent and she’s got so much potential,” Buschkuehl says.
“I’m really excited to see where she can take the event. I feel like my Aussie record might go down at some point.”
For now, it’s time to check on Bobby.
By Lachlan Moorhouse, Australian Athletics
Posted 26/10/2026
