Amanda Bartrim is the GoGirls! Ambassador from team Australia. The upcoming WFC Neuchâtel will be her third Women’s WFC. The 28-year-old forward first joined the Australian national team for the 2015 WFC in Finland.
Hi, I am Amanda, I am 28 years old I live in Sydney, Australia. When I am not training for floorball I am working as an Orthopaedic Trauma Registered Nurse at Royal North Shore Hospital. Before I competed in floorball I was an Australian representative in Pole Vault.
How did you start playing floorball and how long have you played?
At the age of 19 in 2011 I retired from Pole Vault due to stress fractures in my lumber spine. At this point I had already spent half my life being an athlete, all of a sudden I just stopped, the transition was brutal. I went from one day training for the 2012 Olympics to no sport at all. It’s fair to say I wasn’t truly happy without sport in my life. In 2012 I ran into some family friends and they introduced me to floorball, a sport I had seen before and wanted to play but I didn’t even know the name of the sport until this moment.
How did you join the national team?
Initially I just wanted to play floorball socially. In 2013 I went to a training camp to improve my skills, it was at this training camp that I first met Neil Anders. He asked me if I wanted to try out for the Aussie team, without a second thought I say yes which is a bit funny because I couldn’t even pass a ball smoothly and I struggled with every drill – I didn’t make the team that year.
The second training camp I attended was in 2015 for WFC Finland, I tried out with two of my best friends, but I didn’t really invest much into the hopes of making the team due to fear of failure. A few weeks later the team was announced, and I had no idea my name was on the list until my two friends told me. I had to look up where WFC was being held, it was a bit of a shock to find out I was going to fly to the other side of the world to Finland.
How do you prepare for the WFC 2019?
There are a few components that make up my preparation for Worlds. Physically and mentally I do a lot of training at an amazing gym Athletes Authority, I have consistently three sessions there a week all year round, sometimes this can vary depending on phases of preparation.
For floorball skills and game time I travel between 1-2 hours for training and games with Peninsula Floorball, however due to shift work sometimes my work hours clash with training when this is the case I do more floorball skills at home, in the gym and try to train at other floorball clubs in Sydney who have training on different nights.
Team wise we don’t get many opportunities to play together prior to worlds being so far away from each other in Australia, through social media we maintain a team environment so to speak, we stay in contact, and even though we are so far away we still prepare with each other, share training ideas and hold each other to account.
Who is your favourite floorball player?
Veera Kauppi – Finland.
Random fact?
On my first date with my boyfriend a lady collapsed in the middle of a beer garden and I had to do CPR on her. I saved her life that night (I am still not sure if my boyfriend just likes me because of my life saving skills – haha :)).
GoGirls! Floorball is the IFF project aimed at helping to increase and promote the participation of girls and women in floorball throughout the world. Read more from here