Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week he talks to Jana Pittman. The two-time world champion, 42, was the first woman to represent Australia in Summer and Winter Olympics (track and bobsleigh). She’s a registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology and mother of six. Her memoir is Enough. You qualified for four Summer Olympic Games – Sydney, Athens, Beijing and London – three of which coincided with injuries. Did having to close a door to your Olympic dream feel like a death? Absolutely. For three Olympics in a row, I was odds-on favourite to win [the 400-metre hurdles]. Ideally, I would’ve been a double – if not triple – Olympic medallist now. It hurt after Athens [2004], but I was like, “I’m young, it’ll be fine.” After Beijing [2008], I was like, “Shit, two in a row! How unlucky is that?” When it happened again in London [2012], I was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” That was when my running career ended. It felt like a whole part of my identity was dying. But last year, I had the biggest wake-up call of my life and it was a real death. Gee, what happened? I’m an obstetrician now and a little baby died on my watch. I tried desperately hard to save the life of this little one. Unfortunately, no matter what I did, it didn’t happen; babies sometimes don’t survive. That made me sit down and realise that all the things that I’d thought were big deals up until then were trivial in comparison. I started feeling guilty about how much time I’d devoted to sport. But later, I also thought, “No, Jana: at the time, that’s all you knew.” Until you experience something profound, those little things mean a lot.