Former Olympian Matt Shirvington has been gracing our television screens as a broadcaster for over two decades. The Mosman resident speaks to North Shore Living about sprinting, Sunrise, and growing up on the North Shore.
It’s 1998, and Matt Shirvington has just become the second- fastest white man on the planet. He’s 19, been training as a sprinter for only four years, and placed fourth in the final of the 100m at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.
“My life changed in that 10 seconds,” says Matt. “I left the country with my best time, which wouldn’t have even made the quarter finals of the Commonwealth Games. And then I went to Malaysia and broke the national record three times, just outside the sub-10 seconds barrier.
“I came back and everything changed for me. I was getting media requests and sponsorship offers, and all of a sudden I became this hopeful athlete into the 2000 Sydney Olympics.”
Fast-forward 23 years, and Matt has just completed an eight-and-a-half hour live broadcast for Channel 7 news, following the indictment of former US President Donald Trump. He has spent two successful decades in broadcasting, building his presence on the screen.
Ironically, Matt says it was a ‘failure’ in his athletics career that prompted the move into television hosting.
Glandular fever caused him to miss the Athens Olympics in 2004, which left him “heartbroken.” A fortuitous call from Channel 7 to participate in the first instalment of celebrity show, Dancing with the Stars, kickstarted his television career. He started hosting Channel 7’s science show Beyond Tomorrow, before moving to Sky News and Fox Sports, learning all the tricks of the trade along the way. He settled into a permanent role at Channel 7 News in 2020.
Matt anchors the Channel 7 News Sydney sports segment on Fridays and Saturdays, but also moonlights as a host on Sunrise. “I’m the ‘fill-in’ guy!” he laughs.
On a serious note, he describes the special broadcast on Trump as the ‘culmination’ of all his work in television – but ‘totally out of my comfort zone’.
“I’d never done an international politics, long format, live broadcast. You’ve got to do as much research as you can and learn off the people around you, because they’re the ones that will give you all the tools you need.”
There are many lessons from the track that he has taken into the newsroom. “The simplest lesson is if you don’t put the work in, you’ll be exposed. And there’s nothing more exposing than a hundred metre race!” he laughs.
“(With the Trump broadcast), if I hadn’t have done some research, if I hadn’t have done the work prior to going into that ‘race,’ I would’ve been found out.
“So that’s the key element of discipline. Whatever work you put in allows you to execute what you are required of. Whether it is a hundred metre race, a live presentation on Sunrise, or reading sports news.”
The newsroom could not be further from his childhood growing up in Davidson. Matt and his two older sisters would bushwalk, mountain bike, play tip and build forts. “Until the sun set, we would stay outside and enjoy that bushland lifestyle. And loved every second of it – unless we ran into a snake on a hot day!”
As often as he could, Matt would take his surfboard on the bus down to Freshwater beach – ‘my favourite beach in the world’ – where he also did Nippers.
That love of nature is something the father of three shares with his own children, Sienna, 16, Winter, 14 and Lincoln, 5. Many a sandcastle has been built at Balmoral Beach in front of Bather’s Pavillion, owned by his wife, Jessica. They have just celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary, and he describes their family as ‘tight knit’. “We support each other and what we want to do.”
So even if Matt has been working since 3am, and then has to attend his daughter’s rowing awards night – almost staying up 24 hours – he says the early mornings are ‘not a drama’.
“When I was asked to do some shifts for (David Koch) on Sunrise, I didn’t realise how much I’d love it,” Matt says. “Getting up at 2.30am and thinking, ‘I can’t wait to do that story!’ I really enjoy the diversity of the people, the stories, the agility of having to move from a sombre story to a happy story.
“What a great way to use all the skills that I’ve built up over the years.”
He admits that sometimes the emotion behind the stories can get to him. “The thing I love the most about presenting, even doing a sports story, is the heart of it, the emotion, the connection with family. We get these heartbreaking stories, and there are times on the couch where I want to cry.
“But I love nothing more than telling people that emotional connection to a story. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”
