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| August 19, 2005
Highland Games Champ BY ELIZABETH STEWART
Hartnett’s mother says that Shannon was born competitive, that on the day her one-year-older brother finally completed his toilet training: “That same day, she potty trained herself.” Shannon, 5’8” and 143 pounds, an attractive blue-eyed blonde with a strong chin and a taste for jewelry and body piercing (she sports a graduated row of sparkling stones on the rim of one ear, two tiny diamonds in her nose and a stud through her tongue) is apparently able to excel at any sport to which she turns her tanned and sleekly muscled body. She’s been a champion weightlifter and bodybuilder, member of the US Olympic bobsledding team, professional footballer and softball player, and most recently, Olympic lifter. A graduate of Sonoma State, Shannon owns and operates a women’s fitness center, Body Central, in Santa Rosa. She’s recently separated from her boyfriend; in her experience, men all say they want a woman who is strong and independent until they actually get one. Six months later, they’ve changed their minds. For fun, she mountain bikes and swims off her Sausalito house boat. Accompanying her will be her constant companion, a 12-year old pit-bull mix called Athena, who has her own life-jacket. Oh yes, and Shannon is an athletic star in Scotland, where she is 10-time world champion and the only woman to compete with men in eight events in the annual flurry of Highland Games which occur all over the country. Here’s Shannon’s account of taking on those marauding, often chauvinistic, porridge eaters out there in the heather: “In college I was a hepathlete, and a guy I knew tried to get me interested in Highland Games, but to me it sounded so goofy—you know, guys in skirts throwing telephone poles. I thought ‘I’m an athlete, I’m not gonna go out and do that.’ But 15 years ago he dragged me out to a games in Sacramento and I just loved it. Plus I recognized a lot of top throwers and track athletes; it’s quite a good group of world-class athletes out there. Ever since then, I’ve pretty much been going full bore. I compete here in the U.S. and in Canada, and I’ve since been competing internationally—it’s amazing how many little clumps of Scots there are worldwide. In a couple of weeks I’m going to a little town in Ontario where the whole town is Scottish; everybody has an accent. “Nine or ten years ago was my first games in Scotland. I love competing in Scotland, because Americans always have to ruin everything; we’re anal and overanalyze everything, all the weights have to be this exact amount and the tapes this exact distance. Over there, it can be the world championships and they just take a stake and draw some jig-jaggedy line, and they just say ‘oh, pick a stone, oh, just take that one over there,’ and it’s just a lot lighter and more fun. Plus to be throwing in front of castles that were built so long ago, I just love that, there’s so much history and the people are there because they really love the games. Here, if it was pouring red and you were sitting in pee, no-one would show; but these games will be packed and they just have their galoshes on, and their umbrellas, and they’re just troopers. “All the people know where I throw in all the games, so there is a big following; I’m always on the BBC or Record Breakers because I’ve been out there throwing with the men for so many years. They know I’m serious, not some little sideshow type of thing. You know, I go head-to-head with all those guys. The crowd is very proud. I wear the McLeod tartan and they all come with their McLeod scarves on. I actually had the woman who makes the Queen’s kilts make mine. That’s all she does. So it was extremely expensive but it’s very well made and has a nice little history behind it. “There are some great Scots, most of them are extremely supportive, but there’s some pigs over there. I mean unbelievable. I’ll go out to get my weight, and here there’s thousands of people watching, and some thrower will stick his foot on the handle so’s I can’t get to it. Or there will be free lunch tickets or free T-shirts and they won’t give them to me. Or they will skip over my turn and I’ll have to go the judge to complain. Oh yea, I deal with crap all the time. I can’t believe how much crap I’ve been through over the years, but I’d like to pave a front for somebody else, so’s they don’t have to go through it, because I think they would quit. If you have to go year, after year, after year, dealing with these small-minded people, you could think it wasn’t worth it. So I am stubborn and won’t leave the field, and I think if I just stick in there, it changes minds a bit—there’s tons of games that never had women and now all the games in the U.S. do. And so I just say ‘I’ve worked just as hard as you; it’s not the 1800s; there’s no reason I can’t throw just because you have different genitals.’” Photo by Randell Strossen. Shannon Hartnett is a 10-time world champion in Scotland’s Highland Games, where she competes against men. |
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Racecar Driver Highland Games Champ Cyclocross Racer Rock Climber Paintball Player Long-Distance Runner Big League Pitcher Swimming Competitor Rowing Champs |
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Shannon Hartnett deserves a medal. Oh, not a gold, silver or bronze—the 40-year-old Marin-raised professional-strength athlete, fifth strongest woman in the world, has got plenty of those. No, I’m thinking more of some high military honor, like a purple heart. In the ongoing battle for women’s rights and equality, Hartnett is out there on the front line every day, as she has been for 20 years, doing what she’s good at, shrugging off the insults of irate males, and hoping to make things easier for some young girls who might feel like following suit. |
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