An athletics champion, Lyn Foreman broke the Australian-New Zealand 400m hurdles record to claim her first national title in 1975 before winning three straight from 1979 to 1981.

Lyn’s the coach who never wanted to coach and she joined Julie-anne Sprague on a fascinating episode of 6PR’s Backstories.

Press PLAY to hear Lyn’s full backstory including the time she almost crashed flying through volcanic ash

Foreman was encouraged to take up coaching by her late husband and veteran ABC broadcaster-commentator Wally Foreman.

“[Wally] said, Oh, I think you should do this. I think you should do that and he was just like, so he was quite [a motivator].”

She eventually became a coach for Olympic athletes and highlighted the important increases in high-performance female coaches at the elite level.

“Things now are changing and they’re changing positively…you’re also bringing women in because we think a little differently… now we have a supporter in the room…It’s not like we want to shove the men out the back door.”