Kyira Cox is back in the country after becoming the first Australian to umpire from behind home plate at a major international softball event, following her efforts in the gold medal game in Tokyo between Japan and the USA.
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After entering the officiating ranks aged just 12, Cox progressed through the grades and was named the 2018 WBSC [World Baseball Softball Confederation] softball umpire of the year before landing her most prestigious gig yet.
The Softball ACT state operations manager, who has also umpired World Championship gold medal games, found out she'd been appointed to the Olympics decider less than 24 hours before it was played.
"We got told the night before what appointments we had, so, there was excitement, there was shock there was nerves, everything like that," Cox said.
"But then I went down and watched the bronze medal game, and that allowed me to get back into the groove of softball.
"I have a motto and that's every single game is balls and strikes, safes and outs, just another game of softball.
"That very much calmed my nerves and calmed the excitement and I pretty much just said look we've got a job to do, let's go out and do that job and then we can reflect on it later.
"I knew the USA and Japan were going to bring their A-game and I just sort of knew that I just needed to be calm and that they were going to play the game in the spirit and the intensity that I knew that they would."
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Cox officiated a tight decider last month, with the home nation downing America in a tense 2-0 struggle.
She first became involved with the sport in school, and quickly became hooked, initially dreaming of playing at the Olympics herself.
"I joined a local association and started umpiring because of club duties and then started umpiring because we got paid to umpire as well," Cox said.
"I wanted to play for Australia at an Olympics, and I wanted to umpire at an Olympics games, so that was my two goals back then.
"I wasn't fortunate enough to fulfill the playing dream. [Beijing] 2008 was the last time we were in the Games, and I decided I was probably never going to get a chance to play in the Olympics and if there was ever a chance of us getting back in then umpiring was going to be the chance for me.
"I found out [I would be umpiring in Tokyo] in January 2020, well before the Australian team would have been selected anyway. I was the only confirmed Australian for the 18 months really to be going over for softball.
"The head office for WBSC is in Switzerland, so they sent everything out over night for us here and I woke up to multiple messages from my international friends saying check your email. And then to read it I'm pretty sure I just cried and called Mum and Dad."
