Aussie champion athlete reveals she didn't know if she could afford food before being forced to move abroad to pursue her Olympic dream

Taneille Crase has opened up about the sobering reality of chasing her Olympic dream as the Australian is forced to move abroad to pursue her goal.

Crase, a three-time national heptathlon champion, has traveled halfway around the world in a bid to be at her best for next year's Olympic Trials and the Paris Games.

She has settled in Germany, where she will join coach Jorg Roos' squad, a move that has cost her thousands of dollars and forced her to move away from her fiancé.

While preparing with coach Glynis Nunn on the Gold Coast, Crase failed to qualify for any funding despite finishing fifth at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

As a result, the 29-year-old cannot access massage or physiotherapy services and must work full-time to achieve her Olympic goal.

Crase moved to Germany earlier this year to prepare with the Roos team and reaped the benefits by qualifying for the world championships. She later tore her hamstring and decided not to participate.

Yet the progress she made at the TSV Bayer Leverkusen complex has convinced Crase to leave Australia behind and go all-in for her Parisian dream.

“It was probably one of the biggest decisions I've ever made in my life, to be honest,” Crase said News Corp.

'But I certainly don't regret it. I think it was the right decision to achieve what I want to achieve.”

Crase works as an participation and inclusion manager for Little Athletics Australia, a job she has kept remotely.

“I had to be all for this,” she said.

Crase was candid when discussing the realities of living on a budget, admitting that there are times when she doesn't know if she can put food on the table.

'I'm not going to lie. There are moments of self-doubt and there are moments where I don't trust the process and all these wonderful words of affirmation that I constantly repeat to myself and put out on social media or in reports or news articles that I do,” she said.

She left her fiancé behind to pursue her Olympic goal in Germany

“The reality of being an athlete is that we have our struggles, we have our down moments.

“We have our mental health issues, day in and day out, and we have those financial issues.

“We have those moments when we look at our bank accounts and think, 'How am I going to eat or pay rent this week?' – and that comes from hearing several different stories, it's not just me, we all experience that.'