A GOLD medal winning campaign in Rio, and the aftermath, propelled Greater Western Sydney utility Chloe Dalton to push for gender equity in sport.

As part of Australia's champion Rugby 7s team at the 2016 Olympic Games, Dalton lived her dream that began back in 2000 watching Cathy Freeman win gold for Australia.

Now, eight years on, Dalton is sleep deprived, trying to watch as much of the Paris Games as she can, while also sharing stories on her platform The Female Athlete Project (TFAP).

"It feels really quite strange that it is eight years ago," Dalton told AFL.com.au.

"I think I am in a funny headspace of reflecting about that part of it, and particularly when I see the Aussie women competing and absolutely killing it. I just feel so proud of them."

Dalton's career with the Australian women's Rugby 7s team came to an end just one month before the Tokyo Games due to a broken cheekbone, but by then, the dream had shifted slightly.

"Coming back from Rio, really it was a reality check … we had people saying ridiculous things to us like 'You've won an Olympic gold medal, you'll never work a day again in your life, sponsorship opportunities are going to come flooding in'," Dalton recalled.

"I knew that was a ridiculous statement, and I knew that it wasn't true, but I think there was part of me that hoped there would be some flow-on effect … and it just was not the case.

"I had a number of experiences like that, where I felt like I'd achieved this amazing thing, or my teammates and I had achieved this amazing thing, but nothing really happened, nothing really changed. So, as I sat with it and started to learn more about what gender inequality looked like in sport … that really helped me to understand that I had this passion for wanting to change it."

From there, it was about finding the right vehicle for the message, and ultimately that was TFAP.

While the drive toward gender equity in sport is the purpose of the platform, it has also offered Dalton a sense of purpose outside of footy.

"I had a really rough run with injuries where I had a few back-to-back, I had to learn that in sports, a lot of things are out of your control. So, finding a real sense of purpose through what we're doing with TFAP has been quite a healing process for me," Dalton said.

"It's a really cliché thing that a lot of people talk about needing to have something outside of sport, or outside of football, but it has become that thing for me. Not necessarily doing it for the purpose of setting up a career post-retirement, I've actually found the thing that makes me want to get up in the morning.

"Football still does that for me, but during that period of injuries I felt probably a sense of resentment toward, I don't know, sport in general, because it doesn't give you what you put in a lot of the time."

Last year, for the first time since her debut season of 2019, Dalton had a clean run. She played every game of the year, and despite some disappointing results for the team, the consistency was a relief.

"In a way it was proving to myself that my body is okay to do this. There are a lot of doubts that creep in when you have back-to-back injuries," Dalton said.

"From a team perspective obviously, it was really tough last season. We thought we were in a better position to get some more wins on the board and that didn't play out, but the draft, sign and trade period that we had, the talent that we've had come in this year… they're just really talented footballers.

"Just real competitors and I'm really excited to see how they perform in the orange jumper."