Sport Greatest Hits

0:04Hello and welcome to The Midpoint. This episode is a celebration of some of the incredible sports people I've had the privilege of speaking to over the last few years. If you've been with me for a while, you'll know how much I love exploring what happens when elite athletes reach their own midpoint, that space where identity, family, health and life beyond sport come into focus. Today, we'll revisit some of those conversations from the transition out of competition to what it means to be a woman in sport and even the huge life challenges of illness, grief and finding your authentic self. Let's dive in.

0:37Where better to start than with Jessica Ennis-Hill, an Olympic icon who retired at the top of her game. Here she talks about how it felt to leave the sport that had defined her and how becoming a mum shaped that transition. Just for absolute clarity and transparency, your age, Jess? I am 37 years old. I am clinging on to those 30s. and I know a lot of people go well she's she's so young why have you got but the reason is and it's the same reason we had James Haskell on a couple of weeks ago I think sports people have a kind of midlife experience because it's almost when you change and you transition from sport into the real world it's a little bit like what people sometimes go through in their late 40s when they're starting to kind of shift their family paradigm and all the stuff that goes on So you are clearly somebody who's still very useful, incredibly fit and have small children, you know, which actually some midpointers do.

1:31But let's go back to that that time or when it kind of first dawned on you that, you know, being a super athlete and Olympic gold medalist wouldn't be forever. Yeah, I suppose I never really allowed myself to think too much about what would come after athletics. so I think when you're very much in the middle of your career you're so focused on the next goal and you know ticking off your list of achievements and focused on the moment so I never really allowed myself to think oh actually what what will happen when athletics stops and when I'm not training every day and my whole life doesn't evolve around this one thing because I wanted to make the most of the time when I was in it and making sure that I was really really focused so yeah it was a it's quite a strange feeling actually to to firstly kind of announce that that was you know the end of what was a huge chapter of my life you know everything had devolved around training eating right sleeping right it was all focused on these big championships and then you know that moment when I I said that was it you know I was going to retire that all stopped and it was um yeah quite a strange feeling it felt like the right feeling at the time but then as as the kind of days and weeks went by it was just that realization of okay this this chapter is definitely finished so you never had any kind of plan b i think i was so absorbed in sport and in athletics that i i honestly didn't think you know what was going to be my career post-athletics and it seemed so far away you know the team around me would joke you know when you're in your 30s and you've got kids and you're retiring and you're going to that next phase of life what will you do and i just never it seemed so far away and I just never wanted to take kind of my eye off the ball of what I was doing at that time so I was just so consumed in you know performing daily sessions how how was I going to get better how was I going to make the next championship and how was I going to like maintain that kind of status that I'd created for myself after you know winning some global medals so did you have a any kind of period of grieving or were you so relieved to finish that it was all about celebration?

3:41I honestly, I don't think I had one moment where I felt that feeling of, you know, what have I done? Have I made the right decision? Or gosh, that kind of sad feeling of that part of my life is over. I think I felt really, just really ready to retire and really relieved. And, you know, it's such a huge commitment for all those years. And it's almost like you're just constantly kind of holding your breath, like through it, you know, you achieve one thing and that's great you have a kind of outburst of relief and you can celebrate for it feels like five seconds and then it's on to the next thing and it's on to the next thing and it's this constant conveyor belt of having to you know achieve and perform and and not let yourself down in a way that actually when I decided to retire I knew that you know that was the perfect time for me and you know I wasn't going to look back and think gosh I wish I'd done another Olympics or I wish I'd changed something slightly I actually moved away from the sport feeling very very content and I think that's a really unique place to be in and I yeah I felt really really happy to move away in that manner.

4:49Very few sports people have that feeling don't they there's always a little niggle something a bit of regret about something that that they could have done differently or you know and and I wonder also if having Reggie helped you with that because you'd already started one of your most important roles ever in life. Well yeah and I think that was it you know he was a massive part of that kind of motivation that I had for those final couple of years of competing and also he became my you know my whole world my focus with everything so as I say that I didn't have this kind of career or next step of a career that I wanted to go into I knew that, you know, motherhood and my role with being a mum to Reggie was going to take up a huge chunk of everything that we did.

5:36So, yeah, that kind of made that transition much easier because it allowed me time and breathing space to focus on being with him and making sure that he had everything that he needed. And I was the best mum for him. A lot of female athletes, and there's a lot of talk about this now across a range of sports, actually. And rugby has just, the RFU have just announced a big maternity package for their players, you know, to encourage them to have a career alongside being a mum. Because in the past, you were really unusual. I think Jo Pavey had won a medal the year before as a mum, before you won in the Beijing World Championship.

6:12Yeah, 2015. Yeah, and she won in Zurich the year before. And it got so much attention because we realised that actually not many women were having babies and then going back after that. the landscape does seem to be changing, doesn't it? Yeah, it definitely does. Yeah, huge positive. And, you know, you're so right. I read so many articles now and I see so many athletes like Helen Glover, for example. You know, she's got three young kids and she's... And then some with Helen Glover, isn't it? I know, and coming back to doing another Olympic cycle is incredible. But I think, yeah, I see it so, so often now that there are not just athletes from one particular sport.

6:49There's a range of different sports where female athletes are actually saying, do you know what I can go away and start my family and come back and continue performing and training I think it's so inspiring to see so many more athletes doing that I'm feeling that they have the support to do that as well and navigating it in their own way I'm sure every athlete whatever sport you have to you have to navigate it slightly differently because every child's different every birth's different and your sport is is totally different from everyone else's as well. So the one thing I felt when I came back was that actually I was a motivated athlete before and I wanted to achieve and be the best I could be.

7:28But my level of motivation and drive after having Reggie just went to a whole new level because everything that I was doing was for him. What strikes me when I listen back to that is how rare Jess's experience was to walk away feeling genuinely content. Because for so many athletes, retirement is tangled up with regret or unfinished business. But her story also highlights something I love coming back to, the growing number of women who are proving that motherhood and elite sport can go hand in hand. And that takes us neatly to a wider discussion I had with Helen Glover, Denise Lewis and Sally Gunnell around International Women's Day.

8:05We talked about qualities like drive, determination and competitiveness, traits often praised in men, but still questioned when women show them. can we talk about the values and qualities that it takes to be successful in sport and if you think about words like determination guts um endeavor sacrifice they're qualities that i think society has struggled to associate with women outside of sport they can just about handle those qualities within sport um i'll give you a personal example when i was on strictly come dancing I was criticized quite heavily for being competitive and and that was my downfall apparently according to many economists because she's too competitive and and of course I'm thinking well I'm just trying hard that's what I do I you know you go in a gym and when you were training for my sport I trained hard and I didn't see it as competitive I just saw it as applying myself and it really made me think about you know wider issues in society about how those values you look like you're jumping to get in here no i totally agree i'm not appreciated no i think that when um those those words are something that you'd massively shy i would shy away from when i first started my career and you do an interview and you describe yourself i think it was definitely frowned upon to call yourself if you called yourself aggressive or competitive they were negative traits that a man i feel could easily say would be celebrated yeah yeah and i think i guess in a way that's being i feel like it's probably being reclaimed now like an aggressive female in sport or a competitive female in sport i think is i feel it's being seen more if you know if um you're being spoken about in commentary much more acceptable i think it's more acceptable do you think outside of sport those traits are at all kind of complementary when people talk about women say in other areas arts business life you know if somebody said to you um oh mary she's she's very aggressive people talk about you know hard negotiators in the boardroom still frowned upon still you know it's not feminine it's not seen as feminine qualities you know whereas he could be an aggressive negotiator totally totally it's not standing in your womanhood whereas i really do champion that actually you have got to you know act like a woman and think like a man but i remember as i was growing up you know i'd have something like sports day or whatever and I hated showing how good I was because I didn't feel like I could so I would literally just do enough to win so I didn't have to you know I didn't want the attention I didn't want to you know to be different from anybody else and I think I was like that for a lot of my career even when I started to get good at it I was scared of standing out and lacking that confidence almost and it was only how I started to progress through and go hang on a minute this is holding me back and I think that is what's happened.

11:05Did somebody intervene and point that out to you or did you come to that yourself? I had to yeah work with people around yeah building that confidence within myself and working with me saying you are as good as everybody else and you can do this but I think I always just and you know when I when I work in organizations that women it is that confidence that we lack and I think it's what we've always put the lid on we've always pushed ourselves back down almost not allowed ourselves and I did I had to have a lot of work with opening that up and saying you know just get out there you know be proud of what you do so you are that they were going to be like oh isn't Sally isn't Sally competitive well just that and just standing out and drawing attention to yourself and things like that that's what I like it shows you how important role models are because i managed to get a ticket to see sally live i was 19 years old at the 92 olympics and she was like one of the heroes that i wanted to see live in that olympic games and you were just amazing to me i never would have thought you'd ever had confidence issues right watching yeah watching you win olympic gold medal so you change the narrative for the next so then i think it's okay to be a winner and it's okay to be competitive And that's why visibility is so important.

12:21And mentorship. Yeah, absolutely. And mentorship. Because I've seen over the last few years how important it is to give women permission to be confident and act and show it and demonstrate it. And not worry what that looks like for everyone else. So it's that owning of your own space and saying, okay, I'm just going to go and do this. I'm going to say this. I'm going to actually let people know what I think about that. I'm not saying you have to be aggressive, but it's actually being clear about what you need. I think these conversations underline why visibility matters so much. When young women see Olympic champions owning their competitiveness and their confidence, it chips away at old stereotypes.

13:04And hopefully it gives permission to the next generation to stand tall and take up space. From there, let's move to tennis and to Annabelle Croft. she reached the top of her sport as a teenager but stepped away at just 21. In this clip she reflects on the intensity of the tour and what it meant for her love of the game. You obviously have great passion still for tennis and you've drawn analogies in life with tennis a couple of times already as we've chatted today. I'd always kind of been under the impression because your career ended so young at 21 you came off the tour that perhaps you didn't you know you weren't in love with tennis for a while did you fall out for a while before you could get yourself back into it you know it's a really good question because obviously when you pick up a sport when you're a little kid you pick it up because you love it and I never questioned that I wanted to be a professional tennis player and you know I just had my goal set on playing Wimbledon obviously wanted to win it and just wanting to be a tennis player but the reality of the lifestyle that I'd chosen suddenly dawned on me as I was starting to travel around the world live out of a suitcase hardly coming back to England, hardly ever.

14:11I don't think I spent Christmas at home for many, many years. And I did start to question what I was doing, but it was also the nature of the sport is very gladiatorial and you feel like you're in combat, you're an enemy, or they're an enemy to you. Very difficult to have any kind of social life. Friendships? No friendships, because everyone's a potential enemy or a rival that you're going to play the following week. So you don't want to let your guard down and tell them what's going on in your innermost thoughts like you might have a normal friendship. So I did start to question and I was kind of like studying lots of psychology books and hypnotherapy and all sorts of things, trying to find ways of how can I enjoy this process.

14:54But the thing was I never really fell out of love with the game because I love watching it. I love talking about it. I think it's an amazing sport. But I think psychologically for me, that wasn't how I wanted to live my life till I was into my 30s and I had a very strong instinct about that but having said that as a much hopefully older wiser woman who's now had three children who have grown up and you've gone through so much more and lived life outside the sport to look back in of course I'm going to look back in at that younger girl and think oh I wish I'd done things a little bit differently or I wish I'd had the head that I have now to be that player again and I think I would have approached it very differently but of course you can never do that unless you mature and the only way to mature was to come out of it so that's hard isn't it yeah there's no there's no way to do that no space to do that is there because it's such a relentless sport it is it's 11 months a year it is it's relentless and it's cutthroat it's tough and I think you know in those days when I was playing on the tour there were no sports psychologists really well I certainly didn't know about them I think it's become a much bigger topic now and it's really impressive what they can do with and I guess on the tour they're more aware of that as well oh way more aware of it and also you know I still see unhappiness on the tour and I totally identify with it and understand it but I think for a lot of them it's about getting them to understand that they're just trying to be a better tennis player and try to not judge their happiness by winning or losing tennis matches because you're going to lose a lot when you're on the tour you're not going to win every match you play and that's a very hard place if you've never done anything else in your life but it's also about that young player realizing because they may have picked up a racket at age four and they've never really experienced anything else except for hitting tennis balls and training and playing matches can actually improve their tennis yes perception or sorry a perspective that's bigger than tennis exactly and it's about trying to get a young player to realize that tennis in the big picture of life is so small but when you're in it and I was in that space it was like the be all and end all of everything maybe a certain portion of it needs to be to be able to do what they're doing yeah so that's where that balance is well a lot of sports people say oh I wish at the time I'd taken a moment with my success but I was always moving on and I always say when I'm interviewing well you probably wouldn't have been as great as you were if you spent too much time thinking about your success.

17:27Exactly. That's why it's such a fine balance. And you can't really define what is it that separates the greatness from just ordinary. And usually I look at some of the great, great tennis players that we've looked at over the time. We've been so fortunate to cover the last 20 years or so with Federer, Serena Williams, Djokovic, Murray, Nadal, you know, all of these great, great champions. And they kind of tick every box you know they don't just have just the talent or the sort of strength of character the physical ability the charisma i think annabelle's honesty really resonates that tension between passion and pressure and the way sport can consume your whole identity it's a reminder that behind the glamour of wimbledon there's often isolation and sacrifice and it also shows the importance of perspective how life outside the arena can enrich the way you look back Another athlete who's been remarkably open about life beyond medals is Dame Kelly Holmes.

18:25In this conversation, she speaks about grief after losing her mum, the weight of hiding her sexuality and the pivotal moment that changed everything. My mum had passed away before that and I really did have that bereavement for a long period of time. I just couldn't get into my head that she wasn't there. You know, it's like you talk about a piece of your heart going and it will never be fixed, you know what I mean? and that's what it feels like. And then what also that did was to start my mindset into, I just want to start living my life. I don't feel I really am. And people can question that and go, oh, look at what you've done, what you said.

19:03But it's different when it's about life, you as a person. So somehow you were managing almost then to separate this person we all knew who'd achieved all these incredible things from the real you. Yeah. Yeah. And by the real me, it wasn't like I was putting up a tense, but there's a difference between the public you and what you've achieved and what you drive and strive for to just your everyday being how you think, your thoughts and your feelings. And so I was in a place where my mum had always wanted me to live my life authentically, be happy. And she didn't understand why I couldn't. Because as a mother, of course, they want their daughters or their children just to be happy, right?

19:48And I used to say, but I can't. You don't understand the fear I have in my head. You don't understand. I'm in the public eye. You don't understand these things. So she was, or she wanted you to live your life as an openly gay woman. Oh, my God, yeah. I mean, she's known, well, since I was 19, 20, really. Yeah, so she always did. When she died, it made me think, God, like, she's not here to live her life, but I don't feel like I'm living my life. That was really the connection. So in lockdown came, we saw the awful dramas and the people dying and hearing the news. And I was laying on the sofa because I got the bad COVID right at the start.

20:24And I was lying on the sofa and I had it for about three weeks and I was thinking, God, what if I die? like all my friends and family that know me are going to go isn't it sad that she just couldn't live her life and I thought and I get visualizing them being at my blooming funeral saying oh it's such a shame I thought isn't that my right to tell my story not them to have said it through something that might dramatically help and I just it started this kick start the emotions that I had and actually it got really bad in Covid it really actually did it got to a point where I was actually questioning to live or not.

20:59I didn't think I would be that type of person. Everyone sees me with a strong exterior. People put assumptions on somebody because of that exterior. Maybe I've always presented like that, to be honest, because no one got inside me and I would never let people in. So I do think there's that people have seen me as this hard, da-da-da-da, whatever. Well, they hear army, military, you know, the distances that you ran were so brutal. All of that would necessarily... I think people just assume you were incredibly resilient and incredibly tough. But I think I was. You were. I was as well, you know. But I think that exterior is about your persona as well, how you come across.

21:37Can you have a nice conversation? It's fun and whatever. I didn't really give that, I don't think. Anyway, what happened was is that I just couldn't live the way I was feeling anymore. I wasn't happy. I really wasn't happy. And I just didn't know how to make those changes. because I've lived through, you know, different social changes. I lived through the 80s where the AIDS epidemic, where it's very private and quiet and hidden. And I, you know, being in the public eye in a sport where no one really talked about their sexuality, I got to a point in life where I'm thinking, like, what do I do about this?

22:15Anyway, it got extreme to the point where one night I decided I really need help but I didn't know where to get that help from because your friends and family of course they're already invested in you but that's not going to change because they've already got you back They're not counsellors though are they? They're not therapists No and I didn't ever want to go to a therapist and I've had a lot of mental health problems to be honest leading up to that a lot I never wanted to go to a therapist because I didn't trust them I didn't trust anyone outside of my thing but this night I had to I just emailed this lady and I just said I need help and it was like 1.30 in the morning and one sense of me, I'm in bed and the other sense, my spirit was downstairs doing something that it didn't want to do.

22:56I literally felt like I was... So you were really close to making a decision about your life. Yeah. And then I thought, but I'm worth more than that. So on one side, when you're struggling, you can have the depths of despair and everything, what's the point? On the other side, we are resilient, as in you could go, but I deserve it. And it was that crossroads and that pull which is why I now feel very strong about it. I feel a bit emotional about it to be honest every time I speak about it. But yeah it was a pivotal point in me changing. Yeah. Thank goodness that pull was that strong that you could make a positive move to get help that night and turn your life around really.

23:39That was the first step. Yeah so what happened was is that I ended up having conversations with the therapist. She didn't work for me, so I would say to people... Do you know what? This is a really important... You're probably about to say it, but I hear this so many times with friends. The first therapist might not be the right one. Don't give up. And it's important that people hear that because I didn't... Maybe I wasn't accepted to therapy anyway, so I always had this bunk, but she just didn't feel right for me. I feel like when you go to a therapist, they've got to get you. They can't tell you what you should be saying.

24:09They've got to understand, listen, and let you make the moves of change. and I felt that she was sort of saying to me, you know, I don't want to bring anyone down, but it was her language to me, like, oh, do you feel shame? No, I don't feel shame. I just, you're not getting what I'm saying. Like, I've got so much fear about what if. I don't know how to get rid of that fear. What were the fears? You know, because you were so well loved by the people who knew the truth about you. Loved in a different way by the public, who you probably just make people smile walking down the street. They think of Athens and they can't help but feel great looking at you.

24:48So what was the fear if you were able to live the true life you wanted to live? What would happen? It would. Would people belittle my achievements because suddenly they think that you're different as a person? You know, the people that cheered me around the track, that, you know, idolised me as an athlete, would they now belittle my achievement and think I was, you know, because I've overheard things like that as well, conversations like that with other people before that they put them down when they hear something different about their lives. And I'm like, hold on a minute. You feel like literally you loved them one minute and just now because of their issues or their sexuality or whatever.

25:24So it was things like that. It was also having had a long-term fear of the consequences of admitting it because I served in the military for 10 years when it was against the law. So there was the consequences that I thought were still in place, but they weren't, but it was irrational. it was exposing myself to why do you have to know about my sexuality so it shouldn't really matter to you but I know in the work I do in the workplace unfortunately a lot of people are still struggling with people accepting them and that then causes problems with careers it causes problems with just society judgment and so I think a lot of that was all embedded in me At the same side, I was jealous of a lot of people.

26:12I was jealous of what young people loved. You know, people just don't get. They literally don't get. I'm like, why can't I just not care? But then, you know, at the age I am, you know, I know of a lot of other people, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, who have lived their whole life of never being their true self. And I'm thinking, it's not right, is it? why i've no no now i've gained my confidence and my voice to say that i gave people too much respect over my life i gave anybody out there too much respect to make me and not because of their problem but for me to think that what you think about me matters it shouldn't matter that saying isn't it what other people think about me is none of my business exactly and that's where I've got to now.

27:00That's such a powerful reminder, isn't it? That even the strongest exteriors can mask deep struggle. Kelly's courage in speaking out about her mental health and her identity is helping so many others feel less alone. And it shows that authenticity is as much a victory as any gold medal. Family has also been a recurring theme on The Midpoint. Paula Radcliffe joined me to talk about her daughter Isla's illness. And I found it fascinating as to how it affected them afterwards, not just in the ways you might think but also in the dynamics between not only Isla herself but Paula, Gary and the whole family unit.

27:35How do you think you as a family have changed?

27:42I don't know. I mean I think she as a person is definitely more mature and she's just lived through more and that changes you I think. That gives you a strength and a perspective and a maturity that while she can be a typical teenager she can also sometimes struggle to to get as obsessed with little things that the teenagers do because she'll say to me mum it's just not that big a deal um and they don't see it even things like exams and things like that she's like it's not that big a deal and it would have been better to take it a little bit more seriously but no she's definitely grown through that maturity and I think as parents it's also hard because, well, you know what it's like with teenage kids.

28:26There are boundaries and I think it's really hard to be as strict on her perhaps sometimes as we should be because of what she's been through. And she will play on that as well because she is a typical teenager. So it is kind of learning those balances and understanding, I think, the fact that it did impact us all. And I think the best thing we can do is talk about it. And the person who finds that hardest is actually Gary. Isla will talk about stuff. Raphael is very like me. So we're very open. And he will sit down and say, Mum, this is really worrying me. I'm bothered about this. I think it's Gary who's taken the longest to be able to admit to the impact it had on him because it's his little girl as well, his princess.

29:11And because it was in COVID, it was extremely difficult. We had to pick one parent to go and we had to stick with the same parent all the way through. So while he was able to come and visit, when he came into the room, I had to leave the room. and we had to balance it like that. So it was harder. And I think when I talk about the helplessness, I think he felt that even more and he's probably struggled to express that. And did that put stress on you too? A little bit, I think, yes. Because it just, I think that was double-sided with the stress of the change in circumstances for us. So that came right out the back of COVID.

29:46Going into COVID, we were adjusting to me retiring, different types of careers, whereas before that our careers had been 24-7 together. And so we struggled actually being apart because it was hard to then be away for months and then come back together. And during COVID, a lot of my friends around were really struggling with the fact that they were together with their partner 24 hours a day and it was really hard. And we loved it. It was like going back to my career time and we were locked in the house together except the kids were there growing up. Because just so if anybody doesn't know, So Gary was coaching you and he was with you all the time, basically.

30:24Yeah, he was training partner, coach, manager and kind of built up that way. And so we were so used to being together all the time. And then COVID was a really good time. And then we lost my dad. And then coming out of that, Isla was diagnosed. So it was kind of a snowball effect where I think we were just getting back to full strength again. And we kind of got blindsided again. you obviously talked a bit at the very beginning there about potentially having a symptom of sore boobs this would also be a time of potentially perimenopause and there could be other symptoms that are slightly low level and maybe not you know not kind of rearing their head in a very dramatic way that you're going to be dealing with certainly changing hormones in this period of life yeah i mean luckily touch wood i think i i that was like last year that i'm talking about um and it was after isla had recovered but it was coming out of the the scare that we had where she'd had one of her checkups MRIs and they saw something on the MRIs so they called us in said we're really sorry we're going to have to go in and look at it because she only has one fallopian tube left and we're pretty sure it's on there so she went in for three hours an hour and a half keyhole surgery couldn't find anything they opened her up another hour and a half so that was maybe all in by the time they put her under waited for her to come around the doctor came to see us five and a half six hours of us sitting, waiting in a hospital room, trying to find out what had gone on.

31:48And then they come in and say, it's great news. We didn't find anything, which still leaves a whole lot of questions and still left us with that horrible thing of trying to explain to a 16-year-old that she's just had a three-hour surgery essentially for nothing, just to tell her that it's okay, everything's okay. So that was really hard. And I think emotions-wise, that being thrown back into it was something that, yeah, I struggled with because I I think that was at a time where I guess it's the emotions, isn't it? When you just feel like everything's just getting on top of you. And it did just feel like, OK, there are just too many things pulling me under at the minute.

32:24And it's so hard to know whether you would cope any differently with that at any other period of life because you just don't know, do you? And there seems to be, you know, you've mentioned there losing your dad as well. You know, there's this kind of perfect storm of all these different people needing you and depending on you. and you having to be all things to all different people as well as all the travel you do for work as well and still having a thriving and great career. So this has been a challenging time for the family, hasn't it? To kind of re-evaluate, re-assess and as you say, almost looking at your parenting as well, going, okay, are we still putting the same boundaries in place?

33:01How are we doing that? Yeah, that's definitely it. But it's been a great time as well. I mean, I think in the middle of all that has been the kids growing up. And as you know, they grow up into their own people and they alternate from being, you're absolutely pulling your hair out with them to, oh, I'm so proud of them. I'm really proud of the person they've grown into. And then the next day they're back to annoying you again. But it is that kind of roller coaster and you just have to watch them go through it. And I think it is great to do that. It's great to see them growing as people and learning to navigate their own pathways.

33:36As a mum myself, I found this conversation incredibly moving, and it shows the resilience families find when faced with health challenges, but also how uneven that process can be, different members coping in different ways. And it's a reminder that even champions have to learn how to bend with life's storms. And finally, from family resilience to personal resilience, So Chris Hoy opened up about his shock diagnosis of stage four prostate cancer and how he's turned that experience into a mission to raise awareness and save lives. I think people assume or I would always assume that my heroes, my sporting heroes, they're like superheroes, aren't they?

34:14They're kind of, they're not like you or I and they're able to deal with all kinds of challenges and just brush them off. But for me, yeah, I guess naively you hope that by living a life, a healthy life, an active life, good diet, exercising, obviously, as part of your training. And you think that's going to stand you in good stead. And I suppose it has done, but equally genetics are genetics. And yeah, I received the diagnosis 18 months ago that I had stage four prostate cancer. No warnings, no symptoms, nothing. It was completely out of the blue. So that was a shock. And I was sitting in the car before I came in here, because this is where I recorded my audio book.

34:54and that was back in October maybe, I think. I can't remember. A good six months ago. And I feel so different to when I was sitting in the car park waiting to come in to record that audiobook six months ago. Still very raw, still very emotional talking about it. Now I feel fine. Like I can talk about anything now and I feel like it's... I don't know if it's a bit of just time to become content with the situation and get your head around it and accept it or perhaps because I am doing well just now and that lifts your spirits. I've been treated, I've had chemotherapy, I've had radiotherapy, all sorts of medication and yeah, I'm feeling good.

35:36And it's just grateful, really, I think. So when you say you felt so differently sitting there that day, I think it was really clear early on in the book that the shock of what you found out about yourself because of no symptoms was something as a high-performing athlete who'd been in such control of their health their whole life, that came through as the biggest emotion, actually. The way that you were writing, it was that shock that kept kind of coming off the page. Yeah, shock is the word. I was used to dealing with pain. I was used to dealing with aches and pains. You reach your mid-40s, late 40s, and I was still exercising pretty hard by normal standards.

36:19I was in the gym lifting heavy weights. I was keeping that kind of training philosophy and that ethos that I used to have when I was competing, thinking that, you know, it's important to keep fit and keep working hard. So you have aches and pains and you think, oh, it's just because I'm 48 and I'm trying to squat 200 kilos. So you're going to get aches and pains. And then this pain just didn't get any better. In fact, it got worse. And eventually I would go and see the physio and get some treatment. That didn't help. So, yeah, I had a scan and it was a secondary tumour in my shoulder. It was the first real red flag.

36:49and then once that was apparent, various scans, various assessments and prostate cancer was the cause. Nothing was kind of sugar-coated to you, was it? No. It was very clear straight away that this was incredibly serious. Yes, it was, you know, sat down, we had a couple of days waiting from the scans but at no point did you think it was anything other than something really bad for it to have already spread to the bones. I thought, well, this isn't going to be good. But yeah, the hope is stripped away. I think that's the biggest thing when you're given a stage four diagnosis, anything up to stage four, there's hope.

37:22There's hope that you can cure it. There's hope you can get rid of it and you can, you know, get back to living your life as you were before. But stage four, they say to you, this is incurable, but it is treatable. And those words and that sentence, your whole life is turned upside down. And the shock of it, yeah, just literally a few words can change everything. and yeah I guess my one of my driving forces now my purposes in life now is to try and first of all get men to get checked because that's that's the easiest thing if you can catch it early it's very very treatable and I know you've gone through you know the whole process with Kenny and it's you're very thankful that he managed to catch it early enough just I mean your situation you know is is almost the polar opposite in that respect isn't it because obviously like you he had no symptoms and it was totally by accident but unlike you he didn't have a familial history you you had some prostate cancer in the family didn't you and the age obviously that is recommended to be getting a test is 50 well that would have been too late yes for you obviously so have you also as well as the incredible awareness that you're doing have you had discussions with the the authority whoever those people are whether it's prostate cancer the UK, whether there needs to be a kind of lowering of the age for men if there is a family.

38:41I mean, in France, it's 40. And I believe that it should be younger than 50. So far, we only have a PSA test as the means to screen for it, which is 43 % accurate. There are whispers on the grapevine, I can't say too much, but there's whispers that there could be something a lot better in the pipeline in the very near future, which would be incredible. But in the short term, right here, right now, for anybody listening, anybody who might fall into that bracket or know someone in that in that age range over the age of 40 just get them to go into the online checker you know you google online prostate checker it comes up three questions takes 30 seconds and you can assess whether you have a higher risk than normal if you do you can go to your doctor and say look it says i'm a higher risk can i get a psa test gps can be a little bit reticent about doing psa tests willy-nilly but it's it's all we have right now and as you as we said it's it's very treatable so yeah that is one of my main sort of drivers now is to try and change legislation or try and encourage the decision makers to to have a look at this well you've kind of sent the numbers off the charts in terms of people you know after your announcement it was clear that people took that up and already you're impacting families and people's lives because you know personally of people who've gone for a test and have found that they had early prostate cancer, treatable prostate cancer.

40:03And you will affect so many lives because of what you're doing. Chris's story is both sobering and inspiring and it shows that illness doesn't discriminate. Even the fittest among us can be blindsided. But it also highlights the power of using your platform to create change. His honesty has already led countless men to get tested. And that legacy is as important as any gold medal. So there you have it, a whistle-stop tour through some of the most powerful sporting stories we've shared on the midpoint from the triumphs and transitions of jessica helen denise sally and annabelle to the deeply personal journeys of kelly paula and chris these conversations remind us that sport is never just about competition it's about identity resilience family and finding the courage to face life's biggest challenges i hope these stories have inspired you as much as they did me thanks for listening.

41:26Thank you.