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I Had A Complete Breakdown At The Track

1st September 2021

bbc.co.uk/ouch/podcast

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Presented by Beth Rose

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Â鶹ԼÅÄ Sounds: music, radio, podcasts.

LIBBY-

I absolutely had a proper breakdown at the track one day. And I spoke to the sports psychologist and we went and had a chat with the doctor and they referred me to see a clinical psychiatrist.

SAMANTHA-

I remember going down and seeing a girl going round the track in a racing chair and just being like, wow. And she was going faster than the runners going round the track and I remember just being like, I’m going to be better than I was before, I’m going to be faster than I was before.

BETH-

We don’t hear huge amounts about the mental health of our Paralympians, but visually impaired sprinter Libby Clegg MBE puts that to rights in this episode of Â鶹ԼÅÄ Ouch. I’m Beth Rose and I’m here to introduce you to Michael McEwan. He’s a disabled sports fan who spoke to two of the UK’s top female Paralympians for Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio Scotland. Thanks for Phil Simon and the team up there for letting us share these interviews with you on Â鶹ԼÅÄ Ouch. You’ll hear Michael chat with double Paralympic gold medal winner Libby Clegg shortly, but first up it’s wheelchair racer Sam Kinghorn. And Michael started by asking Sam about how she became disabled.

SAMANTHA-

Yes, I wasn’t born with a disability; I was born completely able-bodied. I was brought up on a farm and unfortunately when I was 14 years old I had an accident on that farm which left me paralysed from the waist down which obviously, I was 14 years old, changed my whole life. I literally just had to learn how to do everything all over again. That’s how I will explain having a spinal injury to anyone is: it’s like being born again but you have all those added frustrations that you’ve already learnt it and you just have to learn it again in a very different way.

MICHAEL-

So, you’re one of Scotland’s leading wheelchair racers. Can you tell us why you wanted to get into racing?

SAMANTHA-

I first tried wheelchair racing I was still in the spinal unit, and my physio had selected me to go down to the spinal unit games, which was in the Stoke Mandeville, which is obviously where the start of the Paralympic movement happened. And all the spinal units in Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland and they all come together and you compete against other hospitals. And the way that you win is that you get a little sheet and you get boxes ticked for how many sports you try, and the way you win is you do as many sports as possible. So, I tried everything. I was absolutely blown away with the amount of sports that could be adapted that I just hadn’t realised or hadn’t even thought about. And I tried wheelchair racing on the last morning and I remember going down and seeing a girl going the track in a racing chair and just being like, wow. And she was going faster than the runners going round the track and I remember just being like, I’m going to be better than I was before, I’m going to be faster than I was before. I wasn’t thinking about going to the Paralympic Games; I was just literally thinking my friends at school would think this was cool. And that’s it, that’s literally what really brought it to me first was just the thought of being cool again and not being perceived as that girl with the disability.

MICHAEL-

I didn’t realise that you went to Red Star running club, I went to Red Star as well, but how did that help your confidence knowing that you were only maybe one step away from competing at the Paralympics?

SAMANTHA-

Without the Red Star club in Glasgow I would not be where I am today. I definitely have the coaches and everyone there to thank for that because it was just a place where they did not care whether you wanted to be a Paralympian or just wanted to have fun; that was fine. They just wanted disabled people to have a safe space to go to where they could be themselves. And it was just so nice being able to find myself to push round the track but not to be judged, not to be stared at, because there’s such a range of disabilities and nobody cares because they’ve got a disability too. That was a completely new world for me because I hadn’t met anyone with a disability. So, even for me I was learning every week about a different disability and how to approach different people with disabilities.

MICHAEL-

Now, over the years you’ve won loads of medals, Samantha, including double gold in London 2017. But unfortunately you missed out on a medal in Rio. How did the whole Paralympian experience make you stronger as an athlete?

SAMANTHA-

In Rio I was very much an amateur. I remember I came fifth in my 100 when I probably could have come fourth. I got disqualified in my 400. And then in my 800 it was my last race, I was ranked ninth or something in the world, only eight make the final and I was just like, I don’t want to leave this Paralympic Games feeling the way I feel right now and feel like I haven’t done myself justice because I know what I can do and achieve. I was ready for Rio physically to do well and to get to the finals and make the finals, but I wasn’t ready mentally at all. I was really ill before a race and I was terrified going on that track. And that was the moment when I realised that you’ve got to be mentally strong as well as physically strong. You need to know that you deserve to be there and believe that you can be better, get better and all these other girls on the start line you deserve to be along them.

MICHAEL-

You’ve gone through an adjustment in your life because of your accident, but has that made you more determined as an athlete?

SAMANTHA-

Yeah it does. I think obviously being involved in a traumatic event when you’re 14 years old definitely makes you a little bit tougher. The little things don’t stress you quite as much because that day definitely could have gone in a complete different direction and I might have not been here. I don’t sweat the small stuff because I’m just lucky that I’m still here living and living an incredible life. So, it’s definitely made me more stubborn and more willing to give anything a shot as well as a person, just thinking well, I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow morning so I may as well put two feet in and jump in and give it a shot if it’s something I enjoy doing.

BETH-

That was Sam Kinghorn who certainly sounded ready for Tokyo 2020. Now as promised here’s Michael’s chat with legendary visually impaired sprinter Libby Clegg. Michael started by asking her about the mechanics of running with a guide.

LIBBY-

Basically the easiest way to describe it is like doing a three-legged race but attached at the wrist rather than at the foot. So, everything has to be completely in time with one another. When we talk about communication it’s not really me communicating with Chris, I don’t really say anything to him because I’m normally absolutely blowing, so I don’t really speak very much. But Chris talks to me throughout my race, telling me different points that we are on the track so I know whether to change my technique a little bit, whether to come more upright or use my arms more. There are certain things that I do at certain bits of the race that obviously bring my performance together.

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And then obviously trust is really, really key as well because I’m running completely blindfolded, eye patches on and everything, and I have to really trust that person that I’m running with because it’s quite scary coming out of the blocks full speed, 100%, and you’ve got no depth perception there. It can be a bit scary so trust is really, really key to the partnership working.Ìý

MICHAEL-

You attended the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh and then you went on to athletics. Tell us a bit about why you fell in love with that particular sport and why you wanted to get involved.

LIBBY-

When I was in primary school I always loved sports day and I was always a little bit competitive, even though I was quite shy, and it was sort of where I exceled really. I just went to a local athletics club and just got more and more involved over the years. I also danced at the time, but athletics just took over. I just liked the versatility, so you could do literally anything from throws, jumps, sprints, distance. I just liked the variety. And then obviously as I got older I started to decide more what discipline I wanted to do, and that’s how I eventually ended up being a sprinter.

MICHAEL-

Your talent for running didn’t go unnoticed, Libby, because at the age of 16 you were selected to compete at the World Championships where you won silver. What was it like to compete at such a big competition at such a young age?

LIBBY-

Well, I was absolutely ecstatic that I got selected to go because I was a junior athlete really competing at a senior level. And I was kind of taken on as a bit of a wild card, so I was really, really over the moon to be going and competing at my first major championships. For me I’d never been to anything like that before; it was really new and different. But basically I ended up obviously winning a silver medal in the 200m. I knew that I was going to run really well because I just kept breaking my personal best times every round that I ran; I just kept running quicker and quicker and quicker. It was an absolute dream come true. I completely surprised myself, but it showed me that I was able to rise to the occasion and I enjoyed competing under pressure.

MICHAEL-

We all know competitions are about winning, but how do you cope when you lose a race?

LIBBY-

For me when I lose a race there are things I can learn from that, so I take it as a learning experience. And it gives me an opportunity to analyse what I’ve done wrong, what I could have done better, where I need to improve on things. So, for me losing isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world because it just shows you that you still need to progress and move forward and there are still things you can do better. So, even though it’s not great sometimes when you lose it’s good for you to just take some of those mistakes that you’ve made or things you need to tweak and go away and work on them.

MICHAEL-

As a para athlete is winning gold the only thing on your mind?

LIBBY-

My Paralympic dream was to win two gold medals and I did that in Rio in 2016 and it didn’t make me happy. Everybody prepares you for failure but nobody ever really prepares you for success and what that feels like. I thought me winning Paralympic gold medals was going to be the be all and end all; I thought it was going to be amazing, this is a dream come true, it’s going to feel incredible, I’m going to feel great forever. And it literally lasted about a week and then I realised that I didn’t know who I was anymore as a person off the track. I felt very numb. And I hit a really, really low point in my life, and I just couldn’t explain to anybody what was going on because everybody was saying to me, oh Libby you’re a Paralympic gold medal, you should be happy that you’ve done that. And all I felt was complete despair and numbness. So, it was a really strange time for me and nobody really understood what I was going through and that made it harder to work out really what was going on. It just didn’t feel the way that I thought it was going to. And I realised that I had nothing else going on in my life to be honest. And that’s why it’s so, so important for athletes to have outside interests so when things do go wrong, if you get injured or whatever, you’ve got something else to focus on; but also when you’re having a bit of downtime you’ve got something else to do that does occupy you in a different way from training and taking you out of that regime.

MICHAEL-

So, how did you get back on track, as it were?

LIBBY-

I finally came to terms with the fact that I had mental health issues. I had a proper breakdown at the track one day. And I spoke to the sports psychologist and we went and had a chat with a doctor and they referred me to see a clinical psychiatrist. It was literally what saved me to be honest. I started having sessions with him. I thought my issues were around the track and I didn’t enjoy training anymore, but I realised quite quickly that it was actually because I had nothing else going on in my life and I just solely focused on athletics and I did nothing else with my time. It became quite apparent that actually I needed to do other stuff in my life and I needed to do more things that made me happy, and not just about training and what affected my training all the time. You need to have a very healthy balance in your life; it’s not good to have everything one sided.

MICHAEL-

And that is your fourth Paralympic so we maybe see you as a veteran in the sport. I take it that you still get quite excited about competing at the games?

LIBBY-

Definitely. I would definitely say I’m a veteran now; I’ve been around quite a while! But for me competing at a Paralympic Games is unlike any other competition that I’ve ever competed at before. It’s very different from the European or World Championships or a Commonwealth even. It’s just something extra special about it and it is literally the pinnacle of your career, and everything counts on that one event. It’s a really special occasion. But it’s the energy from the crowd. I get a real buzz off the pressure and the atmosphere. For me I’m sort of chasing a bit of a high. It’s every four years so there is something different and very special and unique about it.

MICHAEL-

So, now talk to us, obviously COVID as things are a bit different in terms of fans being allowed in, not many fans being allowed into this gig, is that something that’s going to worry you?

LIBBY-

The way I’m looking at it is that every Paralympic Games is different, so Beijing was different from London, London was different from Rio, and they’re all different from one another. So, I’m just going to take it that this one is just going to be different from the others, just like all the other ones have been. And also I’m at a different stage at my career as well; different games mean different things to you. I’m kind of going in with a real open mind, not really knowing what to expect. I’m also aware that things could change kind of last minute with the current climate. I’m just trying to be as open minded as possible, which is quite difficult for athletes because athletes can be quite rigid because they like to control things. So, I’m just trying to be as chilled out as possible about the whole situation because who knows what’s around the corner.

MICHAEL-

You’ve dedicated your life to sport, but what do you think sport gives you back?

LIBBY-

I think for me I’ve obviously learnt so many different skillsets from being obviously an elite athlete and it’s taught me lots and lots of things, and it’s already given back to me in so many ways. I’ve learnt obviously accountability and ownership and how important that is to take responsibility for yourself. And I think that’s part of why I’ve been as successful as I have because I’ve learnt those lessons along the way. But it’s also taught me how to overcome barriers and face new challenges and put me in really uncomfortable situations at times. It’s really helped me to develop and grow as a person. So, for me my sport has given me back everything I could have really asked for and more.

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[Music]

BETH-

That was Libby Clegg MBE there chatting to Michael McEwan for Â鶹ԼÅÄ Scotland. There are hundreds more disability conversations on the Â鶹ԼÅÄ Ouch podcast feed, so please do subscribe to us on Â鶹ԼÅÄ Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts from. Speak to you soon.

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