That is the e-book evaluate of UNBROKEN by Katerina Johnson Thompson. The evaluate is completed by Stuart Weir, the senior author for Europe for RunBlogRun.
Unbroken, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, London: MacMillan, 2024
ISBN 9781035055173
Having seen KJT compete in 4 Olympics, seven World Championships (indoor and out of doors), two Commonwealth Video games, and a number of other European Championships, I’m certified to evaluate her e-book! Her account of those occasions fascinated me, particularly how she handled the three no–soar Beijing by hiding in a lodge room till the Video games had been over and by no means watching the footage once more.
Photograph Credit score: Chloe Knott/Group GB
The e-book is a minimize above the common sports activities autobiography and addresses a number of vital points, together with the working pressure to reconcile Kat the athlete with Kat the particular person. As she places it, “The connection between feminine athletes and their our bodies is commonly a fancy one”. She refers to balancing the necessity to elevate weights with the fear that she was growing extra muscular tissues than the boys in her class and that “the muscular tissues that had been serving to me to succeed on the monitor had been stopping me from becoming in away from it”.
Her account of the 2012 Olympics is good. It begins along with her irritation at being invited to attend as a visitor spectator, with a go to to the athlete village thrown in, whereas she was busting a intestine day by day to be there as an athlete. Her account contains the stress between the joy of competing within the Video games, coping with the stress, and her “introvert struggles.”
By 2013, the stress at her first World Champs was between being a “younger athlete desirous to be taught and have enjoyable and being there to compete and the expectations on her”. By the point she received to the 2023 World Championships, she had achieved a greater life/sport stability: “I wished to achieve athletics, and I nonetheless desperately wished that gold medal in Budapest, but it surely wasn’t all or nothing anymore. It wouldn’t make me much less of an individual if it didn’t occur. I found who I used to be as an entire human, not simply an athlete, which in the end made me a stronger model of each.” Add, “what received it for me that day wasn’t my efficiency; it was my expertise. It was realizing how you can use the whole lot I’ve been via to my benefit. It’s nearly realizing the way you deal with your self”.
After efficiency within the Rio Olympics – sixth – she refers back to the crass British Olympic Affiliation coverage of getting everybody fly residence collectively however dividing them “into those that’d received medals and people who hadn’t; the primary group had been ushered left into enterprise class whereas the remainder of us turned proper into economic system to cry our eyes out and pine for the following time”.
She writes truthfully about racism and explains how: “All through my life, I’ve all the time carried a sense of being the one one like me in sure locations. And it wasn’t actually till my late 20s that I began to return into my very own and really feel assured sufficient to not care as a lot…however occasionally I believe again to the younger woman and athlete I was -the one who was scared to face out, embarrassed by her distinction, determined to mix in – and I can see how far I’ve come”.
Like many feminine athletes, she is important of the Olympic workforce uniform supplied. “One factor that positively didn’t assist was the equipment. These Olympic kits are principally sprayed on. I all the time need to take 2 sizes up, which mechanically put you in a nasty headspace at a time while you’re meant to really feel at your finest”.
One other important subject she raises is in regards to the psychological aspect of sport: “I additionally know that there’s an vital dialog available right here as a result of so many athletes nonetheless really feel like they will’t discuss psychological well being, which blocks vital progress in that space. The silence across the topic scares me”.
An excellent e-book.
