Canadian Batty still chasing World Cup mountain bike gold
Athlete battled depression after Olympic setbacks
TORONTO Emily Batty has climbed the World Cup top-five podium 14 times in her career, including three times in the last few weeks. But she’s never stood on the top step.
The 30-year-old from Brooklin, Ont., will take aim at gold again this weekend at Mont-SainteAnne, Que., the lone Canadian stop on the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup tour. If gold is in her future, it will take a long and gruelling climb to get there.
“It’s taken the most hardship and unique approach to getting to realize that I can be there,” Batty said.
Batty broke her collarbone in an untimely training crash a couple of days before she raced at the 2012 London Olympics, finishing a heartbreaking 24th. Four years later in Rio, she crossed the line just two seconds out of a medal. Both disappointments sent her spiralling into a deep depression.
“I’ve learned so much, I’m an athlete, but I’m more human than I think people realize, going through a severe depression actually, quite dark for awhile,” she said. “I almost get emotional talking about it. I am still healing.”
The broken collarbone was a shock for an athlete who was born and raised on a cattle farm and was “anything but a fragile girl.”
The Rio Games came a year after Batty led Canadian Catharine Pendrel in a 1-2 finish at the Pan American Games. In Rio, Pendrel crossed third, just ahead of Batty. To come so close was devastating.
“You turn it up so much for an Olympics year, for me it’s a form of isolation, I have to go to a training camp, I have to not see anyone, not do anything, I’m not even a normal person, I just eat, sleep, train, repeat,” she said. “So for me, I devoted so much into it and then coming up two seconds short, the average person would still say, ‘You were fourth!’ but what it took to be there and to get that fourth and to come up short of a medal, it definitely sent me into a downward spiral for I’d say seven, eight months.”
Batty has worked with sports psychologist Kristin Keim since.
“I knew I was deep enough that I needed some professional help and guidance just to kind of bring the spark back and start over,” Batty said.
Batty, who is coached by husband Adam Morka, heads to MontSainte-Anne on a high after three World Cup podium finishes — a silver in Italy, fourth in the Czech Republic and fifth in Andorra.
She’s a fan of the Mont-SainteAnne course. The oldest course on the World Cup tour is also the site for the 2019 world championships.
Olympic gold in Tokyo in two years is also at the top of Batty’s list of goals, but in a sport that sees women peak well into their 30s, Japan won’t be Batty’s final shot.
“I just turned 30 a month ago, so I can be in this sport for as long as I want it seems, that’s how this sport is, it’s not driven by age,” said Batty, who races Sunday.
“Tokyo is just around the corner, and will I be ready to retire in two years? Hell no.”