Stop moaning, there is life after athletics
I WAS surprised to read the article in Sportsmail about Olympic athletes complaining about feeling discarded following their athletic achievements and describing the effect this had on their mental health. As a former international high jumper, I’d like to put this into perspective. I was one of the country’s best high jumpers in the late Seventies and early Eighties. I was the two-times national champion, winning the 1980 and 1981 AAA National Championships and represented England at the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, Australia. Throughout my athletic career, I had a full-time job because at that time there was no funding or sponsorship. I trained six times a week — five nights after work and on a Sunday morning in the local park. There were no allweather tracks near where I lived in Bedford, so every week in the winter, my coach would drive me to Haringey in North London for technical training. In the summer, we went to Luton, which was 18 miles away. Back then, we were all amateur athletes and unable to receive money on pain of being banned. Making money was never in my mind when I took up athletics. The thrill was being chosen to wear the vest to represent my country. I felt blessed I had been given the skill and ambition to do so. I was very sad to retire from athletics in 1988, but being a mother and an athlete was not an option financially. But I always knew athletics was a short-lived life and that I would have to move on. I am now 60 and have had two knee replacements and a hip replacement, which I put down to all the years of training in concrete car parks. Do I feel sorry for myself? Should I sue the Government for my injuries? Don’t be ridiculous! My message to the former Olympic athletes bemoaning their lot is to get over yourselves, find a new career and be grateful you had the joy of representing your country and had the financial backing to do so.
ANN-MARIE DEVALLY, Southampton.