Haters said I should be shot … for finishing sixth in BMX
10 years on from London 2012, Shanaze Reade opens up on her battle with drink, depression and suicidal thoughts
Before, I was living but mainly existing. Now I am breathing life
I’d had my heart ripped out. I wanted to take my own life. You become such a prisoner in your own head. It’s a scary place to be
IT is remembered as the sporting summer of love. But for one of the poster girls of London 2012, the home Games also brought hate. ‘I had messages on Facebook saying: “You’re a waste of f ****** taxpayers’ money, you should be shot”,’ Shanaze Reade reveals to Sportsmail ten years on.
‘It was cruel but I did feel ashamed. I didn’t want to go into my home town because everybody knew who I was. I felt like I let a lot of people down, including my friends and family.’
Reade’s crime? Finishing sixth in a BMX race.
At the previous Olympics in Beijing, she had gone in as world champion and favourite to win gold. But the Crewe rider, then only 19, crashed on the final corner trying to overtake the leader and ended up last.
In between Beijing and London and unbeknown to the public, Reade suffered with depression and developed a phobia of the start ramp. Yet she was still seen as one of Team GB’s best gold medal hopes for the 2012 Games, which she hoped would be the crowning moment of her career.
As it transpired, Reade managed to make it through to the BMX final at the Velopark in Stratford. But while deep down she was proud to have even got that far given her mental struggles, she knew a sixth-place finish would not wash with the public.
‘I tried to look at it with a positive outlook but, at the same time, I didn’t deliver the goods,’ admits Reade. ‘I wish I could have finished the deal for the general public.’
Such was her disappointment, Reade even shunned Team GB’s post-Games victory parade, when more than one million people lined the streets of London.
‘I stayed back at home and didn’t bother to go because I just didn’t feel worthy,’ says the 33-year-old. ‘I felt like I didn’t contribute to the success of Team GB, so why did I deserve to be getting all these different rewards?
‘I’d had my heart ripped out twice in four years and I was just a bit over it and resentful of others. I just didn’t want to be a part of it.’
Reade had reached an all-time low but she still had further to fall. Rock bottom came when she retired from cycling in 2017 following a failed attempt to qualify for Rio 2016 on the track.
‘I had no purpose, I had no direction,’ she says. ‘All I knew was I could ride a frigging BMX fast and that was all I could offer society.
‘At first, I was like: “What do I enjoy doing? I enjoy going out with my mates”, so I was drinking for fun. Then it slowly turned and my friends started to not want to go out with me because I was getting drunk. I felt like in the end, it was just me and a bottle. I could drink a litre bottle of vodka a day.’ Left alone with a bottle and her thoughts, Reade could not see a way out. ‘I felt like I went into a canyon — a dark, dark place,’ she explains. ‘I felt like the lights were slowly being turned off. My shine had just gone dull. I had an episode where I wanted to take my own life.
‘You become such a prisoner in your own head. It’s a scary place to be. You want out and the only way out is to turn the lights off, or that’s what you think. Luckily, I didn’t do anything.’
Reade was saved from herself by her then-girlfriend, who tricked her into attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
‘We ended up in a church car park in Wilmslow and I said: “What on earth are we doing in this car park”?’ Reade recalls. ‘She said: “It’s not what I’m doing, it’s what you’re doing. If you don’t go in and get help, our relationship’s done”.
‘I went in and there was an arts and crafts class on and then an
AA meeting. Everyone looked really nice, so I thought I must be in the arts and crafts room. I thought: “This will do me”.
‘Then they said, “Welcome to the start of Alcoholics Anonymous” and I was like, “S***”, I was the only one who looked ill. After a few months of going, the penny started dropping. It’s the best thing I ever did.’
Reade has not touched a drop of alcohol since November 7, 2017. It is a date so symbolic that she has even got it inked on her arm.
‘It’s my most important tattoo,’ she admits. ‘I feel like I was reborn on that day. Before, I was living but mainly existing. Now I feel like I am breathing life.
‘I’ll be a recovering alcoholic for the rest of my life but, mentally, I’m in an amazing place.’
That much was obvious from the joy Reade exuded while commentating for the BBC on the BMX racing at last summer’s Tokyo Olympics, when Britain’s Bethany Shriever won gold and Kye Whyte claimed a silver. But perhaps the most significant sign of how far she has come is the location of her London flat.
‘I now live in the Olympic Park,’ adds Reade, who moved into one of the converted Athletes’ Village apartments in Stratford last year.
‘The old GB house is the block opposite to where I am. If I look out of my living room, the first thing I see each morning is the Velodrome and the BMX ramp to the side of it. It’s nuts.
‘Sometimes I open my window and I feel like I can still hear that roar for Mo Farah at the Olympic Stadium. The support from the crowds that summer was phenomenal.
‘I feel proud to be a British athlete who competed in the home Olympics. And I’m proud because I’m in the apartment block and I see the legacy of London 2012 with people using the facilities. There’s no better place to live than the Olympic Park.’
It may be ten years too late, but Reade is finally feeling a bit of that London 2012 love.