Dawson comes back from the brink with more to do
Backstroker thought of retiring having achieved her dream, but Paris is now calling
IT would have been easy to hang up her goggles after Tokyo 2020, admits Kathleen Dawson. At those Olympic Games she was swimming in constant pain due to a serious back injury but despite this, became an Olympic champion, helping to set a world record in the process.
That Olympic gold medal, as part of the 4x100m mixed relay team, was the culmination of years of blood, sweat and tears and represented the fulfilment of a life-long dream.
When you consider the fact that she had achieved all she had ever strived for, despite her injury issues, it is hardly surprising that retirement seriously crossed her mind.
But walking away from the sport she had devoted her life to was little more than a fleeting thought for Dawson and despite the obstacles she knew lay ahead of her in terms of regaining fitness, she quickly decided she was not ready to turn her back on swimming just yet.
“After the Tokyo Olympics, with how I was feeling and knowing I had a gold medal and a world record, the thought of calling it a day was definitely there,” the 26-year-old from Kirkcaldy says.
“But being the competitive athlete that I am, I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to do, I knew that I wasn’t finished in the sport. So there was always motivation after Tokyo because Paris was only three years away, and I think the fact it was three years rather than four helped a lot.”
For quite some time in the aftermath of Tokyo 2020, it looked, to outsiders anyway, unlikely that Dawson would regain her standing as one of the best backstrokers in the world.
She was out of the water for months and on returning in 2022, was well short of the standards she had set the previous year.
Slowly but surely, however, Dawson began to feel her form creep back and with it, her times began to get faster and faster.
It was, she says, almost exactly a year ago that she began to have real belief that she could return to the British team and the Scot’s selfconfidence was vindicated last week with her inclusion in the 33-strong GB swimming team that will head to the Paris Olympics this summer and which also includes her fellow Scots, Duncan Scott, Katie Shanahan, Keanna MacInnes and Lucy Hope.
Despite her career having been so significantly disrupted by this back injury, which was a bulging disk which caused sciatica in both her legs, Dawson has a surprisingly positive attitude about everything she has endured and believes that she is actually all the better for having overcome her struggles.
“I’m unbelievably proud of myself to be back at this point. It’s been an emotional, turbulent journey over the past few years,” she says.
“Physically, I feel fine now 100 per cent. I didn’t expect to ever be pain free so it’s such a bonus.
“I can’t say that, overall, it’s been a bad experience for me. It’s sometimes good to have sabbaticals in your career and I definitely am better off for what’s happened.”
Dawson does not reminisce on her success in Tokyo as much as she perhaps should. It is a common trait among athletes to relentlessly look forward rather than reflect on what has already taken place, although she does acknowledge that, occasionally, she allows herself to look back in order to remind herself of just how much she wants to return to the Olympic podium.
What is particularly tricky for Dawson to come to terms with, however, is that despite being painfree now, she remains some way off the times she was swimming in Tokyo three years ago.
But with three months remaining until the Opening Ceremony of Paris 2024, there is enough time for Dawson to step up yet another level from her performance displayed at the British Championships this month.
It would be easy to assume that having already achieved her dream of becoming Olympic champion, Dawson heads to Paris devoid of personal goals but this could not be further from the truth.
“I don’t think about Tokyo as much as I should but I definitely want to be in that position, on the podium, again,” she says.
“It’s an odd one because even though I had physical issues ahead of Tokyo, I was swimming incredibly well whereas now, I’m not in pain but in terms of the world stage, I’m swimming pretty averagely. I do feel like I’m on that ladder back up, though, and so in Paris, I just need to manage my expectations.
“I do feel that, with the potential I have, I can return to that level so it’s about where I can get back to in the next three months.
“In terms of personal goals, I want to swim 57 seconds in the 100m backstroke although I don’t know if that’s a possibility for the Games this summer because I obviously have to look at where I’ve come from. And I’d love to be a part of the medley relay again in Paris.”
I’m unbelievably proud of myself to be back at this point. It’s been an emotional, turbulent journey over the past few years. I didn’t expect to ever be pain free so it’s such a bonus