Forget the arrogant golfers, Nekoda’s tale is why the Olympics matter
THERE is a way to describe Nekoda Davis that goes beyond saying she is a 23year-old woman who has fought and scraped and worked and struggled to fulfil her dream of becoming an Olympian. Rory McIlroy was talking about people like her last week when he told golf a few home truths and said the Olympic Games was about ‘the stuff that matters’.
That’s Nekoda. When it comes to the Olympics, she’s the stuff that matters. She matters because she embodies the spirit of the Olympics. She matters because she’s not some spoilt millionaire who can take it or leave it. She matters because making it to the Olympics means everything to her.
The Games will not leave her as soon as she leaves Brazil. The joy and the pride will remain with her for the rest of her life.
She matters because there was a time when her mum, Ivy, who had brought her to England from Jamaica to try to give her a better life, sat alone in the front room of their council house in Cricklewood, north London, weeping because she could not afford to pay for the dance classes and music lessons that Nekoda begged to be sent to when she was at primary school.
She matters because she only took up judo when she was six because her mum thought the area they lived in was so dangerous that
IT is to its credit that the Tour de France allows fans to get so close to the action but the sight of Chris Froome running up Mont Ventoux after supporters caused a pile-up heightened concerns that things are getting out of hand. Some of the mountain sections have become so chaotic they look more like running with the bulls in Pamplona than a bicycle race. Changes need to be made before a rider is seriously hurt. Nekoda might need it for selfdefence. She laughed when she was asked if it came in handy away from the dojo. ‘I used it on my little brother,’ she said. ‘We used to have quite a lot of scuffles and I had to pin him until he calmed down.’
She matters because this did not come easily to her. She used to avoid competitions when she first started having lessons. ‘It was all a bit rough,’ she said.
Her first coach, Sheree Brannigan, was so supportive that she sometimes waived the £2 fee for the after-school session in Willesden Green if she thought Nekoda’s mum was having a difficult time.
‘If it wasn’t for the interest she took in me and my brother,’ said Nekoda, ‘I think I would probably have given up judo.’
She’s got the right stuff because when she was doing three jobs to try to fund her judo career, her Japanese employers at Yo Yo Kitchen in Ealing were so keen to try to help her succeed that they gave her time off work to travel to and from competitions.
She matters because, like all the best stories in sport, it is not just about her. It is about all the people who helped her, too. It is about a community. She matters because the Olympics are so important to her that she was a volunteer at London 2012. She worked in the administration centre at ExCeL where the judo took place.
‘Sometimes, I’d make an excuse about running some paper somewhere and just hang out in the athletes’ area or watch the medal presentations,’ she said.
That was where she first saw the great Japanese judoka, Kaori Matsumoto. Matsumoto won gold in Nekoda’s lightweight category in London and instantly became her idol. Earlier this year, Nekoda stood on the same podium as her in Germany. Matsumoto will compete in Rio. Nekoda, ranked 13 in the world in her -57kg class and Commonwealth gold winner in 2014, knows she is getting closer to her.
Soon after the Games, she left her family and her coach, Jo Crowley, behind in London and moved to Walsall to the British Judo Centre of Excellence.
It meant she could get £10,000 a year from Lottery funding, just about enough to give up her three jobs and rent a flat and pour everything into pursuing a place in Rio. When she received the letter from the BOA last month, confirming her place in the team, she posted it on Twitter alongside a series of poses with her grinning from ear to ear.
‘Going to Rio means everything to me,’ she said last week.
‘Sometimes you can put everything into something and not achieve what you want but to be able to say that I’m going to be an Olympian and I’m going to Rio is testimony to all the hard work I have put in and that everyone around me has put in. No matter what, I have achieved something great and not a lot of people can say that. I’d love to be able to tell my kids: “This is what I did when I was younger.” It’s amazing. I’m really proud.
‘It gives some meaning to some of the sacrifices my mum made.
‘This is a massive thing in my family. I don’t think anyone has ever achieved anything like this. Words can’t describe how amazing it is. It is knowing you have accomplished something that no one can take from you. Whatever you go on to do in life, it’s always going to be there with you.
‘It’s always going to give you that confidence to challenge yourself, to go for something you wouldn’t usually go for, go for that job interview, to be confident in life or be able to inspire others, to be able to inspire other young people, especially those, who like me, never really saw this as an option in life.’
NEKODA matters because, for her, this is the pinnacle. The Olympics are her be-all and end-all. This is not just another tournament. It is the thing she has been working towards intensively for the last two years, the thing she has been striving for — for the last decade.
She is an outsider to become the first person to win judo gold for Great Britain but she knows that if everything goes right on Monday August 8 at the Carioca Arena 2 in Rio’s Olympic Park, then nothing is beyond her. She believes in herself. Why wouldn’t she?
This is Nekoda’s major. This is her Grand Slam. This is her Champions League final. All rolled in to one. It is a dream. It is what the Olympics should be.