‘ I’m going to play until I’m dead,’ says Gilmour
Badminton star maybe 30, but she is setting sights on making fourth Games in LA
KIRSTY GILMOUR is trying to decide whether she is satisfied with all she has achieved in her sporting career. “Like, kind of, yeah” is her response. Clearly it is an answer the badminton star is still working through, but if there is one thing she is sure of, it is that her career is nowhere near done.
In fact, she also suggested her own epitaph: “I’m gonna play until I’m dead”.
“I’m 30 now and, when I was younger, I always looked at my career, because 30 seemed so far off, as ‘ I will probably play till I’m 30 and then I will retire’,” the Bellshill native said.
“I have no plans to retire anytime soon. At this point, sitting here, I’m looking four years ahead to potentially the next Olympic Games in LA, that would be pretty cool. We’ll see if we can get there.
“In terms of if I were to stop today and look back, I had a really honest conversation with Ingo [ Kindervater, head of performance] with some tears after the Indonesia Open.
“If I was to stop today, would I be happy with what I’ve accomplished so far? Like, kind of, yeah, definitely big elements of it.
“Do I wish I would have engaged with some things I’m engaged with now, sooner? Yes. So, the way forward for me is trusting everything that I’ve already done and learned. And anything past this point is bonus and fun, free time.”
Gilmour sits 24th in the Badminton World Federation’s Race to Paris rankings, with the top 35 earning places at the Games. The four- time European medallist has yet to make it out of the group stage at her two previous Olympic Games. In Rio, she was the 11th seed but her preparation for her debut Games was interrupted by a cartilage injury.
Five years later in Tokyo, she was drawn in a group with home favourite and current world No. 5 Akane Yamaguchi of Japan, a player she has never beaten.
She hopes to be one of the 16 seeds in Paris but recent first- round defeats, including at the YONEX All England Open, have hurt her chances.
However, there is an unwavering belief that she is on the right track, having beaten long- time rival Carolina Marin at the European Team Championships where Scotland won women’s team bronze.
“This year, I think I’m on the very cusp of getting a seeding, so it’s going to be tough,” she said. “I think it maybe would have required a better performance at All England for me.
“But we’ve still got a couple more tournaments to go, so that seeded spot would be nice, but in terms of qualification, we’re pretty comfortable. Although the official announcement has not been yet, so I still need to be officially selected.
“But in terms of Olympics No. 3, it’s super exciting. It’s something that every athlete aims for, and to get to do three I think is pretty special. Three so far, I might be shooting for No. 4.”
While Gilmour has not had the success she may have liked at the Olympics, she has often impressed when in the tartan of Team Scotland at the Commonwealth Games.
She made her debut in Delhi in 2010, aged just 17, and in 2014 won a silver medal in the singles on home soil. The Glasgow- based shuttler added bronze to her collection in Gold Coast before coming fourth in Birmingham two years ago.
At Gold Coast, the contrast between what it is like to be a Team GB athlete and Team Scotland athlete was laid bare.
“It is such a different feeling being part of a Team Scotland and a Team GB. For. Sure,” she said, exaggerating each word to hit home her point.
“I did the Delhi Commonwealth Games, and I was selected when I was 16 and I played when I was 17, which is just stupid, it was mad that they just went ‘ Yeah, a 17- year- old, on you go.’
“And then the organisers and the staff of Team Scotland, it’s been 14 years of knowing those people, I’ve grown up with them or they’ve seen me grow up in front of their eyes.
“And the difference between 17- year- old Kirsty and 28- year- old Kirsty is huge.
“At the Birmingham Games, it was just me walking around, pointing finger guns at people just like, ‘ Hey, how are you going and how’s the kids?’. But then, in a GB setting, I’m far more anonymous.
“I arrived in the Commonwealth village at Gold Coast to the house that we were going to stay in and there’s a 12- foot poster of me on the house that I’m living in.
“No one warned me about that. And then I go into the GB arena and Tom Daley can take that, Adam Peaty can take those posters, I’m just an anonymous little badminton player.”
Gilmour is content to keep a low profile and does not want attention around her sexuality and gender identity either.
The Scot, who is openly LGBTQ+ and uses she/ her and they/ them pronouns, and compatriot Ciara Torrance are the only out badminton players across the five singles and doubles disciplines.
“I’ve always been quite open about being a member of the LGBT community and I’ve been as vocal as I’m comfortable being,” she said.
“I’m so privileged, and this is not hyperbole, I have never received a negative comment because of that. And that is credit to badminton fans, that’s credit to the people that I have around me. I want that experience for as many players as possible.
“Being the only out badminton player in the top 100 of all disciplines
Being the only out badminton player in the top 100 of all disciplines is kind of cool but also kind of sad at the same time because statistically that is not true and I would like to see some more open representation
is kind of cool but also kind of sad at the same time because statistically that is not true and I would like to see some more open representation.
“It is still scary and it feels like you’re making a very political stance, but I’m trying to not see it that way.
“There’s a little bit of just being branded as the gay badminton player, so I just try to normalise it, but not make it my entire identity.
“I’m not a particularly interesting person, but there’s so many more interesting things about my life than my sexuality or my gender identity.
“But also, I’m so unqualified to be a spokesperson, and I’m not a confrontational person at all. I’ve rarely had an argument in my life.
“I will try to shut anything like that down, I’m not up for a debate. I don’t think it’s something that needs to be debated. It’s happening whether you believe in it or not.”
Gilmour, one of more than 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery- funded World Class Programme that allows her to train full time, have access to the world’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering medical support, is a selfconfessed badminton nerd, which is unsurprising when you consider her route into the sport.
Her father Brian coached her until she was 12 with her uncle David, who is now the national singles coach, taking over. Gilmour is also quick to mention her mother’s Scottish Schools mixed doubles title to further emphasise her pedigree, and to keep her mum happy.
It is the love and appreciation of the game and the lifelong links that are keeping her in such a physically and mentally demanding sport. As players move into their 30s, questions around retirement ramp up and Gilmour expects many of her rivals to call it a day after Paris.
“The physical demands I think are so underestimated, especially I think compared to other sports,” she said.
“This is not just me being biased, but badminton is everything. It’s power, it’s endurance, it’s agility, it’s the mental side, it’s plyometrics. That’s before we’ve even talked about hitting a shuttle while doing all of that.
“No shade to any other racquet sports but table tennis is a much more contained space, tennis is more lateral movements and then an occasional sprint forwards. Squash is
very tough, but there’s no upwards demand.
“Badminton is all of those things combined, so physically on the body, especially with how it’s been professionalised in the last decade, it is so tough.
“You see players like Viktor [ Axelsen, men’s world No. 1], will get to the final of a tournament, and then it will be like, ‘ my body’s a wreck, I can’t play the next week’, and it just takes so long to recover.
“I think it’s becoming harder, especially for singles players, to go longer because it really gets to your body. So that’s another thing that I’m quite proud of, to not have had too many major injuries and that’s more credit to the staff that I have around me rather than maybe me.
“I think after this Olympics, it will be super interesting to see how it changes because I think we will have a lot of big retirements, I think that’s going to be fascinating.
“But I’m not going to be one of them. I’m gonna play until I’m dead!”
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