1st Olympic dream lost to vote, 2nd to injury, 3rd it’s virus... but helping folk who can’t even get out of bed gave me focus
Judo star Renicks is throwing off Tokyo upset by helping vulnerable in virus lockdown
For the eight folk whose front doors she now walks through, Kimberley is their support worker rather than a Commonwealth champion.
Mentioning the fact she isn’t the only one in the Renicks clan to step on to a judo mat tends to trigger a recognition of just who is in their midst.
“It seems to be the sisters from the Commonwealth Games stick in a lot of people’s head more than just an individual athlete,” said Kimberley, whose older sibling Louise completes Glasgow 2014’s so-called “Golden Sisters”.
“When the ladies or gentlemen ask me what I do and I say my sport, they don’t really click – until I say I have a sister who does a sport. Then they start realising that they’ll have watched me on the telly.” Two months ago the 32- year- old started doing odd shifts for Glasgowbased support service Mochridhe to fit in around training and coaching. Chasing an Olympic dream after seeing the last two slip through her fingers – the first at the final selection hurdle, the second because of injury – does not come cheap. That, though, was when normal meant normal. When she would be up at the crack of dawn to hit the gym instead of being on the road for her next appointment with mask, gloves and face shield at the ready.
When she would throw rivals around the mat instead of relying on bands attached to doors around the house and when the Olympics was to be held this summer instead of next. Not that it will stop her doing her damnedest to land a seat on the flight to Tokyo if and when it takes off. Renicks, who won 48kg gold in Glasgow, said: “I’m in and out of people’s houses who can’t get out and need things done. I’d applied for a part-time job just before the coronavirus crisis hit because I was needing money but could work it around training. “Sometimes you can go into people’s houses really early, other times you are there in the afternoon.
“The aim was to try to get a job that I could work (training) around, the same as I do with my coaching.
“But because I’m now home and all the judo centres are closed, they’ve sort of given me a full-time job to help. I’ve been thrown in at the deep end.
“I am rotated between eight people that I am helping just now.
“A lot are stuck at home and have not got family members who can come out and look after them because they’ve got kids themselves and there is no one who can take over the role.
“I had to get some training done – how to use machines, and moving and handling people. I’m doing their daily housework if they can’t do that and also getting their shopping in and keeping people’s hygiene up because some of them can’t do all that themselves. “Some people can’t even get out of bed so you’ve got to use the machines to help.
Nurses and carers are coming in at set times, then we’re coming in as support workers. You’ve got to make sure you are there at the right time so you are not affecting any of the other healthcare workers.
“I see it the same as when I am coaching, when a kid achieves something or is able to do it. If you can help someone just get out of their bed and with their daily needs, it is really rewarding.
“I am hoping one day if anything happens to me that someone can do that for me – help me and don’t treat me in a bad way – because they just need that little bit of help as they might not have any family.
“It does put things in perspective. It is hard during the coronavirus lockdown not being able to train up to six hours a day – I am so used to it.
“You train in the house or go out in the back garden to do something but there is only so much you can do without going a little bit demented.
“The job is a good distraction because it has given me a focus to help other people and not worry that I can’t do all the sport I want to do and things are being cancelled leading into an Olympics.
“I needed to do quite a lot of events to try to qualify. When they were getting cancelled each time it was like: ‘ This is pushing my dream further and further away.’
“All that training is making you go mad.”
A tilt at Tokyo must wait after the Games were pushed back a year, which may give Renicks – who spl it her training between Scotland and Camberley down south before the lockdown – an “extra chance”.
A disappointing 2019 did at least finish on a high of victory at the British Championships in Sheffield, teeing up what Renicks had hoped would be a push towards qualifying for the Europeans that act as a vital Olympic qualifier.
“It does,” she said of the job giving her a new-found sense of perspective away from the all-or-nothing Olympic focus.
“But it is still in your head that I’ve worked for the last almost three-and-ahalf years to get to where I want to be.
“I know I still had a good few hard months to do but some people are qualified and are in the best shape of their life just now then have to maintain that for another year. It is heartbreaking for a lot of the athletes you know. “Right now I have been g iven a we e extra chance to improve.
“But it gives you a
lot of perspective, this is what real life is like when you take yourself out of your athletes’ bubble.
“You’re in a bubble because that is your focus for four years each cycle. Everything is focused on the Olympics: ‘ This is where I want to be, this is what I want to achieve.’
“You’ve got the blinkers on to everything else going on in the world.
“Then when you take the step back from that … I keep saying this is like real-time work now. My athlete life is a wee bit over now, it’s on pause, and this is what it is going to be like in real life when I retire.
“At least I’m getting a taste of what it is going to be like.”
Not that retirement is in the offing, four years on from the shoulder surgery that ruled her out of a trip to the Rio Games.
“Two coaches voted for me and three didn’t in 2012 so I missed out on the Olympics just by politics,” she added.
“Then the second Games was missed due to injury. And now this one is a virus. I’ve not had the best Olympics cycles.
“But I love my sport. I’ve achieved a lot – Commonwealth champion.
“I’m definitely going to stay around for the next Commonwealth Games, so I could be a double Commonwealth medallist if I stick around.
“But the Olympics is the highlight of everyone’s dreams. It’s hard but I’m focused enough to do what I have to do – as long as I keep myself fit and keep myself mentally prepared.
“When they say we’ve the all-clear to go back to sport it is going to be a hard month getting everyone judo fit.
“It is like being a boxer – you can hit the pads as much as you want but actually when someone is hitting you back and taking the wind out of you, then you need a different type of fitness.
“It (the Olympics) is still achievable. I’d never cut out my dreams too early, I’ll always push to that last moment.”
Weekly challenges set by her five-yearold niece Sophia and shared around the family – “the other day she did a handstand into the splits but none of us are that flexible any more” – have helped her get through this one way or another.
While unable to see her baby nephews Riou and Jude, making sure kids at the opposite end of the sport do not chuck it themselves is stealing much of her attention.
The Renicks sisters were involved in starting up a new club just before the crisis that saw 40-odd kids from age five upwards come along to try out the sport. Three weeks later it had to be mothballed.
“We’re trying to give them little challenges and they’re allowed to try it on their parents,” said Kimberley.
“This is the only time they’re allowed to try it on their parents without a coach.
“We get some messages off parents: ‘Can you teach them a simpler throw?’”
Olympics is still achievable – I’d never cut out my dreams too early. I’ll always push to that last moment ..