That is the e-book assessment of UNBROKEN by Katerina Johnson Thompson. The assessment is completed by Stuart Weir, the senior author for Europe for RunBlogRun.
Unbroken, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, London: MacMillan, 2024
ISBN 9781035055173
Having seen KJT compete in 4 Olympics, seven World Championships (indoor and outside), two Commonwealth Video games, and a number of other European Championships, I’m certified to assessment her e-book! Her account of those occasions fascinated me, particularly how she handled the three no–leap Beijing by hiding in a resort room till the Video games had been over and by no means watching the footage once more.
Picture Credit score: Chloe Knott/Group GB
The e-book is a minimize above the typical sports activities autobiography and addresses a number of essential points, together with the working rigidity to reconcile Kat the athlete with Kat the individual. As she places it, “The connection between feminine athletes and their our bodies is usually a fancy one”. She refers to balancing the necessity to carry weights with the fear that she was growing extra muscle tissues than the boys in her class and that “the muscle tissues that had been serving to me to succeed on the observe had been stopping me from becoming in away from it”.
Her account of the 2012 Olympics is good. It begins along with her irritation at being invited to attend as a visitor spectator, with a go to to the athlete village thrown in, whereas she was busting a intestine on daily basis to be there as an athlete. Her account contains the strain between the joy of competing within the Video games, coping with the stress, and her “introvert struggles.”
By 2013, the strain at her first World Champs was between being a “younger athlete eager to be taught and have enjoyable and being there to compete and the expectations on her”. By the point she bought to the 2023 World Championships, she had achieved a greater life/sport stability: “I needed to reach athletics, and I nonetheless desperately needed that gold medal in Budapest, however it wasn’t all or nothing anymore. It wouldn’t make me much less of an individual if it didn’t occur. I found who I used to be as a complete human, not simply an athlete, which in the end made me a stronger model of each.” Add, “what received it for me that day wasn’t my efficiency; it was my expertise. It was realizing use every little thing I’ve been by way of to my benefit. It’s nearly realizing the way you deal with your self”.
After a superb efficiency within the Rio Olympics – sixth – she refers back to the crass British Olympic Affiliation coverage of getting everybody fly residence collectively however dividing them “into those that’d received medals and those that hadn’t; the primary group had been ushered left into enterprise class whereas the remainder of us turned proper into economic system to cry our eyes out and pine for the following time”.
She writes actually about racism and explains how: “All through my life, I’ve all the time carried a sense of being the one one like me in sure locations. And it wasn’t actually till my late 20s that I began to come back into my very own and really feel assured sufficient to not care as a lot…however now and again I feel again to the younger lady and athlete I was -the one who was scared to face out, embarrassed by her distinction, determined to mix in – and I can see how far I’ve come”.
Like many feminine athletes, she is crucial of the Olympic group uniform supplied. “One factor that positively didn’t assist was the package. These Olympic kits are principally sprayed on. I all the time should take 2 sizes up, which mechanically put you in a foul headspace at a time while you’re meant to really feel at your greatest”.
One other crucial situation she raises is in regards to the psychological facet of sport: “I additionally know that there’s an essential dialog available right here as a result of so many athletes nonetheless really feel like they’ll’t speak about psychological well being, which blocks important progress in that space. The silence across the topic scares me”.
An excellent e-book.
