Kelly Holmes
Dame Kelly Holmes is well known for winning two gold medals after her fantastic performance in both the 1,500m and 800m at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Having retired at the end of 2005 Kelly has now turned to charity work and it supporting everyclick.com, a search engine website hoping to raise £3million for UK charities this Christmas.
Female First caught up with Kelly to ask her about her career and why this new charity is so important.
How did it feel winning the double gold at the 2004 Olympics in Athens?
I think most people would describe that from look on my face as I crossed the line. The first (race) was shock and disbelief with my eyes popping out of my head, and the second was elation, like a dream come true. So really it's different emotions that came with both of the races, but certainly I think I probably showed it in my face.
While training for that you suffered from a series of leg injuries which must have been devastating. How did you cope with that?A career as an althlete anyway is pretty tough. Every day you're pushing your body to it's limits and it's boundries just to achieve your end dream. When it becomes a career it's pretty tough when everything you do is guided towards the championships and yet you're going through a lot of physical and emotional pain barriers. I think originally when I first got injured it actually made me more motivated to do well, because even though I was injured I was still coming back with some pretty good medals and results. Yet it wasn't what I thought I could achieve, so you set your sights even higher. But it's tough, it's a tough journey when you're trying to reach the top. but it's worth it if you hang in there.
What made you decide to retire from athletics?
I actually retired because of a couple of reasons. One was that I didn't think I had anything to prove to myself or to anyone else anymore. Having won my two gold medals I carried on for a year just to say bye to the people who have supported me in Great Britain and I got injured again. But actually, the main reason I retired was because I was in Ireland with a guy, who was a business guy, and I was going to be doing some work with him in Ireland. I'd gone to lunch with him one day when I was over there getting some treatment, because I was living in South Africa at the time, and he'd fallen over playing tennis and banged his head. He wasn't feeling well while we had lunch. I got a call three days later while I was in physio saying Tim had been taken into hospital and he was told he had three weeks to live. So that was a bit of a shock. There I was contemplating whether I should retire or not and thinking it was so stressful thinking whether to retire, while sitting there with two gold medals, and this guy actually dies three weeks later. So it made me open my eyes to the fact I'd achieved everything I wanted and should just get on with life.
Do you think being so dedicated to your career has meant you've missed out on your personal life and relationships?
No, not really. At the end of the day if you're an athlete it's a very short lived career really and you've got to be totally dedicated and committed to get to a high level. It's fine doing sport and achieving some good things at a club level, county level or national level, but if it's actually being on top of your game and being number one in the world then there's only room for you. It becomes very, in a way, selfish. But not in a bad way. It's just the fact you want something badly enough to commit your life to it. So I don't think I've missed out. At the end of the day I've got two gold medals.
What have you been up to since you retired?
I do a lot of work with schools at the moment and I have some initiatives. I also do a lot of charity work. I'm promoting everyclick.com which is a search engine trying to raise £3 million. It's basically a search engine and when people use it money will go to one of the 170,000 charities that are registered in Great Britain. So I'm doing a lot of work for that today and we're promoting it because it's something that no one has to pay for, it doesn't cost anyone anything, but everyone uses the web. Especially now with Christmas shopping or just looking up whatever they need to look at. Even if only 10% of web users in the UK switched to everyclick.com as their search engine that would generate £3 million so we're trying to encourage people to do that.
Finally, obviously you're supporting the 2012 Olympics. Do you think we've got enough talent to be successful at the games?
Yes I do. I think people forget that at each Olympic games, as a nation, we've been hugely successful. People just don't know some of the sports as much. If you were to name 10 medallists from Athens a lot of people would have to think about it, yet we got about nine gold medals, let alone all the other medals we got at those games. People forget that. We have been going through a change in sport because a lot of established sports people and athletes have retired, but it doesn't mean we haven't got enough talent leading up to 2012. We have so much more funding, so much more guidance, so much more identification of that talent now that it being in your home country and everybody being totally motivated because of the Olympic games coming to your country and being able to perform in front of a British crowd will just rise everybody's game anyway. So i think we'll see some surprising results and some new people coming out of the woodwork and some absolutley brilliant talent. We're trying to get forth on the rankings list for the Olympic games, and that's a big ask really, because everybody in the world is good. Also we want first for the paralympics, we've got an amazing paralympics team so fingers crossed it'll go well.
Female First - Caz Moss and Jacqueline Farrer
Dame Kelly Holmes is well known for winning two gold medals after her fantastic performance in both the 1,500m and 800m at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Having retired at the end of 2005 Kelly has now turned to charity work and it supporting everyclick.com, a search engine website hoping to raise £3million for UK charities this Christmas.
Female First caught up with Kelly to ask her about her career and why this new charity is so important.
How did it feel winning the double gold at the 2004 Olympics in Athens?
I think most people would describe that from look on my face as I crossed the line. The first (race) was shock and disbelief with my eyes popping out of my head, and the second was elation, like a dream come true. So really it's different emotions that came with both of the races, but certainly I think I probably showed it in my face.
While training for that you suffered from a series of leg injuries which must have been devastating. How did you cope with that?A career as an althlete anyway is pretty tough. Every day you're pushing your body to it's limits and it's boundries just to achieve your end dream. When it becomes a career it's pretty tough when everything you do is guided towards the championships and yet you're going through a lot of physical and emotional pain barriers. I think originally when I first got injured it actually made me more motivated to do well, because even though I was injured I was still coming back with some pretty good medals and results. Yet it wasn't what I thought I could achieve, so you set your sights even higher. But it's tough, it's a tough journey when you're trying to reach the top. but it's worth it if you hang in there.
What made you decide to retire from athletics?
I actually retired because of a couple of reasons. One was that I didn't think I had anything to prove to myself or to anyone else anymore. Having won my two gold medals I carried on for a year just to say bye to the people who have supported me in Great Britain and I got injured again. But actually, the main reason I retired was because I was in Ireland with a guy, who was a business guy, and I was going to be doing some work with him in Ireland. I'd gone to lunch with him one day when I was over there getting some treatment, because I was living in South Africa at the time, and he'd fallen over playing tennis and banged his head. He wasn't feeling well while we had lunch. I got a call three days later while I was in physio saying Tim had been taken into hospital and he was told he had three weeks to live. So that was a bit of a shock. There I was contemplating whether I should retire or not and thinking it was so stressful thinking whether to retire, while sitting there with two gold medals, and this guy actually dies three weeks later. So it made me open my eyes to the fact I'd achieved everything I wanted and should just get on with life.
Do you think being so dedicated to your career has meant you've missed out on your personal life and relationships?
No, not really. At the end of the day if you're an athlete it's a very short lived career really and you've got to be totally dedicated and committed to get to a high level. It's fine doing sport and achieving some good things at a club level, county level or national level, but if it's actually being on top of your game and being number one in the world then there's only room for you. It becomes very, in a way, selfish. But not in a bad way. It's just the fact you want something badly enough to commit your life to it. So I don't think I've missed out. At the end of the day I've got two gold medals.