Keely Hodgkinson has admitted experiencing depression from the comedown of winning an unexpected 800 metres silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
Hodgkinson, who is one of Team GB’s best track and field gold medal hopes this summer, was only 19 when she sprinted to second place behind the American Athing Mu and said she sought psychological help in the aftermath of the Games.
She says that taking pleasure from everyday things, such as learning how to play the piano and spending time with her family, became important in dealing with the low moods.
Speaking on the High Performance Podcast, she said: “I would actually say I did hit a stage of depression at some point. I didn’t realise how much the Olympic comedown was actually a really big thing.
“I was 19, I had such a big high, because an Olympic medal is something I dreamed of. Did I think it was going to happen at 19? Absolutely not. It just kind of did.
“It was almost like the other things that you used to get a high from, whether that be going out with your friends or this and that, just weren’t that high any more. And I just felt like I was always just low and sad, so that was like a struggle.”
Hodgkinson, who has since won three European titles and two World Championship silver medals, admitted that she also found it hard to understand why she would be feeling down.
“You end up thinking, ‘My life’s great – what have I got to feel sad about?’” she said. “But it was just that I couldn’t really get any sort of high from anything else. It just became the little things, and spending time with the family and really appreciating time with them and being at home, and then eventually I came around.
“It was just finding again the pleasure in the small things and taking it day by day. Whether that was literally getting out of bed, and making your bed in the morning was like a progress.
“I just couldn’t look too far ahead. The next year we had three championships to do in one summer: The Worlds, the Commonwealths, the Europeans. I still have no idea how I got through that because it was so much racing. It was literally one day at a time, find little hobbies that I like to do. I now learn to play the piano as a nice little peaceful thing.
“I wanted to feel like it wasn’t a chore to go to training. It was a pleasure…and we just slowly worked on that. I don’t have a lot of patience but I think patience was the big one that we factored in.”
