That is the e book assessment of UNBROKEN via Katerina Johnson Thompson. The assessment is finished via Stuart Weir, the senior author for Europe for RunBlogRun.
Unbroken, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, London: MacMillan, 2024
ISBN 9781035055173
Having noticed KJT compete in 4 Olympics, seven Global Championships (indoor and outside), two Commonwealth Video games, and a number of other Ecu Championships, I’m certified to check her e book! Her account of those occasions fascinated me, particularly how she handled the 3 no–soar Beijing via hiding in a resort room till the Video games have been over and not staring at the pictures once more.
Katerina Johnson-Thompson, heptathlon, silver, August 9, 2024, Picture Credit score:Sam Mellish/Staff GBPhoto Credit score: Chloe Knott/Staff GB
The e book is a reduce above the typical sports activities autobiography and addresses a number of necessary problems, together with the working rigidity to reconcile Kat the athlete with Kat the individual. As she places it, “The relationship between female athletes and their bodies is often a complex one”. She refers to balancing the want to carry weights with the fear that she was once growing extra muscle tissue than the men in her elegance and that “the muscles that were helping me to succeed on the track were stopping me from fitting in away from it”.
Unbroken, a e book via Katerina Johnson Thompson
Her account of the 2012 Olympics is sensible. It begins along with her inflammation at being invited to wait as a visitor spectator, with a discuss with to the athlete village thrown in, whilst she was once busting a intestine on a daily basis to be there as an athlete. Her account contains the stress between the thrill of competing within the Video games, coping with the drive, and her “introvert struggles.”
Via 2013, the stress at her first Global Champs was once between being a “young athlete wanting to learn and have fun and being there to compete and the expectations on her”. By the point she were given to the 2023 Global Championships, she had completed a greater existence/recreation stability: “I wanted to succeed in athletics, and I still desperately wanted that gold medal in Budapest, but it wasn’t all or nothing anymore. It wouldn’t make me less of a person if it didn’t happen. I discovered who I was as a whole human, not just an athlete, which ultimately made me a stronger version of both.” Upload, “what won it for me that day wasn’t my performance; it was my experience. It was knowing how to use everything I’ve been through to my advantage. It’s just about knowing how you handle yourself”.
Katerina Johnson-Thompson talking with Reputable, Bejing 2025, photograph via Global Athletics.
After a excellent efficiency within the Rio Olympics – 6th – she refers back to the crass British Olympic Affiliation coverage of getting everybody fly house in combination however dividing them “into those who’d won medals and those who hadn’t; the first group were ushered left into business class while the rest of us turned right into economy to cry our eyes out and pine for the next time”.
She writes in truth about racism and explains how: “Throughout my life, I’ve always carried a feeling of being the only one like me in certain places. And it wasn’t really until my late 20s that I started to come into my own and feel confident enough to not care as much…but every so often I think back to the young girl and athlete I used to be -the one who was scared to stand out, embarrassed by her difference, desperate to blend in – and I can see how far I’ve come”.
Katerina Johnson-Thompson, Heptathlon, photograph via Getty Pictures for British Athletics
Like many feminine athletes, she is important of the Olympic staff uniform supplied. “One thing that definitely didn’t help was the kit. Those Olympic kits are basically sprayed on. I always have to take 2 sizes up, which automatically put you in a bad headspace at a time when you’re meant to feel at your best”.
Some other important factor she raises is in regards to the psychological aspect of recreation: “I also know that there’s an important conversation to be had here because so many athletes still feel like they can’t talk about mental health, which blocks significant progress in that area. The silence around the subject scares me”.
An excellent e book.
Katerina Johnson-Thompson, photograph via Ecu Athletics 
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