Olympic gold medallist Dame Kelly Holmes is the latest sporting icon to appear on Rob Burrow’s podcast ‘Seven’ and she’s taken the opportunity to hail the ex-Leeds Rhinos man as her “inspiration”.
Burrow began the podcast with the concept being to interview seven different sporting icons, gaining their perspective on all things sport and what helped them achieve greatness.
Previous episodes have seen former England football captain Wayne Rooney, rugby union World Cup winner Jonny Wilkinson and husband and wife sporting pair Gabby and Kenny Logan.
Holmes is now the most recent guest to appear on the podcast hosted by Burrow and his wife Lindsey, with the former Olympian wasting no time to praise Burrow for his incredible attitude in battling with Motor Neurone Disease.
“You are an inspiration to so many, including me,” Holmes informed Burrow, relaying the passionate message: “Never give up, keep fighting, I think that’s what life is all about.”
That was in response to Burrow’s powerful message where he explained: “I do get frustrated at times because I’m trapped in my own body. I can’t eat normal stuff anymore. Every day now someone has to feed me but I refuse to feel sorry for myself. I just won’t do it.”
The 53-year-old Holmes is a story herself in not giving up, having progressed through the army during the late 1980s and much of the 1990’s, serving for just shy of ten years.
Even during her service she was smashing it on the professional athletics scene with Atlanta 1996 being her first Olympics.
Four years later she earned bronze in the 800 metres at the Sydney Olympics, but it was 2004 when her crowning moment came winning both the 800 and 1500 metres in Athens, landing herself a Damehood just a year later.
Despite that incredible success in Athens in 2004, Holmes has now revealed that just a year prior she had a “breakdown” before the World Championships in Paris.
Discussing the ability to overcome adversity, something that Burrow has seemingly mastered during the almost four years since his diagnosis, Holmes revealed the long list of injuries, all of which culminated in the incident in 2003.
“I’m in sport, so Rob you’ll know too but there’s so much adversity, I had so many injuries. When I was an international athlete I had everything from stress fractures, ruptured calves, torn achilles, I had tonsillitis, damaged femoral nerves in my back.
“There was all these injury problems and then they coupled with some mental health problems, so it was always a battle. But I think the main thing for me was that since the age of 14 I’d wanted to be Olympic Champion.
“That strength of having a purpose and a big vision of a goal kept me driven. I just refused to give up and that obviously culminated in the international medals that I got, even though it was a big part of the setbacks in the journey.”
On that 2003 ‘breakdown’, Holmes explained: “I had a few pretty rough situations for mental health in particular. I think one of the biggest challenges was when I was 33, I was getting ready for a world championships in Paris, a year before the Olympic Games in Athens.
“I’d already competed at two Olympic Games, one with a stress fracture, one after only 12 weeks of running because I had a tear and you know there’s all these highs and lows of sport but also in life generally.
“Anyway, unbeknown to me I think the impact of the injuries and some of the other personal things I was going through ended up me having my first ever breakdown in a holding camp.
“Basically I just didn’t want to see the next day. I became a self-harmer at that time.”
Of course Holmes overcame those battles and went on to achieve her incredible success a year later but it’s a telling tale of never knowing what someone is going through.
