The Mental Health Edition

I was selected for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and had a massive dummy spit and walked off the British squad. Here’s some back story. I was in the middle of my comeback after leaving the sport disillusioned to go to university. I’d had a very good start to my comeback in 1998. I’d won a few good races and cemented my spot back on the national squad in the UK. I got a Commonwealth Games silver medal in the team pursuit – things were going well.

Then into the early season in 1999, I did the Bay Series crits in Geelong, rode the Tour Down Under and flew into Malaysia for the Tour de Langkawi. I prolapsed a disc in my back in Malaysia and had to take an early flight back to Australia. I stupidly tried to train through it which made it worse and to add to the stupidity, I didn’t get surgery until later in the year. 

At that point my whole ‘99 season was a right-off.

I wanted to do my qualification times for the Olympics in Sydney – my home town – but the British team wanted me to do them in Manchester, so confusion followed. I trained myself back to a certain level in 2000 but there was a debate whether I had or had not done the qualification times. I believe I had. Because of the confusion, I didn’t receive some funding compared to other guys on the team who I was faster than, simply because I did not do my qualification it in Manchester.

I’m telling you this story with the hindsight of being diagnosed as bipolar.

Do I take responsibility for that whole situation back in 2000? Yes, I do. I don’t point fingers at British cycling, it falls on me. I didn’t handle it well and didn’t have the structure behind me to handle the mental side of things.

With the hindsight of being diagnosed bipolar, you can see a pattern. I acted on impulse and went, “That’s it, I’m done”. I didn’t know what it was at the time. It’s a situation I regret deeply because an Olympic medal is the only one in existence I don’t have. It might have set me up in later life and can change everything.

I’m opening up about my mental illness because it’s never been a stigma with me and there is a discussion that needs to be had. Just recently with Kelly Catlin dying and a good friend of mine taking his life, more needs to be done for high performing athletes.

In my first year as a pro, I lived in St Niklaas in Belgium. It was probably about six weeks out from the World championships. I just had a period of time where I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. There was nothing to wake up for. I had to do 3-4 hours with specific efforts on the bike but I just couldn’t do it so I would drag myself out of bed, do an hour and absolutely flog myself and do super threshold stuff, just completely smash it then I’d come back and collapse in a big heap and watch MTV all day. In hindsight, I now know that I was suffering from depression but didn’t have the support from a team to identify that.

I do know a lot of riders that suffer depression and bipolar. A lot of high achieving sports people do go through these depths and we need a discussion about it. It can only be good to get these out in the open and to help people.

I have tried to take my life in the past.

I went through a period of self-harm.

I try very hard to rationalize everything but these things are irrational. It’s just inherent in the disease you have. Dealing with it is about staring in the mirror and working towards liking what you see when you look at yourself. I’m still learning to do that. I’m 50 now and I still stare in the mirror and don’t know myself. It’s a cliché but it’s a journey of discovery. So I try to find balance in life. I love wine, I used to be a wine maker after I retired but instead of finishing the whole bottle, I’ll enjoy one glass. I’ll go out on the bike and think about all my frustrations and just enjoy the ride.

I open up to those around me because you can’t face this alone.