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Castaway
1 appearance
British middle-distance runner who won two gold medals (800m and 1500m) at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
On the island
Eight records
If I Ain't Got YouFavourite
Yeah, my first record actually was my Olympic song. Uh the words in the song really meant a lot to me and um if you listen to the words it mean my gold medals.
Now, like I said, I was brought up in a white county and I went to the all-white school and I was the only brown girl and they put me in the ring and sang Bony M Brown Girl in the Ring, but I loved it'cause I was the sugar in the plum, plum plum.
Well, my next song is kind of like what every woman I think feels, you know, and for me about being independent and it's um Destiny's Child Independent Woman.
The next one actually, I just like the song, and it's Heather Headley, Always Been Your Girl.
The next one is Sounds of Blackness I'm Going All the Way. And actually this was one of the songs that after the Night Six Olympics I thought the words in this song was like I am going all the way, I'll do it.
Next one is one of my old ones I used to like, Kids from Fame, Red Light, and it's kind of um you know, young kids in a art school trying to achieve things and I quite like it'cause they're trying to follow their dream and passion.
My next one is I Believe, a real big inspirational kind of song. I think this is like some really nice words and again it's like I Believe in Myself.
Okay, next one actually is an emotional song. This is called Angel from the Sa City of Angels. This is really about some people that have died that I know and I would have this played at my funeral, which is a bit more morbid but I really love the song and it's kind of really remembering a lot of people that I think about.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:43How old were you when you first looked in the mirror and thought you wanted to win an Olympic gold medal?
I was fourteen. Yeah, I was fourteen when I thought to myself that I want to be Olympic champion and that was after watching um Sebco at the eighty four Olympics and um I just really figured that I … wanted to achieve something in my life and I wanted to be Olympic champion and it was just from then.
Presenter asks
4:49When you arrived in the world, you were kind of unexpected and unwelcome, weren't you?
Yeah, well, you know, my mother um met a guy called Derek and one thing led to another and she ended up pregnant. She was seventeen. She was seventeen, very young, and it was very hard for her. I mean, I actually admire when I think about where she was at that, she kind of … grew up and she did in a white village of um Hildenborough, very small, you know, kind of white of a white Kent and suddenly she's with a black guy, which is no problem whatsoever, but the fact that she's then going to bring a mixed race child into um a white kind of family and a white neighbourhood and the child's illegitimate and all those things.
Presenter asks
9:28Did you consciously shrug off and cope with these [childhood] difficulties, or is that just the kind of person you are?
The keepsakes
Is the person that I am, to be honest with you, then I probably try and … make things of my life so that I can always feel that I've done something special and that's what makes me happy. And so yes, things affected me and I was very emotional about things and even really late into my life when you think about certain situations. But um because sport captures kind of your imagination, for me um it was something that I could hold on, something that I could prove to myself, something I could do and then I I found athletics eventually.
Presenter asks
12:32What would your coach Dave Arnold have seen in you that was special when you joined the athletics club?
Well, I mean … I don't know what he saw in me, to be honest, but I thought I think I had quite a lopey stride and i to him it was quite effortless uh even at a young age and I … springy, strong, even though I was young. And I think the passion to work hard, what he said, you know, was that … I would always want to train, you know, I'd always do it and nothing was too much or nothing was too hard for me. It was always I have to do it because I want to get better.
Presenter asks
19:39You did lose control and do something really rather terrible to yourself [in 2003], didn't you?
Yeah, I did. I like I was saying originally that um every time something kind of knocked me down I would get back up from it and think right well I can do it and then I'd be knocked down again and I'd be I can do it you know and and eventually that kind of comes to a head where you just think why I'm trying everything and why does someone keep knocking me down and it came to two thousand and three. … I'd just done indoor world championships my first time got a silver medal and I was really kind of hyped up and everything and I thought oh this season's going to go brilliant and maybe it's my chance to get my global world title that you know kind of eluded me along the way and then I went and got another injury in my calf and my ankle a tear my calf and ankle and I just do you know what I just came to the end of that hope and I yeah I became depressed and I I cut myself with scissors and stuff but you don't ever think that you're gonna you know but I got desperate you know for just … things to go right for once, you know.
“I really believe that something things are meant to happen for a reason. And all the bad times got to a stage where I think it was totally testing my wit and does she really want it? And all I can say is that I proved that I did, and somebody thought, well, there you go, she's really done it.”
“I just always believed that I would become Olympic champion. There was always something that said to me, You will one day do it. I just didn't know when, you know, obviously. I I think I had such a strong strong belief in myself that I never wanted to give up.”
“For me, it's not about coaching. I think it's about giving them the truth about what it takes to be an athlete, never giving up and always saying that if you give something one hundred percent, at least you can say you tried.”