Olympic Medalist Rebecca Adlington Advocates for Mental Health
August 21, 2020
Four-time Team GB Olympic medalist swimmer, Rebecca Adlington OBE, is using her platform to address and remove stigmas on speaking openly on mental health and encourage organisations to support their team's well-being.
As an Ambassador for UK financial company Legal & General's Not A Red Card campaign, and a judge for its third annual Not A Red Card Awards - open for entry through 28 August - she is committed to raising awareness on an area that is expected to affect one in four people over the course of their lifetime.
Here she speaks on her personal journey and why she is passionately Backing Mental Health:
My earliest memories are of being in the water. I learned to swim at three and grew up around the pool.
I grew up in a small town where leisure activities were few and far between – but there were two swimming pools! Everyone swims, and my two sisters were no different. Growing up, I wanted to be just like them, and so I swam too. Weekends, birthday parties, days out with friends, it all centred around the pool.
For me, competitions, meets, junior competitions and making teams were all a natural part of the progression. Swimming was always a natural thing for me, but it’s also always been a chance to meditate or take out my frustrations and emotions.
Making the GB team for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games was another step along the way, but success was so unexpected. I was targeting a Bronze medal, but I came away with a new world record and two gold medals! In the whirlwind, I went from being a swimmer no-one had heard of to the first British Gold medallist in the pool in 48 years, and the first British double Gold Medallist in the pool in a century.
Four years later, I was much better known and had to deal with the pressure of expectation – but I won two medals at London 2012, in front of an incredible home crowd.
But after that, my journey would go down a different path.
When you've always been known as being something - in my case an athlete - you introduce yourself in a certain way: “Hi I’m Becky Adlington, I’m a swimmer”. It seems so simple, but that's who you are; it’s your identity, and you live and breathe it 24/7. Being an athlete in particular brings its own extra challenges - even on your days off you think, “how is this going to impact my performance.”
And then you retire.
So where do I go? Who am I now?
It took a long time to realise I’m not Becky Adlington the athlete anymore, I'm just Becky. But who is Becky and what does she want to do?
Beyond Sport is supporting L&G’s Not A Red Card Awards through our sister company, thinkBeyond. The six categories, including a specific award related to sport’s power to support mental health in the workplace, are:
• The Collaboration Award
• Innovative Use of Sport Award
• Best Mental Health Initiative – SME (less than 500 employees)
• Best Mental Health Initiative – Large (more than 500 employees)
• The Inspiration Award
•The Leadership Award
Entries close on the 28 August, find out more and enter here.
Beyond Sport is proud to be a Founding Member of the Stay in the Game Network, a collaboration of sport, healthcare and social change organizations using sport as a platform and catalyst to end stigmas and promote mental wellness.