Iwan Thomas: Self-loathing, hard graft, and soft play
Happy Place
Fearne Cotton
4.7 • 15.6K Ratings
🗓️ 1 July 2024
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It can feel awful when other people judge you, but it can be even worse when you judge yourself. Despite his immense achievements, Former European, Commonwealth and World Champion 400m medallist Iwan Thomas is no stranger to self-loathing.
In this chat with Fearne, Iwan talks about the innate need to make our parents proud throughout our lives, as well as how becoming a dad himself has changed his outlook on life. They also try to figure out the balance of pushing your kid to believe in themselves, without stressing them out with too much pressure.
Iwan is honest about the reality of feeling he couldn’t talk to even his closest friends about his mental health during his lowest moments, as well as how he’s learnt to open up.
Iwan’s memoir, Brutal, is out on July 4th.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Happy Place. I'm Fern Cotton and this is the show that knows no one is immune to low days. |
| 0:08.6 | Today I'm joined by you in Thomas. |
| 0:11.2 | I've gone from a world where I'm six foot two, 15 and a half stone, muscle |
| 0:16.0 | bound, fast running machine and if all of a sudden I said, I don't know where I'm going, |
| 0:20.9 | you don't know what I'm going, who am am I then I just felt I was showing a weakness |
| 0:24.2 | to if I did get back my rivals would think well I've seen him talk about depression we |
| 0:28.8 | can get inside his head and I couldn't be more ashamed of myself for not being honest sooner because as soon as I did speak I felt I'd helped other people |
| 0:36.4 | Depression or anxiety or whatever it is it doesn't care if you drive a white van for the council or you remember the |
| 0:43.8 | raw family. Ewen became the fastest British 400-meter runner after breaking the |
| 0:49.2 | record in 1997. He ran it in 44.36 seconds. How? He's an Olympic medalist and former European and world champion too. |
| 1:01.0 | But I got the sense from our chat that being a gorgeous dad |
| 1:04.9 | is what he's most proud of and his family is certainly what drives him now. His new memoir, |
| 1:10.5 | brutal, absolutely covers the immense achievements, but it's really honest about the |
| 1:15.6 | loneliness and the doubts and the really serious mental health issues that defined his career too. One of the things that stood out to me |
| 1:24.0 | was just how hard Ewing worked himself |
| 1:27.0 | and you're here in this chat |
| 1:28.0 | just how far he was willing to push his body |
| 1:31.0 | for those wins. |
| 1:32.0 | Ewing came around to my house a couple of weeks ago. to push his body for those winds. |
| 1:33.0 | Ewen came around to my house a couple of weeks ago |
| 1:35.2 | and it was a beautiful summery day. |
| 1:38.2 | And he was a particular fan of a big sweary sign |
... |
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