Kelly Holmes

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 1 January 2006

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway is the athlete Dame Kelly Holmes. Kelly Holmes was the heroine of the Athens Olympics. She achieved her lifetime's ambition when, at the age of 34, she won gold medals in the 800 and 1500 metres.

As a teenager she witnessed Sebastian Coe's Olympic success in 1984 and that was the inspiration behind her own career in athletics. Early on her trainers recognised she had the natural talent - and determination - to succeed. But her career has been blighted by injury - she bowed out of the 1996 Olympics due to injury; won a bronze medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics despite considerable physical pain; and several times had appeared close to the end of her career as a result of a series of health problems.

Now retired from athletics, she says she wants to inspire other schoolchildren to take up sport - and make sure that the whole of Britain feels the Olympic spirit by the time it comes to host the games in 2012.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: If I Ain't Got You by Alicia Keys Book: A Set of Encyclopaedias Luxury: Large supply of chocolate

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello I'm Kirstie Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2006, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is an athlete, she was the British Heroin of the Athens Olympics in 2004
0:35.5	and finally retired from competitive running just before Christmas.
0:39.2	Her great achievement, two gold medals for the 800 and 1500,500 meters crowned a career that's seen
0:44.7	her overcome many personal and professional problems. She had a difficult childhood
0:49.4	and has had a string of physical injuries, but despite the setbacks, she's always worked hard at
0:54.8	being fit and keeping alive the dream of winning Olympic gold. Her resilience
1:00.0	itself has brought her happiness. I've achieved everything I wanted in my life,
1:04.4	she said on announcing her retirement and I want to make the most of it from now on.
1:08.4	She is of course Kelly Holmes. Kelly you were 34 when you finally achieved that dream. You would
1:14.3	been injured in Atlanta in 96. You got bronze in Sydney in 2000. Athens really was
1:20.6	the last chance, wasn't it? Yeah, definitely it was and you never know when you're going
1:25.2	to each Olympic Games that you've got another one to come because they're four years apart.
1:28.6	Sydney I was 30 years old you know and I thought God that was going to be my last chance but to actually
1:33.7	get to Athens and be the age I was but to realize my dream well actually surpass my
1:40.1	dream well absolutely win the double yeah exactly I Well, how long had you had that ambition? I mean, how old were you when you first
1:47.7	looked in the mirror and thought, you know, I want to win an Olympic gold? I was 14. I was 14 when I thought to myself that I want to be Olympic
1:54.7	champion and that was after watching SEPCO at the 84 Olympics and I just
2:00.6	really figured that I wanted to achieve something I just
2:05.0	from there, I figured that I wanted to achieve something in my life and I wanted to be a Olympic champion
2:07.0	and it was just from there.
	...

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