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This is the book review of UNBROKEN by Katerina Johnson Thompson. The review is done by Stuart Weir, the senior writer for Europe for RunBlogRun.
Unbroken, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, London: MacMillan, 2024
ISBN 9781035055173
Having seen KJT compete in four Olympics, seven World Championships (indoor and outdoor), two Commonwealth Games, and several European Championships, I am qualified to review her book! Her account of these events fascinated me, especially how she dealt with the three no–jump Beijing by hiding in a hotel room until the Games were over and never watching the footage again.
The book is a cut above the average sports autobiography and addresses several important issues, including the running tension to reconcile Kat the athlete with Kat the person. As she puts it, “The relationship between female athletes and their bodies is often a complex one”. She refers to balancing the need to lift weights with the worry that she was developing more muscles than the boys in her class and that “the muscles that were helping me to succeed on the track were stopping me from fitting in away from it”.
Her account of the 2012 Olympics is brilliant. It starts with her irritation at being invited to attend as a guest spectator, with a visit to the athlete village thrown in, while she was busting a gut every day to be there as an athlete. Her account includes the tension between the excitement of competing in the Games, dealing with the pressure, and her “introvert struggles.”
By 2013, the tension at her first World Champs was between being a “young athlete wanting to learn and have fun and being there to compete and the expectations on her”. By the time she got to the 2023 World Championships, she had achieved a better life/sport balance: “I wanted to succeed in athletics, and I still desperately wanted that gold medal in Budapest, but it wasn’t all or nothing anymore. It wouldn’t make me less of a person if it didn’t happen. I discovered who I was as a whole human, not just an athlete, which ultimately made me a stronger version of both.” Add, “what won it for me that day wasn’t my performance; it was my experience. It was knowing how to use everything I’ve been through to my advantage. It’s just about knowing how you handle yourself”.
After a good performance in the Rio Olympics – sixth – she refers to the crass British Olympic Association policy of having everyone fly home together but dividing them “into those who’d won medals and those who hadn’t; the first group were ushered left into business class while the rest of us turned right into economy to cry our eyes out and pine for the next time”.
She writes honestly about racism and explains how: “Throughout my life, I’ve always carried a feeling of being the only one like me in certain places. And it wasn’t really until my late 20s that I started to come into my own and feel confident enough to not care as much…but every so often I think back to the young girl and athlete I used to be -the one who was scared to stand out, embarrassed by her difference, desperate to blend in – and I can see how far I’ve come”.
Like many female athletes, she is critical of the Olympic team uniform provided. “One thing that definitely didn’t help was the kit. Those Olympic kits are basically sprayed on. I always have to take 2 sizes up, which automatically put you in a bad headspace at a time when you’re meant to feel at your best”.
Another critical issue she raises is about the mental side of sport: “I also know that there’s an important conversation to be had here because so many athletes still feel like they can’t talk about mental health, which blocks significant progress in that area. The silence around the subject scares me”.
An outstanding book.
