WOODS Kimberley

General
MENTAL HEALTH STRUGGLES
In 2020 she revealed that she has struggled with mental health problems during her career. Her problems came to a head after her 2016 knee injury and operation when she began self-harming due to depression. "Looking back you can probably track it to my childhood and being bullied, which led to low self-esteem and down the road depression and self-harming. It was a cycle, where I had paddling as my escape so when it was going well everything was fine, but if I had an injury and was left alone 24/7 then all of the emotions I'd bottled up would come out and it'd leave me very vulnerable." With the help of her coach Craig Morris she began therapy. "If he [Morris] hadn't sat me down and helped me open up I don't know where I'd be - certainly not heading to the Olympics. Being open and honest is the best thing you can do. Escaping through sport isn't sustainable and, for me, until I addressed that it was just masking the emotions I was experiencing. Traditionally there's been a bit of a taboo around mental health, but things are changing and talking your problems through can really change your life for the better." (bbc.co.uk, 16 Aug 2020)

FLAT WATER IMPROVEMENTS
She said that the postponement of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo afforded her more time to work on her flat water skills. "Although the postponement of Tokyo 2020 was quite a shock at the time, I am looking at it as an opportunity to put in another year of hard work to continue to improve my physical condition. I was on track to be in the shape of my life for Tokyo 2020. However, as an athlete, you know that you can always be faster and stronger and there are always tweaks I can make to improve my paddling even further. I will use the extra time we have to focus on my flat water training, which will make the biggest difference for me and my performance next year [2021]." (jaffa.co.uk, 24 Aug 2020)

FEMALE ROLE MODEL
She hopes the inclusion of the women's C1 event at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo will inspire more young girls to pursue the sport. "It just gives more range and more opportunities for the young girls to reach their Olympic dreams. To have equal opportunity for our sport is important, but it's also quite sad that they had to get rid of C2 men. When I was growing up, I was always conscious that there were relatively few other girls taking part in as many sports as me. I also would have liked to have seen more female role models in sport as I was growing up. Today there are lots of incredible female athletes competing across the whole spectrum of sport. A lot of work has been done to improve female engagement in sport and we are starting to see the results of that, but there is always more work that can and should be done." (jaffa.co.uk, 24 Aug 2020; nytimes.com, 20 Jun 2017)