HOSKIN Alicia

General
HEART SURGERY
In 2017 she was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which is a rare heart condition that is present at birth. She underwent surgery and was given the all clear to get back in a boat three weeks later and returned to racing four months later. "I still remember sitting in the changing rooms at the Poverty Bay Kayak Club when my dad called saying that I needed to stop kayaking and that the results weren't good. I think I just hung up on him and burst into tears as I wasn't expecting any of that sort of news. It was a lot for a 17-year-old to take in as I'd dreamed of being a top athlete for so long. Obviously I wasn't very fast at all after the surgery, which was also quite sad because part of my brain just thought that I would go back to being as fast as I was before everything happened. But it took a lot of time and a lot of crying on the river to slowly get back to where I was. One of the cardiologists was also quite inspiring. He told me about a young American runner who had had the same procedure and, a few years later, was on the national team again. That's what gave me the hope and I realised that, if I followed the guidelines to recovery, then eventually I'd be able to get back." (rnz.co.nz, 13 Aug 2020)