KAY Emily

General
REPRESENTING IRELAND
Born and raised in England, she represented Great Britain until 2019, when she chose to switch to competing for Ireland, where her grandfather was born. "I was born in the UK, and that's where I grew up but my family are Irish and live out there. I'm proud of my heritage and where I have come from. It's different from competing for Great Britain but I feel immense pride. I love wearing the jersey and representing Ireland and I love the team." (silverhatchsports.com, 01 Jan 2021)

CONSIDERING QUITTING
She says she almost quit the sport after being dropped from the Great Britain squad. "Losing my place was really tough. I was in a really, really bad place. I was quite lost and didn't know what I wanted to do next, or even if I had any skills to do anything else. It was a really confusing time and not something I had really prepared for. I thought, 'That's it, I'm going into the Air Force to be a PTI [physical training instructor]'. I really rushed it. It was actually my performance lifestyle advisor at British Cycling who said he didn't think I was okay at that moment and he felt I needed to take a bit of time to reflect. So I followed his advice, put my career on hold, and took a bit of time to work on myself and make sure I was okay before I made a decision. I actually took three months completely off the bike and worked really hard on myself and what I wanted out of life." (academy.thegearchanger.com, 22 Apr 2020)

EATING DISORDER
In 2021, she said she was proud of having overcome an eating disorder, which she had struggled with for over 10 years. "Sometimes we need to stop for a moment and look how far we've come. [I'm] nearly two years eating disorder free and I couldn't be prouder of myself. For so many years I couldn't see a life past food and weight plaguing every second of my life for 10 years, but I did it. I now eat to fuel my body, eat to perform, eat to socialise with my friends and family, eat to be happy. My body is my strength and asking for help and accepting that what I was doing was hurting my body was the best thing I ever did. I thought by restricting my body of food and trying to lose weight it would take me closer to my dreams when in reality it made them impossible. I hope by speaking about this it may in some way help someone who may be struggling too, because there is so much more to life and being happy is one them." (Instagram profile, 24 Jun 2021)