QUANSAH Celia

General
ATHLETICS TO RUGBY
She enjoys the team camaraderie of rugby after competing in athletics at national level from 2011 and 2016. She specialised in heptathlon with long jump being her strongest discipline. "You are training with your competitors and, as much as they might be your friends, you have that feeling of, 'I want to be better than you', which is natural, but I really like how everyone has your back in rugby. Athletics can have mind games. I have genuine friends like Morgan Lake even though I was competing against her but with others I don't speak to them much at all anymore. Rugby has a completely different vibe. I also really struggled with body image in athletics because you are weighed all the time and I have always been heavier. In rugby there is a different mindset because there is a position for everybody. Athletics is a savage world because you either make the times or you don't." (telegraph.co.uk, 31 Jan 2020; thepowerof10.info, 25 Feb 2012)

OTHER ACTIVITIES
After the England sevens rugby team had their contracts terminated in 2020, she sought employment outside of rugby. "It's what the athletes before us had to do and they worked so hard to put us in the position that we were in so that we could be full-time professionals. I'm doing a bit of support work for a girl with special needs [speaking in 2020]. It's something I have done in the past so I have that a couple of days a week and I really enjoy it. I'm also completing my personal training qualification. I'm hoping to do that alongside playing and training. I also saw some illustrations online and tried doing the style myself. I posted some online and people asked if I was selling them so I've started a small business. I'm just getting a bit of money in so I can keep training as full time as I can." She has also worked as a model. (Instagram profile, 15 May 2021; newschainonline.com, 07 Oct 2020; scribd.com, 04 Aug 2020)

PARTNER AS A TEAMMATE
Her and partner Megan Jones hope that their relationship can contribute to the normalisation of same-sex relationships in sport. The pair have both played for England together in rugby sevens and in rugby union [15-a-side] for English Premier 15s club Wasps. "It should be spoken about and it shouldn't be something that is taboo. To be honest I am lucky, I never really struggled with coming out. When we first got together I knew there were other couples in other teams but I did wonder, 'Would the coaches mind?'" She feels it is easier to be "out" in rugby compared to athletics. "It [athletics] is quite a sassy, glamorous sport. It [coming out] wasn't as normal as it would be if I had played rugby. My family hadn't really been around it. I was hesitant, I knew my family wouldn't mind but I had been in a longish relationship with a boy. I knew it was going to be shock rather than issues with me being gay. I just brought home my girlfriend at the time and they got the gist of it. Meg and I are now living with my parents and they love her." (telegraph.co.uk, 31 Jan 2021)