My daughter will never be a cyclist.

I have always known the outside view of elite sport to be remarkably idealistic, and at complete odds with my own experience of it. I'd guess most athletes would agree it is not all sunshine and rainbows, as the media might have you believe. I’ve only recently, though, understood just how flawed the internal view of sport can be.

Cycling NZ - and many of those who held powerful positions over my career – constructed and encouraged a distorted version of reality where one’s worth was measured only in medals and world records. There was no attempt to restore any realistic perspective, to provide any meaningful guidance or tools to cope with the immense pressure of high-performance sport. There was no real regard for mental or emotional wellbeing. Mental illness was not only ignored, but considered a liability.  There was no acknowledgement, let alone encouragement, of goals and aspirations beyond the narrow confines of sport.

It is difficult to avoid being consumed by this chronic lack of perspective, and only a few years in the elite sporting environment can erode your sense of priorities. When performance is the only subject of any conversation, it soon becomes your only desire. All else is expendable; hobbies, interests, study, late nights, days off, holidays, friends, family. This is the only way to win, they say.

But, sooner or later, we stop performing, and our only aspiration – our only sense of purpose - is out of reach. And then, in our moment of greatest disappointment and worthlessness, we are discarded into the pile of ‘not-good-enough’. With no support, no guidance, no concern. Not their problem, they say.

With hindsight, I can recognise how impressionable we were at that age. I can also recognise how misguided, and irresponsible, many of the decisions made by Cycling NZ were – for example, choosing to send a highly influential female athlete suffering from a severe and blatant eating disorder as a mentor for a team of teenage girls - then weighing us every morning. It is unsurprising that several of us developed eating disorders over the following years.  

Throughout my cycling career, I was subjected to emotional manipulation, sabotage, sexual assault and psychological abuse at the hands of those who were presumed to support me. I have some fond memories, of course, though these are scattered between long, dark periods of inadequacy, hopelessness and disappointment. I sincerely hope that I was alone in this experience of the sport, but I am quite sure that I’m not. 

I left the sport more than six years ago, and have scarcely looked at my bike since. Now, it is merely a reminder of the grief and suffering I needlessly endured in an attempt to prove something - something I have since learned is of no tangible consequence to me or the rest of the world. Something that I became so hopelessly entangled within that I lost sight of who I was and who I wanted to be. Years of work wasted in one wrong move. Months of heartbreak over unjustified selection decisions. Anger, resentment and, worst of all, dependence. Dependence on a coach who abuses and exploits you. Dependence on an organization that actively ignores the wellbeing of its athletes. Dependence on a sponsor that uses support as leverage to control you. Dependence on your family to suffer the financial burden of your junior career. All for the chance to win that race.

This is the ugly, pernicious side of sport that no one wants to see, the side that is hidden behind the glamorous facade of Cycling NZ. The side that drives athletes into despondence and depression. 

So many of the tributes to Liv Podmore spoke of her talent and athletic abilities, attributes that don’t even cross my mind when I think about the person we’ve lost. I think of everything that she had before her, a life that she could have lived in whatever way she chose. A life filled with the little things that no one cares to read about in the papers, yet bring so much joy and fulfillment. A life that was lost because she was led to believe it was already over.

C.