Everyone wants to win, but there is a class of athlete who needs it, their emotional input is higher. Winning is everything. In that meeting, I thought: 'Wow! This is one driven girl!' That was the clincher.”
But check out another personality feature that Hunt and others discovered very soon afterwards, a trait that made them all stand back in amazement. Indeed, it was a trait that was probably definitive in ensuring that this outsider could find the back door into a team of world champions and earn immediate respect: in training, she had an extraordinary appetite for pushing herself to extremes of pain.
Hunt said that it was “worrying”, but only worrying as in “astonishing”.
Good for her for being skilled enough to compete in two very different sports--but this quote shows a lot of what disturbs me in high-end sports. Drive is not enough; an emotional need to defeat others is required. Also, a "worrying" appetite for pain. Reminds me of Tim Hilton writing about Beryl Burton that she essentially frosted her daughter for an entire year after the daughter won a race they were both in. Hilton said something about Burton only being able to relate to people if she had already defeated them. Maybe it's just the result of large amounts of money being invested in "amateur" sports--if you're going to spend millions to wave the flag, a return is expected, and if it takes broken people to get the return, so be it.
I remember her as just being a tough lady, I would often take her cycling after work before she moved to go to university, sometimes just a social ride but she was never one to moan when the speed increased. We would also often go mountain biking in a group, as is often the case we would not have a clue where we were when it was perhaps a bit too dark for comfort, I recall bombing along following her red light which suddenly disappeared, I skidded to a stop instinctively and peered over the top of a golf course bunker, she had landed face first, spitting blood she just got back on and carried on as if nothing had happened, a toughness that I am sure does no harm when it comes to achieving goals as a world class athlete.
I have to say she was extremely strong on the bike with a lovely smooth style, but I have seen that with many others time and time again, blessed with natural talent is one thing, fine tuning that into being the best you can is another, many just take what they have for granted and do nothing with it; she hasn’t, she realised she had a talent and has worked really hard to see just where this talent coupled with hard graft could take her.
I never noticed anything that back then related to her wanting to defeat others, she seemed to be someone who just seemed to want to get as good as she could and then see where that took her. I am still in contact with her and she never mentions her competitors, just the event itself and how she is always knackered from all the training
. I must add then when she calls into to see me she is the same Rebecca that I always knew, she is still a great girl and it comes accross when you see her interviewed, even if immediately after an event.
I for one will be screaming at the telly come Olympic final day that’s for sure.
Paul_Smith
