It's 20 years since British sprinter Dame Kelly Holmes struck double gold at the Athens Olympics. Winner of the 800m and 1500m titles at Athens 2004, self-confessed Olympics fanatic Holmes remains as excited as ever about the Paris Games.

Her Olympic love affair can be traced back a further two decades to 1984, when she was a schoolgirl living on a Kent council estate.

Holmes told CGTN: "When I was 14 I watched the Olympic Games in Los Angeles and a British athlete, Sebastian Coe, won the 1500 meters. It was that inspiration of seeing an athlete from your own nation standing on the rostrum, with the national anthem playing, the flag flying and a gold medal around their neck. I thought 'That's it, I want to be an Olympic champion.'"

It took the former All England Schools champion until she was 34 to achieve her Olympic dream, her double achievement making Holmes a household name in the UK and something of a national treasure ever since. 

"It was incredible," Holmes beamed, showing CGTN her medals. "It was 20 years of dreaming, with 12 years as a senior athlete spent trying. I'd been to two previous Olympic Games and won bronze. Athens was obviously a dream come true"

Holmes combined her journey to the top with a full-time career in the British Army as a heavy goods vehicle (HGV) driver and Physical Training instructor. She explained the difficulties behind an athlete's often lonely journey to the podium. 

"No-one sees behind the scenes," she told CGTN. "It's years and years of perfecting, maybe even to get one-tenth of a second faster, while keeping injury free and healthy."

 

Mental struggles

The middle-distance runner has become a public advocate of mental health awareness among athletes, having publicly revealed in 2005 that she suffered a breakdown the year before her Olympic triumph. Holmes admitted that after suffering a series of injuries she self-harmed with a pair of scissors in 2003 while struggling to cope with the pressure on her. 

"(As a world class athlete) you're not superhuman," she said. "As much as people can put you on a pedestal, there's a human element behind it. When you as an individual, for whatever reason, have this vision of such high performance coupled with the day-to-day struggles that might come into your life, it will always affect the mental side.

"Some athletes have a great journey where it's very positive because there's a sort of nice climb but mine was a rollercoaster ride."

Holmes believes that things have improved for current athletes. "A lot of sports have put in place a system and process to support the mental wellbeing and health of athletes. That is why we are getting far more incredible performances across the world, across sports because we're looking at the person as a human now, along with the ability to be a high performer."

Of the 32 sports included in Paris 2024, two are appearing in the Olympics for the first  time - breakdancing and kayak cross. Holmes thinks the Games' constant evolving is part of its appeal. 

She opined: "I'm interested in the fact that they bring so many new sports to the fore. Sometimes you question a sport and you go 'how is that Olympics?' But we're in a new era, and if it's inspiring a new generation to reach their full potential, then why not? The standard is going to have to be incredibly high – like breakdancing, for example."

READ MORE

Denmark's Mandarin-speaking badminton champ

Refugee team seeks first Olympic medal

Hungarian judo star fights for his sport

Holmes thinks Paris will be "an amazing Games" and has high hopes for several British athletes, with one in particular earning her admiration. "From a British perspective we have this young girl called Sky Brown who won a medal in Tokyo for skateboarding." Brown narrowly missed the cut to take part in a second sport - windsurfing - in French Polynesia which would have given her the rare distinction of competing in two sports in two continents at the same Games.

Fifty-four-year-old Holmes has high hopes for British track competitors. She said: "We're back in an era where athletics is becoming one of our premier sports again. I think this year we're going to see a huge amount of new (British) talent come through and a multitude of medals. 

"In my events, I was the last woman to win both gold in the 800 and 1500 at the same games. This year, we might have a chance of a gold in the 800, with a young girl called Keely Hodgkinson."

Holmes also believes men's middle distance runner Josh Kerr could win a medal. 

Her advice for any young athlete wishing to emulate her achievements, Holmes listed "dreams and passion" as the bedrock of sporting triumph. "You never get rid of those. When you formulate a dream and a passion, it's because you're probably good at that sport. Something in your mindset says you want to do it."

Resilience is also key. "There's many people that would love to have that in their life," she said. "If you are a standard where you can continue to get better and better, don't give up on yourself, because 'if only' is too late. You don't want to be sitting back one day watching somebody you competed against doing what you thought you could do because it's too late for that."

Interview conducted by Robyn Dwyer

Subscribe to Storyboard: A weekly newsletter bringing you the best of CGTN every Friday