Gail Emms

dinyull

http://www.themixedzone.co.uk/im-ashame ... truggling/

Loads of people giving her credit for coming out with this.

But can't help asking, why she hasn't been planning for "retirement"? Professional badminton can't pay too well.

And then there's this from just over a week ago and any sympathy quickly disappears:

https://twitter.com/TheQuincent/status/ ... 7909570561

dinyull

Also, can anyone confirm if she's an Olympic medallist....don't think she mention's it.

meanredspider

That I, Gail Emms, Olympic Silver Medallist, am a failure

fenix

There's more booze in that fridge than I have in a year I reckon. Is she doing a Wiggo ?

wallace_and_gromit

Fenix wrote:

There's more booze in that fridge than I have in a year I reckon. Is she doing a Wiggo ?

She's a bit short to be a rower!

She does sound a bit unrealistic. Most ex-Olympians simply get a normal job after retirement. There's very few make a living out of sport. Even coaching doesn't pay particularly well.

fenix

I meant what Wiggo did in his time off - he hit the pub hard ?

I've no idea of the demands of a pro Badminton player - but there must have been recovery time where she could have pondered the future and maybe got another qualification or something ?

dinyull

Wallace and Gromit wrote:

Fenix wrote:

There's more booze in that fridge than I have in a year I reckon. Is she doing a Wiggo ?

She's a bit short to be a rower!

She does sound a bit unrealistic. Most ex-Olympians simply get a normal job after retirement. There's very few make a living out of sport. Even coaching doesn't pay particularly well.

Just a tad.

I feel ashamed and it’s a massive dent in my pride to admit that an Olympic medallist is struggling. It’s not just the financial situation, it’s the mental battle I am facing at the moment. I am usually an optimistic person, but I do wonder if the powers-that-be at UK Sport realise that the athletes they rely on for the country’s feel-good factor can sink into this situation.

She seems to think it's UK Sport's responsibility to pay their bills. And she's also under the impression a Olympic medal actually counts for something in the real world.

The word entitled comes to mind.

A lot of Olympians will have to combine training/competition with a job too. And most sports "stars" are more than aware they have a shelf life and plan accordingly.

Ratel

I can only agree with the sentiments of unrealistic and entitled. My empathy bank is empty on this one. The story of the grasshopper and the ants comes to mind.

DeVlaeminck

I read it as her just saying she's struggling, not that it's all someone elses fault and the rest of us should fund her for the rest of her life. OK she briefly mentions help for athletes to transition from sport to real life but it isn't the main theme of the article.

Isn't it a good thing that people are able to say actually my life isn't where I thought it would be right now - the alcohol is neither here nor there - maybe she was having a party - presumably she took the photo because she thinks a fridge full of alcohol is unusual - she hasn't said she is destitute after all.

fenix

Oh. Her Olympic medal was in 2004. And her last Olympics 2008 after which she retired.

Sounds like she's done well to get to 2017 without having to find work ?

Tashman

I know she's a regular on things like R5's fighting talk. I don't imagine that's going to pay the bills regularly though.

I think she tried to carve herself as badminton's version of Sharon Davies but it obviously hasn't worked out as she intended. Never comes across as serious enough to become a "proper" sports journalist

capt_slog

DeVlaeminck wrote:

I read it as her just saying she's struggling, not that it's all someone elses fault and the rest of us should fund her for the rest of her life. OK she briefly mentions help for athletes to transition from sport to real life but it isn't the main theme of the article.

Isn't it a good thing that people are able to say actually my life isn't where I thought it would be right now - the alcohol is neither here nor there - maybe she was having a party - presumably she took the photo because she thinks a fridge full of alcohol is unusual - she hasn't said she is destitute after all.

but does say

"I cry a lot and do what I can to make the payment, sell stuff on eBay and hope there is enough work next month."

Now if I was having to sell on ebay to pay bills, you wouldn't find champagne in my fridge.

dinyull

DeVlaeminck wrote:

I read it as her just saying she's struggling, not that it's all someone elses fault and the rest of us should fund her for the rest of her life. OK she briefly mentions help for athletes to transition from sport to real life but it isn't the main theme of the article.

Isn't it a good thing that people are able to say actually my life isn't where I thought it would be right now - the alcohol is neither here nor there - maybe she was having a party - presumably she took the photo because she thinks a fridge full of alcohol is unusual - she hasn't said she is destitute after all.

She starts that first article saying she got letters from the bank about bills unpaid. And in another piece - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/badminton/40802004 - she's saying she can't afford £20 here and there for her kids.

Here's the twitter link to that pic - https://twitter.com/gailemms/status/889581835444998146 - re-stocked with expensive booze after drinking the last lot.

In that BBC piece she comes across entitled (to me, at least) as she's only driving around in a £500 fiesta. *edit. Also then the ending about working in Starbucks, like she's above that.

My original point was, why is she being praised for coming out and admitting she's struggling when she herself has pretty much admitted she did little to prevent it. Just don't understand the praise - if this was someone from an undesirable estate who was born into poverty they be looked down upon, but we're supposed to praise/sympathise her because she has a silver medal?

Ratel

Dinyull wrote:

My original point was, why is she being praised for coming out and admitting she's struggling when she herself has pretty much admitted she did little to prevent it. Just don't understand the praise - if this was someone from an undesirable estate who was born into poverty they be looked down upon, but we're supposed to praise/sympathise her because she has a silver medal?

I think it's the whole "she's so brave for opening up and admitting how hard she's finding it" thing that everyone is lapping up at the moment.

dinyull

Ratel wrote:

Dinyull wrote:

My original point was, why is she being praised for coming out and admitting she's struggling when she herself has pretty much admitted she did little to prevent it. Just don't understand the praise - if this was someone from an undesirable estate who was born into poverty they be looked down upon, but we're supposed to praise/sympathise her because she has a silver medal?

I think it's the whole "she's so brave for opening up and admitting how hard she's finding it" thing that everyone is lapping up at the moment.

Just like a decent % of the rest of the population then?

mouth

The sports science degree with her name on it is worth FAR more than my GNVQ and A/S level. If I was jacking in pro sport - one which doesn't really pay a prolific salary like cycling (admittedly the Wiggins's and Cav's aren't party to the norm) football, cricket or rugby or have the potential to attract massive endorsement deals (Bolt, for instance) I probably wouldn't have taken 9 years off work, kids or not. Yes, I feel sorry for her in a way, but her career could have ended unfortunately at any single moment during the 10 years she was at the top of her sport. I'd have had far more sympathy if she had to pack in at her prime, being left with nothing at that point.

The fridge full of booze seems to tie in with her birth date - perhaps she didn't buy any (or all) of it. it certainly isn't a normal fridge for a family with two kids. Even when I was an alcoholic, I had margarine.

trivial_poursuivant

I feel this is the down side of so many sports who's success has come from Lottery money etc. The sports men and women get funded to play full time and little thought is put into what happens next. Think of all the Olympic sports that we did well in in the last games and how many of them are what you would call blue riband events. Track cycling pays little unless the riders go on to race on the road and even then it's hardly pop star wages.

Pross

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

I feel this is the down side of so many sports who's success has come from Lottery money etc. The sports men and women get funded to play full time and little thought is put into what happens next. Think of all the Olympic sports that we did well in in the last games and how many of them are what you would call blue riband events. Track cycling pays little unless the riders go on to race on the road and even then it's hardly pop star wages.

This. You get people leaving school and going straight into funded sport and never really thinking what comes next. Whilst I wouldn't want elite sports people going back 20 odd years where they trained mornings and evenings around a full time job (those in less successful Olympic sports still do this) I do think there should be an onus put on those receiving funding to consider life outside the sport. We see plenty of examples of people thinking of it as a job and getting upset when their funding stops rather than realising they are being funded to train.

Unfortunately for Emms she missed that slot where she was fairly well known and could have potentially built a minor media career.

wallace_and_gromit

Fenix wrote:

I meant what Wiggo did in his time off - he hit the pub hard ?

I guessed that!

verylonglegs

Pross wrote:

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

I feel this is the down side of so many sports who's success has come from Lottery money etc. The sports men and women get funded to play full time and little thought is put into what happens next. Think of all the Olympic sports that we did well in in the last games and how many of them are what you would call blue riband events. Track cycling pays little unless the riders go on to race on the road and even then it's hardly pop star wages.

This. You get people leaving school and going straight into funded sport and never really thinking what comes next. Whilst I wouldn't want elite sports people going back 20 odd years where they trained mornings and evenings around a full time job (those in less successful Olympic sports still do this) I do think there should be an onus put on those receiving funding to consider life outside the sport. We see plenty of examples of people thinking of it as a job and getting upset when their funding stops rather than realising they are being funded to train.

Unfortunately for Emms she missed that slot where she was fairly well known and could have potentially built a minor media career.

Yeah this is what I thought when I saw the story, with centralised funding she was in a position where she didn't realise playing badmington is still pretty much a hobby and she just happened to be doing it full-time. I don't mean calling it a hobby in the sense of deriding it as a sport and her achievements just that outside the Olympics it's hardly ever heard of and in fact if wasn't an Olympic event we'd likely never hear of it, so there is no professional structure to allow people to support themselves as a career. Being she was one of a partnership though I wonder how he has faired since?

awavey

looks like a standard beer fridge to me, you keep food in the food fridge silly touch too much champagne for my tastes but dont see that its out of the ordinary in stock quantity personally.

I think shes just expressing the doubts,fears and experiences many retired ex sports people go through, maybe the top 1% go onto earn silly money sitting on a sofa for the BBC expressing punditry, the rest its tougher what do you do when youve concentrated your whole life upto that point into your sport, theres little money in coaching or personal training and you probably dont have many career options open to you. I dont think its unreasonable to ask UK Sport to effectively provide some kind of "demob" to prosports people theyve funded, its something some sports do consider I think in cricket and football given the number of players that end up never making it.

it is something thats changed though since lottery funded olympic medals produced their windfall, before 96, getting a medal even a silver, generally did make you a household name and probably a tv star in some aspect, nowadays even multiple gold winning medalists dont tend to get any rewards for it

cougie

I've never had a beer fridge but then again I've not got an Olympic medal either....

I'd be surprised if there's no resources there to transition into retirement from Team GB. There should be anyway.
She's been retired for eight years now and should have found something?

Ben6899

She could be the next Dr Who.

First.Aspect

I feel for her a bit, but she's been retired for a decade and entered the job market about the same age as me, give or take, but with a little fame thrown in. She hasn't managed to cut her cloth in the interim, and is upset because she can't break into the media fully.

Well, guess what, badminton is a minority sport. Kind of up there with whiff whaff. So on the one hand the Lord giveth - allowing you to the top of a relatively small mountain. But on the other hand the Lord taketh away, because the public only give a censored for 2 weeks every 4 years.

Personally, I had to give up my dream of being a race car driver, astronaut, pro footballer, pro cyclist and movie star. I had to get another job instead.

---

Some more context - I bought my single scull off a GB rower. World champ, Olympian I think. I don't know him personally, but he's in his mid-30s and last time I saw was retraining as a financial adviser. Guess, what, rowing doesn't pay 99.9% of the time. Its a minority sport. I've been given physio by an ex-Canadian Olympic sculler, and orthopaedic advice from an ex-England fly half (pre-professionalism). All these people realised they had a short shelf life and re-trained.

This woman needs to be less of a princess.

mouth

cougie wrote:

I've never had a beer fridge but then again I've not got an Olympic medal either....

I'd be surprised if there's no resources there to transition into retirement from Team GB. There should be anyway.
She's been retired for eight years now and should have found something?

I'd expect that door closes after a certain period of time. I'd also expect that certain period of time to be a lot less than 8 years. I might have had a little more sympathy if she'd been trying to enter the market after even only one or two years.

When my brother was in his early 20's he packed in professional sport (ice hockey - definitely at a minority level in this country back then, and still even now) there was nothing in terms of support, but the thing was he spent a good year or more doing things that he hadn't been able to do for so many years - even something as ordinary as a stag weekend or holiday with the lads was forsaken for his game. Stuff like going go-karting or riding a motorbike was ruled out under his contract and he openly admits he spent a good deal of time 'catching up' with his mates.

slowbike

cougie wrote:

I've never had a beer fridge but then again I've not got an Olympic medal either....

You don't need one to get the other ...

I had a beer fridge ... ok - shared it with some fruit & veg - but it was my beer fridge ... it's now our overflow fridge with a couple of beers in - seems mostly to have food in for Little Slowbike ... oh how the times change ..

DeVlaeminck

I just read it again to see what I've missed. I really don't get the criticism, to me it reads like an admission she's made mistakes, maybe been a bit naive and is now finding the work is drying up and ahe's facing the prospect of a minimum wage job and scraping by. Yes lots of people live like that but I doubt many of us would choose to at 40 years old. Maybe she is hoping someone will read it and offer her something - if so why not better than being proud and possibly missing the opportunity.

First.Aspect

DeVlaeminck wrote:

I just read it again to see what I've missed. I really don't get the criticism, to me it reads like an admission she's made mistakes, maybe been a bit naive and is now finding the work is drying up and ahe's facing the prospect of a minimum wage job and scraping by. Yes lots of people live like that but I doubt many of us would choose to at 40 years old. Maybe she is hoping someone will read it and offer her something - if so why not better than being proud and possibly missing the opportunity.

Or, is it an attempt to raise her profile?

On a human level I sympathise with mental health demons and career struggles, really I do. I think the annoyance she's invoked (at least for me) is that she comes over as feeling entitled. How come the bosses at UK Sport don't know how hard it is? How come employers don't realise how great I am?

Her problem is not that her CV reads "badminton for 10 years", because a lot of employers will realise that the dedication it takes to succeed in sport is a very transferable skill. What she conspicuously fails to acknowledge is that her CV unfortunately now has a 19 year gap, not a 10 year one. Any employer might now look at those further 9 years and question how well they've been used - i.e. its undermining the impression of dedication that her sporting achievements give.

Effectively, from an employer's perspective she is now trying to switch careers from a media career to a normal job. Well, how do you do change career Gail? You re-train completely, or you get up to date with your sports science and try to use that. Its hard when you are in your 30s or 40s, but that's just tough and lots of people have to do it.

Her article doesn't mention any such efforts, which may be why she's not getting a "normal" job.

So I suppose that her underlying message has some merit, but the tone hasn't really worked. Unfortunate if you want a career in the media.

By the way, it looks like a fridge with beer in it to me, not a beer fridge.

okgo

lol at that twitter page of hers. Living in a dream world, comes across a total pillock.

fenix

Dont see much wrong with her twitter page tbh ?

First.Aspect

okgo wrote:

lol at that twitter page of hers. Living in a dream world, comes across a total pillock.

Quite.

"I will reply to all the lovely messages I have received as I don't want to be like the rude people not replying to my emails and phone calls"

Let me edit this for you Gail.

"I will reply to all the lovely messages I have received as I have the time to do so, unlike the [i]don't want to be like the rude people not replying[/i] overworked employed people who do not have time or the resources to respond to my emails and phone calls or those of the other few hundred people who were also unsuccessful in applying for the position at their firm."

Does that fit within a [i]tw@t[/i] tweet?