Life after sport

On Wednesday 26th June, I was asked to join a focus group made up of an impressive panel of former elite female athletes at the offices of Ernst & Young in the city of London.

The point of the discussion was to help more elite women athletes become exceptional business leaders when they retire from sport. The aim was to gain a deeper understanding of what women athletes might need in terms of support as they begin or continue to make the transition from sport to the next phase of their careers.

Speaking from experience, transitioning from sport to ‘everyday’ life is not easy.

When the discipline and emotional ties of elite sport are removed, quite often athletes have very little idea of how to move forward and find it hard to cope.

This is a serious matter and one that should not be dismissed or over-looked.

I strongly believe that athletes should be made aware from a very early age that competing at elite level will only make up a small part of their lives. They need to keep their eyes and their ears open for opportunities that will help them in their life after sport. They need to plan for the future.

Perhaps National Sporting Bodies should help with this and assist the athlete in finding a worthwhile occupation on retirement from sport? Should it be their duty? Particularly if they have shaped and nurtured an athlete from a very young age and profited from his or her success.

More often than not, athletes live in a bubble. You are completely committed to your sport, to the exclusion of everything else and you tend not to look beyond an Olympic cycle. Nothing is more important. Sport is all-consuming.

Athletes can leave their sporting career with no money, unless they are the top ranked athletes from high profile sports or have personal means. They enter the working world much later than the average person with little or no work experience having dedicated themselves entirely to their sport for so many years.

This is a problem. Although I personally managed to get a University degree before the London Olympic cycle and gained some work experience in my ‘down-time’ after major Championships, I have a four year ‘gap’ in my CV where I trained full-time to qualify for the Olympic Games. In effect, an elite athlete will typically retire at the age of 30-34 and will have had no previous work-place experience.

Fencing has shaped me in countless ways. Elite athletes are self-starters and driven. They have all of the qualities needed to be successful in the workplace. They are, by nature, high achievers, team players, hard-working, committed, disciplined, ambitious, dedicated, organised, resilient, strong-minded, dependable, good motivators… I could go on and on.

All of these skills are transferrable to the workplace yet many employers see retired athletes as a risk, with no concrete work experience for someone of their age. An elite athlete seeking a career in business after the age of 30 does not typically fit in with company employee development plans. In a word, the athlete is considered to be too old at 30!

According to Ernst & Young, research shows a direct correlation between girls’ participation in sport and greater achievement in higher education and employment – so why aren’t more companies jumping at the chance to employ a former female elite athlete? Why aren’t more female athletes being identified and fast-tracked into the working world upon retirement?

I believe you can get an elite athlete firing in the corporate world in a very short period of time. The elite athlete is in a sense ready to go if you give them the right support and training and if it is something that they really want to do.

Businesses need to know that every year elite athletes will be leaving sport. They are going to be eminently employable but there is probably a large percentage who fall through the net.

I was lucky enough to find the Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust who have helped me enormously with my transition from elite competition to life after sport. More than that, their support has made me feel part of a team again. I cannot thank them enough.

This is why I was delighted to be invited to be part of a focus group in support of Ernst & Young’s Women Athletes Global Leadership. This same focus group was conducted in Rio and New York to make it a powerful global network.

Ernst & Young ‘get’ the qualities that a female elite athlete can bring to the workplace and they want to support them to thrive in business.

It was comforting for me to listen to the individual yet often similar experiences around the table. I think the network will be invaluable in highlighting the issues retiring athletes face and in helping more elite women athletes become exceptional leaders as they retire from sport.

What a fantastic initiative.

Let the Games begin! Thinking of all of the athletes

Can you believe that the countdown is almost over? It seems like we have been building up to this moment for so long. Finally, the Olympics have come to town and the eyes of the world are upon us.

I am certain that London will put on a great show. We are ready to show everyone what we are made of and this is an exciting period to live through. I wonder what spine-tingling, historic moments will come out of these Olympic games? All of the sports adverts and sporting documentaries that have been televised in the build up to the Games have been fantastic. They have managed to capture the real essence of what it’s like to be an elite level athlete at the top of their game. We’ve seen the relentlessness of training and competition, the raw passion, and the sheer grit and determination required to qualify for an Olympic Games. The expression blood, sweat and tears is no joke. Athletes have to be strong in every sense of the word.

The Olympic Games are the pinnacle of any athlete’s career and while the members of Team GB will be focused on performing to their best and reaching the podium, I hope that they will take a moment to savour the occasion. It is a once in a lifetime achievement and competing in front of a home crowd will be very special.

I have been thinking quite a lot recently too about the ‘other’ athletes who did not make the team for whatever reason. There must be hundreds of British athletes who, like me, were on the tip of qualification and missed out on the honour of going to a home Olympic Games.

Many people have asked me if I am excited about the Olympics and if I will be watching the fencing. The answer is yes, but I’d be lying if I said that it hasn’t been tough. Fencing and qualifying for the Olympic Games has literally been the centre of my existence since leaving university four years ago. The intensive training, travelling and competing had taken over my life, almost to the exclusion of everything else, which most people would consider to be a normal part of life. So the thought of watching the Games without being involved in them, is hard. There’s no doubt about that.

I have had some time now to reflect on missing out on the Team and what has kept me going is the knowledge that this experience has toughened me and ultimately, has made me a stronger person. I stood for something I believed in and pushed my body and mind to the limit in order to achieve my goal.

Sometimes you have to accept defeat, but it is how you react to that and move on from that which defines you as a person. Disappointment can allow you to reassess your priorities and your goals. It strengthens your character.

So while I’ll be cheering on our Great Britain Olympic team this summer, I’ll also be sparing a thought for all those ‘other’ athletes who nearly made it. Let’s enjoy it. We deserve it.

I am proud to be the official Fencing expert for the Guardian over the Olympic Games. Watch out for my fencing and Olympic related tweets on @CBennettGBR. I’ll also be commentating on Eurosport this Sunday 29th July.