Image source, Getty Images
Not enough to win Olympic gold in one sport? Try another…
- author, Tyron Smith
- role, Senior reporter for BBC Sport Scotland
What did Beth Potter learn from her first Olympic experience? That she wasn’t good enough to win a medal in track and field.
So what did she do? She moved to a new city, took up a different sport, associated with the best athletes in that sport and decided to try and make it to the podium instead.
The 31-year-old may not have had success yet, but she will go into this summer’s Paris Olympics as world and European champion in the women’s triathlon.
It’s not only a testament to her determination, tenacity and competitive spirit, but also a major turnaround from Rio eight years ago.
At that meet, Potter completed the 10,000 metres despite suffering from gastroenteritis the night before.
The Glasgow native finished in 34th place and, according to her sister Sarah, feels “embarrassed” and “humiliated” by the result.
“It was tough to watch,” she told BBC Sport. “I was so proud because I knew she was suffering so much. And the time she put in I thought, ‘Oh my God, wow’.”
“After that race, her confidence felt like it was shattered, but I don’t think she would have ever made the decision to try triathlon if she hadn’t run that race.”
Potter has always enjoyed a challenge.
As a child, she played a variety of sports, including obstacle courses with her sister and cousins in her grandpa’s yard and soccer with the boys on the playground.
“She came home and said, ‘Yes, I was second to last today,'” her father, Alex, said, “But she worked hard on Keepy Up and got into the 100s.
“You can get Beth to do virtually anything if you tell her you’re going to time her actions and compare them to her previous actions.”
“If you’re running up and down the stairs, she’ll want to race you,” adds Sarah.
“Or if you’re walking down the street and she sees you taking even a few steps ahead, she’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, the race is on,’ and she starts sprinting.”
Potter was very competitive and any misbehaviour meant he would miss scheduled sports training as punishment.
At that time I was mainly swimming.
Potter broke her leg when she was nine and feared she would lose strength while recovering, but she later got back into the pool training.
It wasn’t until she was about to start middle school that running became a part of her life.
“All the primary schools in Bearsden had a race around Kilmardinny Lake,” Alex recalls, “It was a two lap race and Beth won by a large margin, breaking a record that stood for 15 years.
“Then Beth nearly choked on a fly that she had swallowed, and someone came up to me and asked, ‘Does she run?’ and I said, ‘No, she swims.’ And they said, ‘You should put her in a running club, because that would be amazing.’ And it just grew from there.”
Image source, Getty Images
Potter quickly broke future Olympic bronze medallist Yvonne Murray’s Scottish Schools record in the 1500m before moving up to the 10,000m.
She studied Physics at Loughborough University before furthering her education in athletics and outside of athletics before moving to London to study teacher training.
It was at St. Mary’s University that she met Michael Woods.
The highly-acclaimed athletics coach remembers Potter beating several English runners to win a schools cross-country race in Scotland in 2008.
“I was encouraging the players to get her,” he recalled. “I was saying things like, ‘Get her, she’s dead.'”
“Beth told me years later that she had been encouraged by hearing my story.”
Under Woods’ tutelage, physics teacher Potter competed at his home country’s 2014 Commonwealth Games before competing at the Rio Olympics.
“She left the tournament feeling very disappointed,” he said. “She said she’ll never be able to medal in the 5,000m or 10,000m because of the Africans, and she’s considering switching to triathlon.”
“We went there to watch a triathlon and that was a bit of an inspiration. Beth had raced against Non Stanford in the past as an athlete and seeing her come fourth I think that made Beth think she could do it too.”
Image source, Getty Images
But when it comes to changing the sport at an elite level, where do you start?
For Potter, it meant moving to Leeds to train with two-time Olympic gold medallist Alistair Brownlee and his brother Jonny, who won medals of every colour in London, Rio and Tokyo.
The Scottish girl stayed with Jonny for a while, teaching part-time at a secondary school and training harder than ever before.
“It’s absolutely amazing how far she’s come,” Allister told BBC Sport.
“I was really impressed with her dedication. She was training 20-30 hours a week for three sports whilst continuing to work. She was a novice in the sports she was involved in and could have been a bit intimidating to those around her.”
“But one thing is for sure about Beth: she is very determined.”
Nowhere was this more evident than in her approach to mastering the cycling discipline of triathlon.
While running and swimming came naturally to Potter, road biking was a mystery to him.
“There are a lot of stories on social media that Beth didn’t have a bike as a child but that’s not true,” her father Alex said. “She rode bikes but never owned a road bike.
“But she’s very driven, so if you suggest anything that would interfere with her training, it’s a struggle. Once she starts something, she’s all in.”
“You can’t be average on a bike, you have to be one of the better bikers,” Brownlee added, “so it’s really amazing that she’s made it this far.”
“She’s won a lot of races over the last few years and if she wins in Paris she could become an Olympic gold medalist.”
