Colin Lynch

You Never Fail

By InnerVoice

December 14^th, 2018

My Battle with depression

The downside of sport is that while it can bring you great highs, it can also bring you tremendous lows. As athletes we are taught to be strong, to fight, to have a killer instinct, and to never give up. We portray this facade to the world when we race because that is what the world wants to see. And as a Paralympic athlete, you are constantly held up to the world as a shining example of how someone can overcome a disability and rise above any and all barriers. The public is so used to seeing the ‘inspirational’ side of me as an athlete – the photos of me on a podium, wearing a medal, or the glamour shots of me riding my bike with my artificial leg. But they never get to see the dark side of my life and the real struggles that I have to overcome.

Riding a bike with one leg is easy compared to the mental battles I face on a daily basis.

The world never gets to see me when I can’t get out of bed because I feel so down. They don’t see me when I’m rolling around on the floor in agony from the pain I have in my stump. They don’t see me when I am struggling to leave the house and face the world because I feel paralysed by low self-esteem.

As an athlete representing my country, I feel a greater sense of responsibility and duty to perform well. There is that real sense of ‘the weight of a nation’ on your shoulders when you are in your national colours. After particularly bad races or performances, I feel like I have let myself, my coaches and my country down – especially after they have invested so much time and energy into helping me be my best. Mentally, this last year has been the hardest for me. Two devastatingly poor performances in World Championship events have effectively left me out of a job next year. I tried as hard as I could to get a result in the last Worlds, but it didn’t go my way. Like many people facing the loss of a job or life-altering circumstances, I was overwhelmed with fear and dread.

The day after racing ended I had a two-day solo drive home from Italy. I was so down and embarrassed about my races that I didn’t even say goodbye to my teammates or coach before I left – I just drove off. I felt so low on that trip home. Every bridge I drove across I found myself wondering if it was high enough. That is to say: would someone actually die if they jumped from that height? Was I genuinely considering jumping? No. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t put my girlfriend through it. That might have been the only thing stopping me from pulling the car over, though. People might read that and think I’m weak. Maybe I am. Maybe I want the easy way out. On the other hand, I want to think that I have decided to fight on and try to right the ship. I genuinely WANT to be an inspiration – it’s just hard to feel that way sometimes when you feel so low.

I have sometimes tried to share this struggle with others. I have said things like “I’m in a really dark place,” but no one has ever really clued into what I was trying to say. It’s not easy to come out and reveal a weakness – not as a man, and not as an athlete.

Even as I say these things now, I fear how my teammates, friends, family, and coaches will view me, which is probably the main reason I keep it to myself as much as I do.

I think I’ve always suffered from mild depression. I’ve never wanted to admit it or address it properly, but the signs have always been there. In some ways, sport has helped me deal with the depression. Riding a bike almost always lifts my mood and helps me forget about most of the other stuff going on in my life. Bad moments in life and sport are fleeting. Depression is forever, but can be dealt with. It will always be a daily battle to overcome the demons and low points, but I just want to keep pushing forward.

It’s interesting because as a Paralympic athlete, I am always being looked up to as inspirational. And while I am sometimes uncomfortable with this – if people can gain some form of inspiration from me and what I love doing, then I am okay with it. Whenever I give a talk to a group of people, one of the key messages I try and share is ‘You never fail. You either win, or you learn from your mistakes’. It’s a powerful message that helps people stop seeing themselves as a failure if things don’t go well for them in their lives.

The price I'm willing to pay

As an elite athlete, I have access to sports psychology. It’s there to help drive me on – to get me in the right frame of mind to train and race hard; to fire up that ‘killer instinct’ on race days and get the most of myself when it counts. But I think it completely overlooks the other 99% of my life that to me, is just as important. I have lost my sports funding for next year and am facing the possibility of having to transition back to ‘real life’ a little sooner than expected. But I’m hoping that many of the things that have made me a good rider will make me successful back in the real world – the desire to win, competitiveness, planning, being analytical, attention-to-detail and the ability to learn from both my success and failures.

As a Paralympian, there are no lucrative contracts or sponsorship deals to be had. I have been fortunate to have some great product sponsors over the years to lessen the costs of buying some necessary equipment, but that doesn’t help with the day-to-day living costs. The Sports Council in Ireland help with individual funding every year, but it’s a somewhat flawed system mainly based on your results in World Championship races. If you have a bad year or race (like I did in 2018), you can find yourself with nothing and no source of funding for the following year, despite still being a legitimate medal chance.

This is where I am now. The desire and desperation to carry on and prove myself is so strong that I have resorted to putting almost all my equipment up for sale. Everything except the two bikes I need to train and race on is up for sale. I even put my Paralympic medal up for sale on eBay (with a VERY high price tag) on the off-chance that someone would buy it. Most people I know freaked out when they heard that – how could I sell something so cherished? The answer is simple: the memory and actual achievement of winning the medal will never leave me. The physical chunk of metal is irrelevant to that. If selling it gives me a shot at winning another one, then it’s a price I’m willing to pay. I don’t actually expect anyone to buy it, but you never know.

“Growing up, I wanted to be a lawyer. I liked the idea of being able to argue for a living. However, in university, I got introduced to my artistic side – and ended up pursuing a career in graphic design and advertising.”

Stop Feeling sorry for myself

Losing my leg when I was 20 has been the defining moment of my life.

I have never been okay with it, and being an amputee has always made me feel less than other people. Certainly, things could be worse, but for me and my life it’s been a constant struggle. Despite all my successes on the bike, it feeds my low-self esteem issues. I know other people don’t see me any differently, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Perhaps, to some degree, the need to prove I have some worth has driven me on to successes in my sporting life.

Someone who has really made an impact on me is my former teammate, Mark Rohan. Mark had a motorcycle accident and ended up in a wheelchair. He went on to become a multiple World and Paralympic champion in hand cycling. Through all his struggles, he has always been a positive person and great to be around. I was his roommate when he won his first world title and it really inspired me and drove me on. A year later we both won. Another is Kristina Vogel — a multiple world champion on the track who recently suffered a horror crash whilst training and is now in a wheelchair for life. But her attitude towards the whole situation has made me sit up and stop feeling sorry for myself. Just listening to her has made me want to be a better person.

And even though, strictly speaking, she doesn’t ‘inspire’ me, my girlfriend Susan is a driving force in my life. She is always there for me and supports what I do. I am away training and racing a lot and she has given me the freedom and support I need to allow me to be my best.

A True Champion

Training for cycling is often a very lonely endeavour. I spend the majority of my time training by myself. It’s easier to get through the specific work you need to do when you can ride your own pace and just focus on the job at hand. At times I get the chance to train with another Paralympic rider, Josef Metalka, which is good for me as he is far stronger than I am, so it pushes me to be work harder and be better. On occasion, I get the chance to go away to training camp with the rest of the national team. It’s always good to see everyone, and we are a tight unit, which makes it a lot easier for when we go away to race together.

If I’m struggling in training, sometimes I just pack it in. Not every ride or session has to count or be ‘the best’. You have to listen to your body sometimes. It’s okay just to reset and try to do better the next day. I try and be analytical about situations. I try and put things into perspective and remind myself that it’s okay and that I don’t always have to be a winner. Being a true champion is sometimes about how you act when things aren’t going your way, as much as when they are.

Racing is a different story. It’s a mental battle. My body wants to quit, and I have to convince myself to push through it. I usually tell myself I don’t want to be a failure. If I stop pushing or give up, I will be a failure.

It’s amazing how much fear of failure can push you past your limits.

That Elusive gold

I’m in limbo at the moment. I have no funding to train and race in 2019, so I’m not sure how long I can carry on. The first important race coming up is in Manchester in January 2019, followed by the Paracycling Track World Championships in March. If I can secure enough funds, I’ll be targeting those two races to try and prove I still have what it takes to carry on and try to qualify for Tokyo. It’s hard because I know U have what it takes (and my training sessions are backing up that belief), but I now have to get other people to buy into this belief as well.

I’ve set up a crowd-funding page to try and raise funds towards my Tokyo qualification, but I hate asking people for support. Sport is a tough undertaking, especially when you are a disabled athlete as there are limited funds available. We don’t get professional contracts, big sponsorship deals and 8 years of doing this has left me with precisely zero savings and a fair amount of growing debt. It’s been a labour of love, so I don’t complain, but I’m now in the position of having to go ask the public for help, or just face giving up.

If I do manage to find the funds and the talent to carry on for the next 2 years, I have 2 main goals: to win the World Championships one more time, and to go to Tokyo… and win that elusive gold medal.