British pole vault record-holder Holly Bradshaw realised a dream when winning bronze in Tokyo. Yet, nearing the end of her career, she now questions if it has all been worth it

Holly Bradshaws Olympic bronze medal from the Tokyo Games sits proudly on display in her lounge. Every time I look at it, I have a really warm feeling inside, she smiles. This sweetest of satisfaction radiates from an object that represents the pinnacle of what has been, to date, her lifes work.

The 32-year-old has been at the elite end of womens pole vaulting since she was a teenager and has, literally, raised the bar for the sport in her country. Returning home from Japan with that ever so precious piece of hand luggage two years ago was the realisation of a long-held ambition, reached through the most exhaustive of processes.

So, yes, when someone refers to her as an Olympic medallist, Bradshaw will happily grant herself that moment of inner joy. It gives the prize something which so few people will ever come close to winning, let alone possess an extra glow.

Look at it for too long, though, and the sheen starts to fade. A darker side to the achievement begins to seep out. Behind that medal also lies anguish.

There is the physical pain that has come with repeated injury battles, particularly those over the last two years that have prevented her from building on that bronze, but also a mental torment which, Bradshaw admits, worries her as retirement approaches.

In her entire adult life, the woman with an ability to turn her hand to just about any sport but found she truly excelled at reaching great heights, has known nothing but the life of a professional athlete. She has, she says, been shaped by the sport in many positive ways yet it has also left her feeling unsure of who she really is.

Is she Holly the athlete, the intense character who has restricted, recorded and analysed just about every aspect of her life over the past decade or so in relation to how it will affect her performance? Or is she actually still the carefree girl she remembers from before all of this, the youngster who was a bit ditzy, all over the show and happy-go-lucky?

With the end of her professional athlete life in sight all being well the finish line will come at what would be her fourth Games in Paris next year the Blackburn Harrier is in reflective mood when she sits down with AW.

After a particularly hard couple of years, and as she looks back at what has gone into landing that Olympic honour, words like trauma and damage start to appear in the conversation. Has it all been worth it? The conclusion she is beginning to reach is probably not.

If someone says to me: You are an Olympic bronze medallist it brings me the most joy but thats because intrinsically it means a lot to me, she says. But that doesnt negate all the other trauma thats come by trying to win it. I look at it and for 10 seconds Im so proud I did that and I do not regret the winning of it.

But then you think about the damage that its done and it then makes me question was that the right thing to do?

A keen and more than useful footballer and netball player as a youngster, Bradshaw had no qualms about giving athletics a go and, when it came to the pole vault, everything clicked. Within just a handful of months of her first forays into the discipline she had become part of a formal training group in Manchester, meeting five days a week. Her path was set.

Progress was rapid and it didnt take long for international opportunities to appear. There was a bronze medal at the World Junior Championships of 2010 before a first senior World Championships appearance in 2011. She had a clear and natural affinity with the event but with every leap forward Bradshaw found herself having to work harder in all manner of ways and adopting behaviours which have come with a price.

Im a good athlete but the way in which I won my [Olympic] medal was by being so meticulous, so organised, so on it in every single element of my life for 10 years, she says. That involved collecting sleep data, analysing my heart rate variability, weighing my food, weighing myself every morning. Okay, Im too heavy. I need to starve myself for three months. Id wake up in the middle of the night and Id have to neck a glass of water because I was so hungry but I was trying to drop weight.

I write down everything in every training session, I analyse everything and I dont go out, I dont drink, I dont eat bad food. Its not to say Ive not had any joy, but Ive done so many things that have constrained me and for so many years. I would describe it as living unhealthy behaviours for so long.

I think winning that bronze medal has damaged me physically and mentally. I just worry, have I damaged myself too much that I cant get back from that? And then I almost question is it really worth it, if Ive damaged myself for the rest of my life?

Winning that bronze medal has damaged me physically and mentally. I just worry, have I damaged myself too much that I cant get back from that?

The purpose of this interview is not for the British record-holder to play the card of poor me. She freely acknowledges that sport has brought her into contact with great people and given her extraordinary experiences. Yet while many on the outside perceive the pursuit of Olympic excellence to be a glamorous life, Bradshaw wants to point out that, for the majority of athletes, the reality is very different.

Though she has never been in it for the money, and despite the fact that she is in the top 10 of the all-time womens pole vault list, her sporting endeavours have not exactly seen the cash come flooding in. I changed accountants after Tokyo and he said: For an Olympic medallist, I cant believe how little you earn.

Thats not to say Bradshaw is on the breadline valued partnerships with current sponsors such as Mizuno and Homedics help see to that but what sticks in the throat is more the fact that the rewards dont quite tally with the toil, especially when financial opportunities seem so much greater in some of the track events in particular.

The public sees the big stadium appearances and the international travel. What they dont see are the numerous low-key meetings in random countries where appearance fees are low and competitors are put up in hotels where, at times, they literally have to share a bed with a fellow athlete they barely know, if at all. It can, as Bradshaw has found, be a challenging existence even more so when your body, the tool of your trade, starts to rebel.

I have been riddled with injuries, she says. Every time I bend down, my knees still hurt. Am I going to be able to play recreational sport after my career? Sport is in my blood. Im not just going to quit athletics and lie on the sofa. Ill always want to be active. I like to play badminton with my husband but I played it last year in my off-season and it flared up my Achilles.

Have I pushed myself too hard? Have I done too much damage? I had three hamstring tears last year on the same hamstring. Will that ever be the same? I have really pushed my body and stretched it.

Mentally, because I started when I was 18, the sport has shaped me. Throughout those years is where you learn a lot about yourself. You learn who you are, what you want to be and I think because athletics has told me what I need to be to win a medal, that has shaped me as a person. I was really ditzy, really all over the show, just happy-go-lucky and thats not me now.

I say to my husband: I dont know who I am. When I retire, who am I going to be? And that worries me a little bit. I even said to him: Youve only known me as Holly the athlete. What if Im a completely different person?.

Before I started pole vault, I was a person and I did other things, I liked other things. And I do like other things. I just worry how detrimental [sport] has been, changing me as a person and making me a certain way. Can I undo that and just go with the flow?

I say to my husband: I dont know who I am. When I retire, who am I going to be? Youve only known me as Holly the athlete. What if Im a completely different person?

The fast-track nature of Bradshaws rise to the top did not slow down when it came to her first Olympic appearance. Not only was it the Olympics, it was the London Olympics. Her year going into those Games could hardly have gone better.

In 2011, she had become the first British woman to jump 4.70m and then, in Olympic year, raised her record to 4.87m (its now 4.90m) and became one of the youngest ever pole vault medallists at the World Indoor Championships. In an Olympic environment when anyone in a British vest was roared to the rafters, ignorance proved to be bliss.

I was completely oblivious to how big the Olympics was, which is why, when I was dropped in it in London 2012, it was like an out of body experience, she says. It was just so overwhelming.

I remember being in that stadium, and even when Id just walk over to my coach, people would scream. From that, that was kind of what I thought about athletics. I thought: Okay, this is what its like to be a pro athlete and then it was just never like that ever again.

There is nothing wrong, of course, with the pursuit of Olympic ambition. The Games is held up as the greatest sporting show on earth, with athletics as the major draw to the whole circus, and with good reason.

Yet experience has taught Bradshaw you shouldnt always believe the hype. While being part of it all is undeniably an extraordinary achievement, remove some of the façade and the smoke and mirrors soon become much clearer.

I would say around 90 per cent of the Olympic team out there is scrambling to make a living, she says. Im lucky in that Im not one of them but what I find crazy about athletics is that its meant to be the pinnacle of Olympic sport and I think we are put on a pedestal and people see us out there, competing in front of 80,000 people and its glamourised.

But then, actually, a lot of the team out there are having to do other jobs just to get there.

I worry when I hear someone saying: Im putting everything into it, Im putting all my money into it. Im throwing everything at it. I just want to be an Olympian. I get it, but I dont think its worth it if youre having to stake so much on it.

To Bradshaw, theres a dangerous superficiality to it all. She has a Masters in Sports Psychology and, in 2021, co-authored an academic paper about having to deal with post-Olympic blues.

The Olympic experience is great, but when you strip it back, its so fickle and so extrinsic, she adds. The reason why everyone likes it is because its all sparkly and new. You go to this kitting out day when you are given three bags of kit, Aldi throw a load of food at you and you are made to feel really special.

Then you go to the Olympic village and there are vending machines all over the show where you can get free coke. You can get free McDonalds every day. As humans, we like new stuff, we like free stuff and that makes us feel good. I get swept away in it as well.

And then you come home, you sit down and you think: Ive just worked so hard for the last four years for this two-week experience and its just a load of freebies. For so many people I know, it was a massive anti-climax. I went back into reality and the Olympic experience is so far away from reality that youre like: Oh, thats made me feel like crap.

All of which adds further weight to that question of whether it has all been worth it. The further she steps back from it, Bradshaws sense of perspective continues to grow.

She has other concerns outside of the sporting sphere, too. The recent passing of her father and a desire to be closer to her family means she will now base herself in her native Lancashire for her Olympic preparations and split her time between there and her previous Loughborough HQ.

Another major change has been a parting of ways with Scott Simpson, by whom she had been coached for 12 years. Bradshaw is now overseeing her own training, helped by a small team which includes former British record-holder Kate Rooney.

I think when youre in it, you feel like its worth it, she adds of her Olympic journey. But Ive stepped away the past couple of months. I have perspective and I think Ill get even more perspective once I retire.

Once youre out of that athletics world, you realise how insignificant it is and how much it really doesnt matter. Thats not to say it doesnt matter to me, because winning the Olympic medal meant everything, but I put myself through so much hell, that I dont know whether it was worth it. Im really not sure.

In time, with processing it, Ill know a bit more, but deep down I think it probably wasnt worth it and that just really saddens me, because I think it should be worth it for the accolade it is.

These next few months will be about prioritising happiness and joy. Bradshaw admits she is starting from a particularly low point, having been relentlessly afflicted by those injury and health struggles which began not long after her big moment in Tokyo.

Immediately after I won my Olympic medal, I was like: Boom, Ive had the year of my life. Im just going to springboard on from this and Im going to go to the World Championships and Olympics and win multiple medals, she says.

But you know when youve got a big presentation, or youve got something big coming up, and its building and building and then it happens and then everything just goes and then youre sick straight away because the release of stress? I would say that happened to me but on a macro level.

Glandular fever, Achilles issues, three wisdom tooth infections, the aforementioned three hamstring tears, a shoulder injection and breaking a bone in her back during a weights session in the gym followed.

Its just been a string of disaster after disaster. If I could go back, I would take the whole year off after the Olympics. I just think my body was like: Enoughs enough.

Deep down I think it probably wasnt worth it and that just really saddens me, because I think it should be worth it for the accolade it is

When Bradshaw considers her next chapter, its the simple things which excite her. Whether its her plan to have children, surrounding herself with family, her visions of having friends over for Saturday morning workouts in her garage gym or pursuing her love of coffee dont be surprised if you find her serving premium roast from a van at a Lancashire sports field in the not too distant future these are the places from which she can see happiness arriving.

So, given everything that has happened, why not enjoy those things now? For one thing, Bradshaw is adamant that, with a fair wind, she is capable of another podium performance. The other is that she cant leave things this way.

In the last six months in particular, Ive been so unhappy, she says. There have been so many times when Ive thought: Why am I doing this? And the only reason Im doing it is because its what I do.

Im Holly Bradshaw, Im a pole vaulter, I get up, I go and train, I go and pole vault. Im not doing it because I love it. Im just doing it because its what I do, and thats not a good reason.

But whilst Im in this negative spiral, Im just doing whatever I can to keep going because I know, deep down, I want to go to Paris. I want to give it one more shot because I cannot end my career feeling like I feel now. I dont want to feel bitter.

Ive had an amazing career. I dont want to look back on it and be like: I hate athletics. I hate the sport. Its made me a horrible person. I just want to end on a high.