28 minutes ago
image source, Getty Images
image description,
McMurtry rowed for Great Britain at various levels for more than a decade
Caragh McMurtry loves rowing.
“You have to step away from the bench and leave your problems behind,” she says.
“When the boat sings, it just feels right. It’s such a satisfying feeling to be connected, to be in tune with your core and bend the blade – it feels almost effortless.”
Caragh McMurtry hates rowing.
“I can’t fully imagine how traumatic many times were on the team,” she says.
“That feeling of being so alone and isolated – that I'm doing everything I can to make things right and yet I'm still misunderstood and basically mistreated. It’s terrible.”
Rowing has brought McMurtry great joy and crushing sadness. It took her to the sport's biggest stage and into her innermost being.
She doesn't really know how to think about rowing. But she knows she doesn't want another athlete to suffer the pain that comes with the joy of sports.
image source, Getty Images
image description,
McMurtry, second from left, won silver in the women's four at the 2009 Junior World Championships
Looking back, McMurtry can see the signs.
As a teenager, she felt isolated from others. She joked around and joined in the exuberant dances, but she was always one step removed emotionally; like it was a role she had to play.
“You speak through actions rather than words – that’s how you gain respect,” she says.
“You do something and don’t just exist. There is a common purpose, there is a purpose to being together – there was so much about the sport that affected the way my brain worked and it allowed me to socialize in useful ways.”
McMurtry signed up for as many extracurricular clubs as she could. Gymnastics was initially her favorite activity. She loved doing somersaults in the park or walking on her hands. But one summer she came back and found that something had changed.
“The squeaking sound of feet on the floor, the echo and lights on the floor were so overwhelming. I just couldn’t do it anymore,” she says.
She discovered rowing when a local club in Southampton brought some stationary rowing machines to her secondary school. The mix of close harmony but completely individual collaboration suited McMurtry.
“Rowing is a sport where you can be an individual within a larger team – you are responsible for your part of the equation, but still part of the whole,” she says.
“It’s very number-based, it’s very methodical, it’s very rhythmic – everything is broken down into neat sections.”
McMurtry quickly checked off those boxes. As a 17-year-old, she was part of the British foursome that won silver at the 2009 Junior World Championships.
Rowing worked well for McMurtry and McMurtry worked well for British Rowing. Her talent didn't come from the usual sources.
McMurtry grew up in a council estate. Their home clubhouse was neither attached to a private school nor located in a leafy suburb of London. Instead she rowed for Coalporters in Southampton – a club founded by workers who deliver coke to ships and are more used to racing in choppy coastal waters than pristine boating lakes.
She was a figurehead in attempts to make the sport more attractive. But when McMurtry moved to the British team, he found it difficult to fit in.
“I was the only public school kid at these Junior World Championships and I felt it,” she says.
“The jokes, the things people would say, what they would assume you knew and what you didn’t know.
“I was so disgusted with myself when I left – I felt fat, worthless and stupid.”
However, some of it was considered medicinal.
In 2014, McMurtry was diagnosed with bipolar disorder as her mental health deteriorated and frustration with the situation in Britain increased – a condition characterized by fluctuations between extreme emotional highs and bouts of depression.
She was banned from lithium, lamotrigine and quetiapine, a potent mix of antipsychotic and mood-stabilizing medications.
“This drug poisoned me,” McMurtry says.
“It sounds exaggerated, but it’s not. There are photos of me that make us cry; my skin is very pale, my hair is falling out, my nails are splintering. I gained 8 kg because of lithium.” does with you.
“However, quetiapine is the most effective. If I took it the night before and drove to training the next morning, I would feel like I was driving into a bush. The world would spin.”
McMurtry spent five years on medication; She trained hard, felt poorly and struggled for selection before a new performance director – Brendan Purcell – re-examined her diagnosis.
He sent her to the newly established British Sports Mental Health Expert Panel. Their conclusion was radically different. McMurtry did not have bipolar disorder. She didn't need the pills and their side effects.
Instead, she was, is and always has been autistic. Her brain didn't need to be fixed or tweaked, it just needed to be understood by the people around her.
Autistic people may find communication more difficult. Or it is difficult to read other people's emotions. Loud noise or bright lights can overload their senses. Interpersonal politics in the workplace can seem irrational and unmanageable.
By changing the environment around her rather than the chemistry of her own brain, McMurtry found the freedom to exist and perform unhindered.
Together with the committee, she developed a three-point plan. The team's nutritionist was asked to provide McMurtry with bland food as spicy or seasoned options were overwhelming. Coaches were asked to avoid asking her open-ended questions in the morning and to provide a summary at the end of team meetings to ensure they were understood.
The Covid pandemic then gave McMurtry, along with her teammates, the opportunity to monitor their own training and work on exercise machines, weights and mobility sessions in isolation.
A setup that previously required a one-size-fits-all approach and on the water now allowed for more personalization.
McMurtry was successful. She lost seconds to her times. And at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics she represented Great Britain at the highest level, rowing in the eight.
“I just gave myself permission to be different,” she says. “For years I bent over backwards and tried to fit into a mold that I just didn’t fit into.
“It’s about expanding the parameters of acceptable differences.”
image source, Getty Images
image description,
McMurtry, far left, rows in the women's eight at the Tokyo Olympics, where Great Britain failed to qualify for the final
McMurtry, now 32, retired from rowing immediately after the Tokyo Games. But she's still making waves.
She founded Neurodiverse Sport, a group that educates athletes, teams and sports organizations about environments that are welcoming and fulfilling, regardless of how your brain works.
“The niche and tailored sports — strongman, climbing, skateboarding, snowboarding — have neurodivergent people left, right and center, and they are thriving,” McMurtry says.
“They are way ahead. Maybe they are the ones without such a structured, rigid, tradition-based system, but they are the ones I get positive stories about.”
But other athletes go through hardships that McMurtry can remember and relate to.
More and more teams and organizations are turning to them. A handful of Premier League clubs have been in contact. She has delivered workshops for companies such as GB Triathlon.
British Rowing is one of the organizations pushing for improvements.
“We recognize that Caragh looks back on her time in the sport with less positive feelings than we would hope for any of our athletes,” it said.
“We are committed to discussing how we can learn from their experiences and move forward together on this issue in the future.”
Meanwhile, McMurtry has launched a free web-based app for athletes to help them find self-help strategies and determine how best to communicate and absorb information.
It is designed for both the neurodiverse and the neurotypical – emphasizing that the two categories are not binary, but rather part of the same spectrum.
On Thursday, Neurodiverse Sport is hosting a panel discussion with former Premier League footballer Greg Halford, former England rugby union winger Jonny May and former British number one tennis player Sam Smith, who will talk about their lived experiences of neurodiversity in sport.
“Connections are being made all over the country and around the world that could make a little bit of a difference in someone’s well-being,” McMurtry says.
“That’s what I want – more people who can use the sport in a positive way the way I was able to use it when I was younger.”
And rowing? The sport she stumbled upon that changed her life and that she has now left behind? Does she regret the day she picked up an oar?
“It's very difficult, but the thing is: if I had done another sport, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. I wouldn’t help a lot of other people,” she says.
“I think I'm glad that happened because it gave me 10 years of personal learning, a lot of personal growth and the ability to talk to all kinds of people and really empathize with them.”
Caragh McMurtry is happy with rowing.
image source, Neurodiverse sports
image description,
McMurtry provides workshops and training on neurodiversity for Neurodiverse Sport, the organization she founded with her husband
Comments are closed.