Emma Wiggs: When injury strikes

AS any athlete will tell you, injuries are part of ‘the job’ - the relentless training regime and constant strive for more is punishing on your body and your mind.

However, I’ve been lucky that in my career so far I’ve not suffered any serious injury. Yes, I’ve had niggles and little injuries that disrupt training for a few weeks but nothing major.

Until last August that is, when a moment of complacency led to an accident in the gym which would change not just my life but my sporting future. That fall in the gym left me with a displaced bone and ruptured ligaments in my wrist that required surgery. I was just a few weeks out from the World Championships, it was devastating.

I had been having my best year yet, winning four gold medals paddling two different boats in pursuit of challenging for double gold in Tokyo. We’d made more gym gains than we could have imagined and got faster times on the water than we had thought possible, but all our progress was gone in a moment.

Despite the pain and damage, the medical team managed to patch me up to at least line up at the world champs and our amazing year of training allowed us to still perform to some degree and bag a couple of medals. But I knew the injury was big and our future uncertain.

I’ve been fortunate that since I started in paracanoe in 2013, I’ve been able to access the best coaches, the best facilities and worked harder than I thought I was capable of. All of which has led to huge success every year, PBs in the gym, new world leading times and world championship gold medals.

As I sat waiting for surgery with a career threatening injury, I realised my success had become my identity, I was Emma Wiggs, paracanoe Paralympic and world champion… and I was terrified that this was all that defined me and without it who would I be?

This winter has been a journey the like of which I could never have imagined. I’ve had to search for my identity - if I’m not the canoeist or athlete I was, then who am I?

I’ve battled with feeling more disabled than ever as I was left with one working limb, I’ve watched team-mates smashing PB after PB while I sit in the corner lifting ‘baby weights’ and I’ve had to approach the racing season without the confidence of knowing I have worked hard, so like every other year I will be stronger and faster than ever.

We redesigned my year and looked at mini blocks where success would be measured on completing all that I could, regaining movement in my wrist and aiming for ‘season’s bests’ in everything I did.

It wasn’t easy and I wasn’t where I wanted to be but our reality had changed and it was now about the long game and ensuring we used this tricky year to be even stronger and faster next year as Tokyo approaches.

I’ve come away from this winter knowing injuries will strike all athletes at some point and that’s the life we are lucky enough to pursue. The difference is how you deal with it, how you reframe your goals and move forwards - that will define how successful you will be.

But more importantly than all of that I realise now that I’m Emma Wiggs, who is resilient, determined, kind, proud and hardworking, oh and I happen to be also be not too shabby in a canoe. #Onwards •