3min chapter

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The surprising trait that links elite performers

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CHAPTER

What Happened to Mofara?

While the Great British Medalist report was anonymized, we can look at people we do know. Andy Murray was the victim of the UK's only school shooting, mass shooting and hid in the school bathroom. Kelly Holmes talks about sport, became her identity when she was put into a care home. Mofara is the most accomplished British track and field athlete with two goals from two successive Olympics.

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Secondly, the more important question, why? What happens? Then you start delving into the biographies of people that we do know. While the Great British Medalist report was anonymized, we can look at people we do know. Tom Daly, his father had cancer throughout his early career and then passed away when he was about 14, 15. Andy Murray was the victim of the UK's only school shooting, mass shooting and hid in the school bathroom. Andy Murray gives a really interesting testimony. He's never talked about it for fear of adding to the infamy of the person involved. Andy Murray said, actually, he's got something inside of him that he's restless, he's insatiable and comes from that period where he just feels like he needs to carry on and carry on and carry on. You know, Kelly Holmes talks about sport, became her identity when she was put into a care home. She suffered parental abandonment. And you know, so like all of these people in their biographies, there's actually clues to this dismantling the story of Mofara in the last few weeks, has been adjacent to this. Mofara, actually the real interesting thing, I found myself, Mofara is the most accomplished British track and field athlete, the double double two goals from two successive Olympics. And so I found myself looking into his biography thinking, what is there that drove him on? And you know, you look at his biography and you think, yeah, there's nothing in this. Interesting. Look at someone else. Now you're here. Okay. This is a victim of childhood slavery. He was modern slavery. He was effectively abandoned by his mother into modern slavery and then found himself from preteen age working as a domestic help of a family like right now I get it. Now I get it because what you find in those situations is that what trauma does is it dismantles our sense of self and in a really, really small number of people, these people who've also got an elite level of capability and something else, they're able to focus their attention in it. And you know, actually that's, you know, it's literal survivors by us. We sort of, we think, okay, one of these things is really helpful for the other, but actually that can distract us from the fact that most of the evidence is that trauma is really injurious for our wellbeing. But you know, in these rare freak instances, it acts as a catalyst for these people.

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