Olympic Gold Medalists at WIS
West Island is extremely excited and proud to welcome two Gold Medalist Olympic Hockey Players, Kate & Helen Richardson-Walsh on Tuesday 4 September.
Kate Richardson-Walsh
Kate Richardson-Walsh, is the most capped female hockey player in her country’s history, and was captain of GB and England women’s hockey teams for 13 years.
After securing a bronze in London 2012, Rio 2016 was her fourth Games and finally yielded the coveted Olympic Gold medal. An inspirational and charismatic leader she has been widely credited for helping build the incredible team ethos and commitment that drove the GB team to a nail biting victory against Holland in the final. Alongside her GB duties Kate won the European Championships with England in 2015 and secured a bronze and two silvers in three successive Commonwealth Games. Kate currently serves as an ambassador for the Women’s Sport Trust, supports disability hockey as an ambassador for Access Sport, and sits on the British and European Olympic Athlete’s Commissions. She was chosen to carry the GB flag at the closing ceremony of the Rio Olympics and was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Honours.
Helen Richardson-Walsh
Helen Richardson-Walsh is one of the most experienced members of the GB women’s hockey team. At the age of 18 she became the youngest ever woman to represent GB hockey at an Olympics in Sydney, and has gone on to compete at four Olympic Games. Over the course of her 17 year international career she has amassed a Commonwealth bronze and two silvers, a bronze at London 2012, and the European Championship title in 2015, before finally reaching the pinnacle of her sport at Rio 2016. Success however has not always been assured. Helen’s career was threatened at the age of just 23 with two rounds of back surgery. Consultants warned it was unlikely she would ever play hockey again, and having lost her place in the squad she experienced a loss of identity and period of depression. Helped through this by her wife Kate, her own reading into psychology and the support structure within hockey she battled back to retake her place in the squad, and contribute as a senior leader to the resurgence of GB women’s hockey. Today Helen is a hockey coach, continues to play at club level, and has just completed a degree in psychology, inspired by her experience in battling back from injury, and her experience of elite performance and winning teams. She serves as an ambassador for UN Women and Access Sport, is an Athlete Role Model for the Youth Olympic Games and is patron of Tottenham’s LGBT fan club The Proud Lilywhites.
The duo will talk about their experiences to students in a Q&A format and then run a Hockey Coaching Clinic in the afternoon.
More details in poster below.
