Listening to Great Britain hockey heroines Georgie Twigg, Hollie Webb and Shona McCallin reflect on their historic efforts at Rio at a Live Sport Talk event in St Katherine’s Dock, in the shadows of Tower Bridge certainly lived up to its expectations.
The GB Women’s Hockey team became household names since their dramatic penalty shoot- out win over the Netherlands late on the evening of August 19th 2016. Watched by over nine million on primetime BBC TV, even the 10 o’ clock News was moved.
Host Charlie Rowe spoke with the Golden Girls, followed by questions from the eager audience.
Twigg who was also a member of the bronze medal winning squad at London 2012, revealed how all focus leading up to the games had been on the opening match against Australia and how they just took one game at a time. After each winning performance Kate Richardson Walsh, the captain gathered them all in a huddle with wise words such as ‘one more game down now onto the next’. “Between each game, we didn’t have time to think about how well we were performing, we just prepared for the next battle ahead of us.”
Webb in her first Olympics netted the gold medal clinching penalty against the Dutch, explained how coach Danny Kerry had handpicked the five takers from a list of nine who had volunteered. Being the fifth penalty taker she explained she didn’t expect to take hers. However, she had the process in place to help keep her calm, “I just imagined I was in Bisham not at an Olympic final. I knew exactly what I was going to do I just had to execute it correctly.”
McCallin also at her first Olympics explained how it was all so surreal and how they were prepared physically and mentally for the games but not for life after Rio. She paid tribute to retired captain Richardson Walsh and the support staff who helped the players with vital mental preparation work as they had to be mentally strong as they faced 9 games in 14 days.
She explained how the night before the finals other athletes whose games had finished were partying and making a lot of noise, sleep was tough and she felt like screaming we have a final to play tomorrow but they had got to the stage where sleep didn’t matter, all that mattered was their belief.
What was it like in the Olympic village?
For the first couple of days it all seemed so surreal, we felt star struck with the likes of Rafa Nadal, Serena Williams and a shirtless Usain Bolt shouting and waving his first of three gold medals from his balcony. However, after a couple of days of whipping our phones out to take selfies with these famous athletes we believed we deserved to be there with the best in the world.
What was the toughest game you played?
All the games were difficult we just took one game at a time. We were extremely lucky with injuries throughout until in the semis against New Zealand when we seemed to have all our injuries in one game. Firstly, Cullen had a nasty knock to the head which needed stitches, Owsley fell on her already damaged shoulder, and while taking a penalty flick Helen Richardson Walsh pulled her hamstring. This messed up our player rotations that had been worked out meticulously. If this wasn’t enough, Twigg explained how the ball ricocheted off the oppositions stick and hit her in the jaw. “Being over dramatic I remember thinking I had broken my jaw like Kate had in the London Olympics. Laying on the bed next to Cullen as we both received stitches I kept thinking please let them be more than one goal up as I didn’t think I could continue to play. The doctor then said you’re done out you go, I remember thinking this is bad as I saw the score was still 1-0 and Sam Quek a defender was in the forward line. I remember Karen Brown, the assistant coach saying Twiggy you need to get on. The team stuck it out and were relieved when the final whistle blew taking a 3-0 win.”
How did you feel stepping out to play in the final?
We knew we were the underdogs going into the final but we had beaten them before in the European final and the team knew we could do it again, we just had to believe in ourselves. We knew they didn’t like playing against us as we were so organised, so going into the final we were quietly confident this could be our game. Twigg explained how she remembered being in the tunnel about to walk onto the pitch. The GB girls were just standing there focussing on the game ahead, the Dutch girls were whacking their sticks on the scaffolding and hollering, this just riled us even more and we were as ready as we could ever be.
What has life been like since winning Gold at Rio?
It wasn’t really till about three days later when we had stopped celebrating that it really hit us, we were Olympic champions. We were so prepared going into the games but we weren’t really prepared for life after Rio. During the games, we had a social media ban so were unware of the public reactions and interest back home. Touching down at Heathrow on our return and seeing hundreds of fans welcoming the team back really hit home and how the nation was behind us. Since winning gold we have taken our medals everywhere with us and visited schools and clubs all over the country to help inspire a budding generation of athletes as our team moto going into the games was, Be the difference, Create History and Inspire the future.
Tom Stitson St Mark’s Catholic School
