Athletes: The Other Side
16 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 3 years ago - ★★★★★ - 8 ratingsIdols, heroes, icons. Today, we often forget that the modern-day sportsman is so much more than an athlete. Athletes have other lives - often many other career chapters away from the sporting field – just like the rest of us. To be an athlete is just one part of who they are. In Athletes: The Other Side, host and former head of Media Relations for the World Anti-Doping Agency, Ben Nichols explores the lives and achievements of athletes away from sport so that you can learn more about the stories of these multi-faceted figures. Whether it be how they make the daunting leap into the big, wide world when their competitive career is over or how they use their personal brand to give back to the sport that has offered them so much, Athletes: The Other Side addresses the paths sportsmen and women tread in those times when they are not competing in the sporting arena, so that you will leave inspired by what these extraordinary characters have achieved in their other lives.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
And The Oscar Goes To - with Bryan Fogel
May 26, 2021 13:00 - 50 minutes - 34.4 MBBryan Fogel is an American film director, producer, author, and 2018 Academy Award Winner in the Best Documentary Feature category for his revelatory film, Icarus. Icarus was released in 2017 and achieved huge critical acclaim having been described as “illuminating” by the New York Times and “Game Changing” by Variety due to its pivotal role in revealing evidence of systematic doping in Russia. Fogel’s Icarus premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, winning the first ever Special Jury ...
The Many Firsts - with Katrina Adams
May 06, 2021 19:00 - 39 minutes - 26.9 MBPlayer, coach, broadcaster and administrator, Katrina Adams has done it all. Adams is the former President and CEO of the United States Tennis Association—the first black woman, first former player and youngest person ever to hold the position. Adams served an unprecedented two consecutive terms as USTA Chairman and President, serving the board between 2005 and 2020. As a professional tennis player, Adams competed for 12 years on the WTA Tour, winning 20 career doubles titles and reaching a...
The Many Firsts, with Katrina Adams
May 06, 2021 19:00 - 39 minutes - 26.9 MBPlayer, coach, broadcaster and administrator, Katrina Adams has done it all. Adams is the former President and CEO of the United States Tennis Association—the first black woman, first former player and youngest person ever to hold the position. Adams served an unprecedented two consecutive terms as USTA Chairman and President, serving the board between 2005 and 2020. As a professional tennis player, Adams competed for 12 years on the WTA Tour, winning 20 career doubles titles and reaching a...
A Trans-Atlantic Tale with Gill Donaldson
April 12, 2021 18:00 - 27 minutes - 18.9 MBIn this 13th outing, Ben speaks to his Great Aunt and former Olympic Champion Fencer, Gillian Donaldson. Now 92, Donaldson (née Sheen) is a seven-time British national fencing champion, and Olympic Gold medallist in the Foil for Great Britain at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. In becoming Olympic Champion in Melbourne, Donaldson was, and remarkably remains so to this day, the only Briton ever to win Gold in Fencing at an Olympic Games. Whilst competing at an elite level in the early days of h...
In for a Penny, In for a Pound - with Dick Pound
March 11, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 54.5 MBRichard “Dick” Pound, is a Canadian swimming champion, lawyer and prominent spokesman for ethics in sport. He was the first president of the World Anti-Doping Agency and vice-president of the International Olympic Committee. At the beginning of his sporting journey, there was his successful swimming career that saw him become four-time Canadian national freestyle champion, as well as butterfly champion. Internationally, he represented Canada at the 1960 Olympics, and won four medals at the ...
Scars Along The Way - with Andrew Castle
February 01, 2021 15:00 - 1 hour - 53.5 MB#11 - It’s not often that a successful athlete is better known for their work after their athletic career, especially when that career involved achievements such as being the UK number 1 ranked men’s singles tennis player, reaching world number 80, winning three ATP titles in men’s doubles, and representing Britain at two Olympic Games (Seoul and Barcelona) and the Davis Cup. However, this is exactly the case for former face of breakfast television show GMTV Andrew Castle. After retiring f...
No Distinction - with Rebecca Smith
January 15, 2021 16:00 - 1 hour - 41.4 MB#010 - Rebecca Smith is a California born ex-international footballer with 74 caps for the team she captained, the New Zealand national team. She’s represented New Zealand at multiple World cups and Olympic games, and has played professional football in 4 different countries, notably winning a Treble with Vfl Wolfsburg. These international experiences have clearly served her well, as since retiring, she’s put her degrees (Economics, Spanish, an MBA and Masters in Psychology) to good use ...
The Fifth Beatle - with Todd Martin
December 01, 2020 06:00 - 1 hour - 53.5 MB#009 - As the former World Number 4, Todd Martin was a proud member of the golden club of American ATP stars in his nation’s tennis heyday: the 1990s. The self-described “Fifth Beatle” was in good company during that glorious era for the sport, as he sparred against compatriots Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier and Michael Chang for what became that elusive Grand Slam title. To many, he was the ‘nearly man’, but to himself, the eight ATP tournament titles, the near misses and the tw...
The Education of Life - with Christian Taylor
November 12, 2020 23:00 - 42 minutes - 29.5 MB#008 - The GOAT (Greatest of all Time), two-time Olympic Champion and four-time World Champion in the triple jump and five-time World Athletics Diamond League Champion. What else is there you can say about Christian Taylor? Quite a lot, as it happens. The 10-time NCAA All American recently founded and became President of his own progressive athlete union, the Athletics Association aimed at giving athletes a greater say over the future of track and field athletics. Set-up in response to Worl...
Free Speech Champion - with Ali Jawad
October 27, 2020 20:00 - 42 minutes - 28.9 MB#007 – Born without legs in Lebanon, and moving to England at just six months’ old, the word ‘hardship’ doesn’t feature in Ali Jawad’s vocabulary. The Briton, who during his teens was diagnosed with uncurable Chrom’s disease has always grasped life with both hands, a skill evident by his determination to secure the Para-Powerlifting Silver Medal for Team GB at the Rio 2016 Games. Today, he is one of Britain’s most ambitious athletes, and in an era when free speech is under increasing threa...
The Iron Man - with Dr. Matt Hanson
October 19, 2020 15:00 - 38 minutes - 26.8 MB#006 - Our first Doctor to feature on Athletes: The Other Side, Matt Hanson is a professional triathlete and coach for triathletes, cyclists and runners. Hailing from Minnesota, Matt is one of life’s achievers and an Ironman guru. With an extensive background as an athlete, he is a highly-educated figure when it comes to anything sports-related. As an athlete, he came from the sport of wrestling, yet it is running that has always a been a passion of his. In 2014, his first year as a pro, ...
The Athlete Entrepreneur - with Callum Skinner
October 02, 2020 18:00 - 54 minutes - 37.5 MB#005 – If Athletes: The Other Side was tailor made for any one athlete out there, it must be Callum Skinner. The Olympic Champion, who scored his greatest success in the Rio de Janeiro Velodrome at the 2016 Games, has clocked up more 'other side' successes in the 18 months since his retirement from the track - and by the mere age of 28 - than many athletes will manage in a lifetime. Symbolising a new breed of athlete reformers taking a grip on Olympic sport, Callum, in his prominent role a...
Hometown Heroine - with Emma Coburn
September 28, 2020 09:00 - 53 minutes - 37 MB#004 – Emma Coburn is a World Champion middle distance runner, hailing from the “Americana idyll”of Crested Butte, Colorado. As the first ever American woman to win a World Championships gold medal in the 3000m steeplechase, she is also an 8-time national US Champion, 3-time NCAA Champion and 6-time All-American. She’s founder of the ‘Elk Run’ and Vice President of new athlete rights movement, The Athletics Association. In this fourth outing of Athlete: The Other Side, Ben speaks to this ho...
Food, Water, Shelter - with Chris Cracknell
September 01, 2020 13:00 - 1 hour - 47.5 MB#003 -The phrase always expect the unexpected doesn’t even start to do it justice as a motto for Chris Cracknell’s life. A former decorated rugby international, Englishman Chris captained his country’s national Sevens side, taking them to glory by winning the Emirates Airline London Sevens title in 2009. Living in West London with in a nice apartment, a flashy car and a comfortable career with the England Rugby Football Union, life was seemingly good for Chris. However, beneath that on-the-...
Making Transition Worth It - with Lauryn Williams
September 01, 2020 13:00 - 1 hour - 43.4 MB#002 - Lauryn Williams is a financial planner, author, podcaster, motivational speaker and volunteer. But that’s not why most people recognise her name. Over a period of twelve years, she competed at the elite level in two Olympic sports – Track and Field (Athletics) and Bobsleigh. In doing so, she became the first American woman to win medals at both a Summer and a Winter Olympic Games. In this second of three launch day episodes to mark the arrival of Athletes: The Other Side, Ben speaks ...
Bronze, Silver, Gold, Russia - with Beckie Scott
August 23, 2020 17:00 - 53 minutes - 37 MB#001 - In her own words, Beckie Scott has witnessed both the light and dark sides of sport. In this first episode, host Ben Nichols talks to Beckie about how the young woman from Alberta, Canada defied the odds in the predominantly European sport of cross-country skiing by becoming Olympic Champion at Salt Lake City 2002 - and not in typical fashion. Beckie talks to Ben about the emotional rollercoaster that came with her Bronze Medal being elevated to silver and then gold a year after the...