Kate Richardson-Walsh has been practising her smile. “The famous Oscar-losing smile,” she says, revealing that she has barely given any thought to the possibility of being named Sports Personality of the Year next weekend, despite the role she played in helping Great Britain win women’s hockey gold at the Olympics, and is concentrating more on how she will react if one of the other 15 athletes on the shortlist walks on stage to collect the award.
Richardson-Walsh was GB’s redoubtable captain when they beat the Netherlands on penalties in a memorable final in Rio but she does not expect to win this one. “The odds are low,” she says, although she does allow herself a moment of cheery optimism, self-deprecatingly noting that 2016 has been the year of the underdog.
Mostly, however, she is having a hard time accepting her nomination. “I find it a bit strange because I come from a team sport,” she says. “In our team it was all about everyone doing their job, so if one person gets pushed out I find that a bit strange. To be honest, I’m just going to be really happy to be there. I just love Sports Personality. I watched it as a little girl and every year growing up. To be in the audience is a thrill but to be nominated is amazing.”
But there is no reason for Richardson-Walsh to feel out of place on a shortlist that contains athletes as famous as Andy Murray, Gareth Bale, Nicola Adams and Laura Kenny. She was GB’s captain for 13 years, almost retired from international hockey two years ago and bowed out as an Olympic champion. She and her wife and team-mate, Helen, also made history in Rio, becoming the first same-sex married couple to win an Olympic gold in the same final.
That is not a bad CV, then, although the win over the Dutch has not quite sunk in yet. “Having retired after the Olympics, there’s been more reflection over the whole career and just looking back at all the ups and the downs,” Richardson-Walsh says. “When you speak to people and think about it, I smile. The emotion is still very high.”
Richardson-Walsh and her team-mates were not to know it at the time but GB’s stubborn performance against the Netherlands captured the mood back home. That hit home only when they saw the crowds waiting to greet them at Heathrow and since then Richardson-Walsh’s main focus has been on keeping hockey in the limelight.
“Hockey has become a bit more front and centre,” she says. “We are professional athletes. We’re privileged in Britain to have lots of sports we’re good at and we want lots of media coverage of that. I love sport, all of the sport, I want to read about it all. I think it’s the time for hockey to try and wedge ourselves in there with the other big sports.
“You’re not playing hockey to be a star, to be out in the papers. But we want to do the very best job we can and we want people to see that. We go out into the country and talk about what we do, what it takes to be an Olympic athlete. We’ve shown our worth. As an association I think we’re very well run. I think we should push ourselves.
“Football has always been huge. Rugby and cricket have become professional sports that are on TV on a regular basis, constantly on the back of the papers, and I don’t see why hockey can’t make that leap. There’s something we need to change within the domestic level of our sport to make it marketable and more commercial. But other than that, why can’t we mix it with other sports?”
Richardson-Walsh, who is heading to the Netherlands to play club hockey and coach two days a week, is also conscious about promoting women’s sport. “I’m on the board of the Women’s Sport Trust because they, after London, came to speak to me about the struggle we have to get women’s sport out in the media,” she says. “Around Olympic time, we’re very fortunate. There’s a surge of interest in female athletes and sport every four years.
“I saw an open letter from Serena Williams the other day. She wanted a young girl to be seen as an athlete, not a female athlete. Just an athlete doing the best she can. I want a balanced view. I want a young person to turn on the TV, open the paper and have a balanced view of the world.
“Not all female athletes look like this, not all male look like that. There are lots of broad areas in so many sports that people can get involved in. If you narrow it down, it’s not healthy. Keep things broad and open.”
