“‘I’m ALREADY UGLY,’ is HOW I WRITE ABOUT the day I SHAVED MY HEAD for the OLYMPICS IN MY MEMOIR GODSPEED…“

“I HAD JUST TURNED 18, just qualified for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and could sense I was treated differently as a girl athlete. I felt ugly because of it; unable to perform the impossible expectation of femininity and athletic excellence at the same time – a burden so different from that of our male counterparts.

I was used to other people controlling my body. In the book I talk despairingly about the food I was permitted