MARK ETHERIDGE: Shouldering on from the bad times into the good

By virtue of winning the national cross-country trials late in 2022 young Cian Oldknow will naturally shoulder SA’s chances of success at the World Championships in Australia later in February.

But few people know that shoulders are, quite literally, a sore point for the tiny Gauteng athlete. She made headlines last year when she was sidetracked by the setback during her first appearance in national colours at the African Athletics Championships in Mauritius midyear.

“My coach and I had thought through the race from every angle,” recalls Oldknow, “the shoulder had been a bit ‘iffy’ and dislocated during yoga a few months before the race but nothing serious.

“We started and I was feeling so confident, and all gameplans and options had been covered — but 150m into the race a girl cut in front of me, I flung up my arm to just regain my balance and my shoulder popped out. I stepped off the track and just hoped I could get it back in by myself, which is not normally the case.

“But as luck had it, I managed to get it back in exactly as the medic got to me — I worked out I was 22sec off the track, honestly the longest 22sec of my life.”

She says she ran 34min 20sec but official results gave her 33:20 in 12th spot. Anyway, her surgeon immediately opted for surgical correction soon after her return to SA.

Here’s where it gets even more interesting. Sea and surf usually mean fun activities, but for Cian, surf translates to suffering. Both her right and left shoulder first dislocated while she was in the ocean.

“The first time was in December 2012. I was just standing in the surf at Umhlanga when a wave hit me and knocked my shoulder out,” she says.

Seven years later, in January 2019, she was in the water again, this time scuba-diving in Mozambique. “My weight belt fell off and I went up to the surface but as I grabbed the boat, a swell hit and jerked my left shoulder out.”

Dislocating both shoulders is freaky enough in itself but she goes on to reveal that she’s dislocated them a total of 12 times and has had three bouts of surgery especially on the troublesome joint on her right side.

Back to her lower limbs, though, and they’ve stood her in good stead over the past few years, culminating in that spot on Team SA at the African track championships in Mauritius and now bound for Down Under later this month, though the team has yet to be officially announced.

Initially coached by Marko Bucarizza, she showed great promise but just more than two years ago he had the foresight to move her on to his own coach, the venerable George Bradley. And she’s gone from strength to strength, earning the headline title “Miss PB” in SA’s leading running publication, Modern Athlete in 2022.

In the past few years she’s set personal bests in distances ranging over 800m, 1,500m, 3,000m, 5,000m and 10,000m on the track and also 10km on the road and also holds the Bryanston Park Run record.

Says Bradley: “She’s a real gem, so rare ... her attitude is one of total commitment and what’s amazing is how quickly she is improving, hand over foot, it’s almost ridiculous. She’s the real deal for sure.”

That’s the good, now for the bad ... and sad.

Far away from the glitter of medals and times PB could stand for Personal Blues in the 26-year-old life of Oldknow who has reached a stage where she feels she needs to share a running battle of another kind.

Her biological dad had very little to do with her upbringing as a child and it was a huge blow when her loving stepdad died in 2010 when she was only in Grade 8.

Until late last year, not even her mom, Ilma, knew the horrific trauma her daughter had endured and Cian this week decided it was time to bring up into the light some of the darkest and lowest stages of her young life.

The naked truth is that she was sexually abused between the ages of eight and 12 “by someone who I should have been able to trust” which later led to some serious self-harming by her until just more than two years ago.

“I suffered from different degrees of anxiety even in primary school,” she recalls. “My mom and stepdad knew nothing — I blocked it out for so many years and didn’t know what had happened either.

“It was only in 2018, after I started psychological counselling and we were working through a few things, that I started having flashbacks about it. They were small flashbacks at first but became more and more intense as I had them more often and remembered more.”

She admits to going through various eating disorders, suicidal thoughts and actually started self-harming at the age of 12. “I started using blades or scissors to do it. My depression started getting really bad when my stepdad passed away. I used to cut a lot then, it was a good coping mechanism at the time.”

She first shared her flashbacks with original coach Marko and then in January 2019 linked up with life skills coach Kim Ballantine who has since been a huge pillar of support along with her mom and coach Bradley.

Lifesaver

Thankfully, it’s now been more than two years since she self-harmed. She makes no bones of the fact that her running has been a lifesaver in some senses. “I think it’s really helped me to love and move through life and get me to where I am. Having big goals and dreams forces me to keep showing up for myself, trusting myself and I know I’ve got to be good to myself if I want to be better, both as an athlete and a human.

“I think going through things also reminds you to be a better person, and keep being kind to others.”

Being the little braveheart that she is, she’s now at ease sharing her ordeal. “For so long, mental health, sexual abuse, self-harming have all been a taboo subject for society. The more people are open about their stories, the more we can help others and create an awareness about it. It’s also not my whole story, but rather a really sad and unfortunate chapter of my life.”

One can feel her mom’s pride bursting to the fore when describing Cian: “She totally takes ownership of her journey through life and accepts full accountability of all aspects. Absolutely everything she does is weighed up against this goal. And also, she has learnt to put herself first ... I’m just incredibly proud of her in so many ways.”

One of the meanings of the name Cian is “enduring one” ... and when it comes to Oldknow one knows that this is apt in both a sporting and a personal sense.

World Championships Down Under in Australia later this month may well see the continuing rising of young Oldknow in so many ways.