Jodie Williams’ coming of age

After retiring in 2024, the sprinter reflects about the challenges of making the step up to being a senior athlete and explains why she would like to help the next generation navigate that path

For as long as Jodie Williams can remember, running has been her world. At the age of 11, she first laced up her shoes and, as she puts it, “just fell into it”. What began as a casual hobby soon evolved into an obsession, one that would take her to the top of the athletics world. After 19-year career marked by international success and its fair share of challenges, however, the three-time Olympian is now stepping away from the sport that has shaped her life.

Her rise was rapid. As a junior, Williams quickly made a name for herself, shattering national age group records – under-15 100m (11.56) and under-17 100m (11.24) and 200m (22.79). From there, she won 100m and 200m gold at the World Youth Championships, following that up with a gold and silver at the World Junior Championships.

By the time she became the European junior champion in 2011, Williams had firmly established herself as a force to be reckoned with in the athletics world, but that environment didn’t merge seamlessly with life away from the track. 

While still in school and navigating the pressures of exams, she was also managing the demands of being a world champion. Her success came with a price and one that wasn’t always easy to bear.

“I never felt like I could connect to people my age,” says the 31-year-old. “I would keep athletics very separate from everything else.”

Despite her sporting achievements, there was an almost uncomfortable feeling around sharing them. “I wanted to keep it quiet because I was weirdly embarrassed about it,” she says. “I wanted to be a normal girl and it was really difficult for me to navigate.

“Sometimes I would disappear over summer and I would try not to tell anyone why but people would see the news articles or sometimes film crews came to the school.

“My name had already preceded me before anyone got a chance to get to know me. I was a kid that already didn’t want to be seen so to bring that extra attention to myself was really hard. I was already a very awkward and uncomfortable teenager and it was a really difficult time in my life. The hardest part was trying to stay normal.”

That feeling of being out of place only intensified as Williams moved from the junior to senior ranks. At just 18 years old she was…