Women
GBR
Kathryn Thomson
GBR- Date of birth25 Jan 1996
- Height1530 CM
- ProfessionAthlete
- HometownNottingham
- Place of birthIrvine
- Start skating Club She took up short track at about age 10 with the Ayrshire Flyers club in Scotland. Ayrshire Flyers: Scotland
- HobbiesN/A
- LanguagesEnglish
- Other nameKat (Facebook profile, 02 May 2019)
- CoachRichard Shoebridge [national], GBR
- ChoreographerN/A
- Former CoachN/A
- Practice low seasonN/A
- Practice high seasonN/A
- General Interest
- Sport Specific Information
She was flag bearer for Great Britain at the closing ceremony of the 2013 European Youth Olympic Winter Festival [EYOF] in Brasov, Romania. (teamgb.com, 22 Feb 2013)
"Always chase your dreams and believe in yourself." (Instagram profile, 23 Jun 2022)
British heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill. (Athlete, 05 Nov 2018)
Her family. (Athlete, 05 Feb 2020)
Competing at the Olympic Winter Games in 2018 and 2022. (Instagram profile, 23 Jun 2022)
BREAK FROM SPORT
She sat out the 2020/21 season over concerns around her fitness and mental health. She spent time working at a home furnishing retailer in Kilmarnock, Scotland, before returning to the sport. "Being an unfunded athlete and going through a pandemic had some added stresses. I just took a huge chunk of time out of sport to deal with all that. My base level of fitness, my robustness around injury and a little bit of mental health - overall wellness. I moved back in Kilmarnock. I worked in Dunelm. It was very different from being an athlete. From a mental point of view, it was a huge breath of fresh air. It was a very focused year off - I had clear goals and there were different things I wanted to work on so I made sure I was still very disciplined so that my comeback wasn't as difficult. It was a huge concern and multiple times during the year off I did doubt myself. But I just thought I need to trust the process - it's what I needed at the time so I had to listen to my body and my mind." (olympics.com, 04 Feb 2022; dailyrecord.co.uk, 29 Jan 2022; eurosport.co.uk, 28 Jan 2022)
LEAVING HOME
At age 16 she moved from Kilmarnock in Scotland to live and train at the British short track base in Nottingham, England. "It was a huge thing for me to move and I really struggled with being homesick. After my first year, I went home for the off-season and I was thinking that I really didn't want to go back down south. But I decided to grit my teeth and go for it. I said to myself, 'I've made a decision to move to Nottingham because I'm chasing my dream', so I stuck with it and I'm so glad that I did that." (thenational.scot, 09 Dec 2016)
She sat out the 2020/21 season over concerns around her fitness and mental health. She spent time working at a home furnishing retailer in Kilmarnock, Scotland, before returning to the sport. "Being an unfunded athlete and going through a pandemic had some added stresses. I just took a huge chunk of time out of sport to deal with all that. My base level of fitness, my robustness around injury and a little bit of mental health - overall wellness. I moved back in Kilmarnock. I worked in Dunelm. It was very different from being an athlete. From a mental point of view, it was a huge breath of fresh air. It was a very focused year off - I had clear goals and there were different things I wanted to work on so I made sure I was still very disciplined so that my comeback wasn't as difficult. It was a huge concern and multiple times during the year off I did doubt myself. But I just thought I need to trust the process - it's what I needed at the time so I had to listen to my body and my mind." (olympics.com, 04 Feb 2022; dailyrecord.co.uk, 29 Jan 2022; eurosport.co.uk, 28 Jan 2022)
LEAVING HOME
At age 16 she moved from Kilmarnock in Scotland to live and train at the British short track base in Nottingham, England. "It was a huge thing for me to move and I really struggled with being homesick. After my first year, I went home for the off-season and I was thinking that I really didn't want to go back down south. But I decided to grit my teeth and go for it. I said to myself, 'I've made a decision to move to Nottingham because I'm chasing my dream', so I stuck with it and I'm so glad that I did that." (thenational.scot, 09 Dec 2016)
She represented Great Britain at the 2010 Ice Dancing International Development Seminar Camp in Berlin, Germany. (irvineherald.co.uk, 11 Mar 2010)
She was involved in figure skating before switching to short track. "It looked really exciting and more fun. It was a perfect match for me."
Richard Shoebridge [national], GBR
