Kelly Sotherton

Kelly Sotherton

Personal information
Full name	Kelly Jade Sotherton
Nationality	British
Born	13 November 1976 Newport, Isle of Wight
Height	181 cm (5 ft 11¼ in)
Sport
Country	Great Britain
Sport	Athletics
Event(s)	Heptathlon Long Jump 400m
Achievements and titles
World finals	3rd (2007)
Regional finals	7th (2006)
Olympic finals	3rd (2004)
Medal record Representing  Great Britain Women's athletics Olympic Games 2004 Athens Heptathlon World Championships 2007 Osaka Heptathlon World Indoor Championships 2008 Valencia Pentathlon European Indoor Championships 2005 Madrid Pentathlon 2007 Birmingham Pentathlon 2011 Paris 4x400 m relay Representing  England Commonwealth Games 2006 Melbourne Heptathlon Representing  Isle of Wight Island Games 1997 Jersey 100 m 1997 Jersey 100 m Hurdles 1997 Jersey Long Jump 1997 Jersey High Jump 1997 Jersey 4x100m Relay 1997 Jersey 4x400m Relay 1999 Gotland 100 m 1999 Gotland Long Jump 1999 Gotland 200 m 1999 Gotland 4x100m Relay 1999 Gotland 4x400m Relay

Kelly Jade Sotherton (born 13 November 1976) is an English former heptathlete. She was the bronze medallist at the 2004 Summer Olympics and was fourth at the 2008 Summer Olympics. She also was a bronze at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics, and was the heptathlon gold medallist at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. In November 2010, she announced her decision to retire from the heptathlon, due to foot and back injuries. After considering switching to cycling,^[1] she then chose instead to focus on the 400 m.^[2] Sotherton's funding from UK Athletics was cut in 2011 but in 2011 she returned to heptathlon training.^[3]

Early life and education

Sotherton was born in Newport, Isle of Wight on 13 November 1976. She began her athletics career in the sports day at Caversham House Primary School in Ryde, Isle of Wight. She was subsequently educated at Bishop Lovett Middle School, Ryde High School and Brunel University.

Career

As a teenager, Sotherton played netball for the Isle of Wight, and won two English Schools’ championships in the heptathlon. She moved to the Midlands in 1998, to become a member of Birchfield Harriers athletics club. She made her senior British team debut in 2002.

2004

She gained international recognition in 2004 when she unexpectedly won a bronze medal at the Summer Olympics in Athens behind Carolina Klüft (gold) and Austra Skujytė (silver), scoring 6424 points and finishing ahead of defending Olympic champion Lewis, who dropped out due to injury.

She was famously criticised for settling for the bronze medal instead of chasing the silver in the final event, the 800m, by her coach Charles van Commenee.

2005

In March 2005 she competed in the European Indoor Championships, where she took silver once again behind Klüft.
At Götzis, Austria in May Sotherton was again beaten into second, behind the Swede, but she did record a personal best of 6547 points.
At the AAA's National Championship in July, Sotherton competed in four individual events and took her first senior national title, winning the long jump with a jump of 6.48 metres.
At the 2005 World Championships Sotherton had held a medal position going into the sixth event, despite some below average performances, but a disastrous javelin saw her drop out of contention. Sotherton did manage to knock nearly 2.5 seconds off her personal best to win the final 800 m, but despite closing the overall gap on those ahead she only finished fifth.

2006

In March 2006 Kelly Sotherton competed for England in the heptathlon at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. She took gold with a score of 6396, ahead of Kylie Wheeler of Australia (silver) and her team mate Jessica Ennis (bronze). In August 2006 she competed for Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the heptathlon at the 2006 European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg. She came seventh ahead of her team mate Jessica Ennis, after a disappointing javelin event caused her to drop from second.

2007

Kelly Sotherton at an athletics meeting in The Netherlands, 2007

2007 saw Great Britain host the European Indoor Championships, in Birmingham. Carolina Klüft led after the hurdles, but Sotherton and compatriot Jessica Ennis trailed closely behind. The high jump saw Ennis take the lead over Klüft and Sotherton, with a jump of 1.91, but Sotherton set a personal best for indoors of 1.88. Seven points separated Klüft and Sotherton. In the shot put, Sotherton took a two-point lead ahead of defending champion Klüft. The long jump saw Klüft take a 24-point lead over the Briton. In the 800 m, a strong event for Sotherton, she needed to take 1.6 seconds from Klüft to see her beaten for the first time since 2002. Sotherton set a personal best 2:12.54, but Klüft also underscored her previous mark to win by 17 points. This was her smallest winning margin ever. Sotherton took silver, and Karin Ruckstuhl the bronze. In one of the best pentathlons of all time, many athletes set national records and Klüft and Sotherton rose to second and fourth on the all-time lists respectively. Sotherton also set a Commonwealth record by 200 points.

In 2007, the World Championships were held in the Japanese city of Osaka. Sotherton started the first day with a personal best of 13.21 seconds in the 100 metres hurdles. She then came within a centimetre of her personal best in the high jump with a 1.86 m performance. A season's best of 14.14 m followed in the shot put and Sotherton ended the day with a second personal best in the 200 m, with 23.40. On the second day, Sotherton hit 6.68 m in the long jump, to stay in medal contention, but again the javelin saw a weak performance, with Sotherton throwing just 31.90, finishing last. However, Sotherton put in a strong performance in the 800 m, running 2:11.58 to just beat teammate Jessica Ennis to the bronze medal, with 6,510 points.

Event	Result	Position	Points	Overall Position	Extra
100 metres hurdles	13.21 secs (PB)	3rd (PB)	1093	3rd	Jessica Ennis wins (12.97, PB); Carolina Klüft 2nd (13.15, PB) (both ran in her heat)
High Jump	1.86 m	4th	1054	4th	Carolina Klüft wins (1.95 m, PB); Jessica Ennis is 3rd (1.89 m)
Shot put	14.14m (SB)	9th	803	3rd
200 metres	23.40 secs (PB)	3rd	1039	3rd	Jessica Ennis wins (23.15, PB); Klüft 2nd (23.38, SB) (both ran in her heat)
Long jump	6.68m (PB)	3rd	1066	3rd	Lyudmila Blonska wins (6.88m, PB); Klüft 2nd (6.85m, SB)
Javelin	31.90m (SB)	32nd	513	4th	Lilli Schwarzkopf wins (54.44m, PB); Klüft 7th (47.98m, SB)
800 metres	2:11.58	3rd	942	3rd	Sotherton lead for most of the way, but Jessica Ennis proved stronger to win the race in 2:11.39.
Heptathlon			6510	3rd	Klüft set a European Record of 7,032 to win from Blonska, while Ennis finished fourth.

2008–09

In February 2008, Sotherton competed in a three-event triathlon, at the Indoor Grand Prix, in Birmingham, against a field including Carolina Klüft. Sotherton started with a below-par performance in the long jump, allowing Klüft to take the lead. Sotherton then won the 60 m hurdles in a personal best of 8.17 seconds. Despite running a personal best (and the fastest time by a Briton that season) of 52.47 seconds in the 400m, Sotherton took second behind Klüft, who won by 18 points.

After Klüft pulled out of the World Indoor Championships in Valencia, Sotherton became favourite for the gold medal. She lived up to expectation in the 60 m hurdles, winning in 8.25 seconds. However, Sotherton put in a well below-par berformance in the high jump, achieving only 1.81 m, against Tia Hellebaut's 1.99 m., and Sotherton slipped to third and then to fifth after the shot put. Sotherton then won the long jump with 6.45 m, moving into second, behind Hellebaut, who set a Belgian record of 6.41 m. Hellebaut held a considerable lead entering the final event, the 800 m. Sotherton needed to beat the Belgian by 7.7 seconds to win gold. Sotherton set a personal best of 2:09.95, with Hellebaut collapsing over the line in 2:16.42, 6.47 seconds behind Sotherton, and the Briton had to again settle for silver.

After Klüft's retirement from heptathlon in 2008, Sotherton had been tipped by many people to take gold at the 2008 Olympics, including Klüft herself. However, after a disappointing performance she could only manage 5th place in the competition. Lyudmila Blonska was later disqualified for failing a doping test and Sotherton was upgraded to fourth.^[4] She had previously labelled Blonska a cheat, and questioned the validity of Blonska's silver medal at the World Championships in 2007.^[5] She was also part of the 4 × 400 m relay team which finished fifth in the final.

The following year, Sotherton struggled with injuries and although she was selected for the 2009 European Indoor Championships she had to withdraw due to heel problems.^[6] Despite recovering from this injury, her 2010 season was also ruined by injury as her back problems recurred.^[7]

2011

Sotherton completed "the first step of her reinvention as a 400m specialist", with a victory in the 400m final in 53.46 sec, at the English Institute of Sport - Sheffield indoor arena on 13 February 2011. Overcome at her win, she explained a temporary breakdown at trackside; " When I prolapsed the disc in my back it was career-threatening. I had to make a decision whether to end my career or try something new." It was Sotherton's first national title in a track event.^[8]

2012

On Sunday 27 May 2012, Sotherton announced her retirement from the sport after failing to recover from back surgery in time for the London 2012 games.^[9]

Post-retirement

Since retiring in 2012, Sotherton has been on UKsport international leaderships programme and ACGP (corporate governance practitioner). She appears in the media, commentating and guesting on various productions including those by Talksport and FiveLive, and undertakes public speaking engagements. She coaches and mentors in Athletics. Is part of the Sports People's Think Tank alongside footballer Jason Roberts.

She has also participated in the 2013 London Marathon in aid of AgeUK, completing the Deloitte Ride Across Britain from Lands End to John O'Groats, and the Prudential London Triathlon.most recently completed a marathon row for cancer research

Personal bests

Event	Data
100 m	11.85 secs
200 m	23.39 secs
400 m	52.19 secs
800 m	2mins 07.34 secs
100 m hurdles	13.18 secs
High jump (indoor)	1.88 m
Long jump	6.79 m
Shot put	14.66 m
Javelin	40.81 m
Pentathlon (indoor)	4927 points
Heptathlon	6547 points

International competitions

Year	Competition	Venue	Position	Event	Notes
Representing Isle of Wight
1997	Island Games	Jersey, Channel Islands[10]	1st	100 m	GR (12.02 seconds)
				100 m hurdles	GR (14.39 seconds)
				Long jump	GR (5.84 m)
				High Jump	1.70 m
				4x100m relay	49.24 sec
				4x400m relay	4 min 3.46 sec
1999	Island Games	Gotland, Sweden[11]	1st	100 m	12.45 seconds
				Long jump	5.76 m
			2nd	200 m	26.07 seconds
			3rd	4x100m relay	50.27 sec
				4x400m relay	4 min 6.44 sec
Representing  Great Britain and  England
1997	European U23 Championships	Turku, Finland	10th	Heptathlon	5585 pts
2002	Commonwealth Games	Manchester, England	7th	Heptathlon	5728 pts
2004	European Indoor Cup	Leipzig, Germany	4th	Long jump	6.38 m
	European Cup	Bydgoszcz, Poland	2nd	Long jump	6.68 m
	Summer Olympics	Athens, Greece	3rd	Heptathlon	6424 pts
2005	European Indoor Championship	Madrid, Spain	2nd	Pentathlon	4733 pts
	World Championships	Helsinki, Finland	7th	Long jump	6.42 m w
			5th	Heptathlon	6325 pts
2006	Commonwealth Games	Melbourne, Australia	1st	Heptathlon	6396 pts
	European Cup	Málaga, Spain	4th	Long jump	6.50 m
	European Championships	Gothenburg, Sweden	7th	Heptathlon	6290 pts
			15th (qualifiers)	Long jump	6.40 m
	World Athletics Final	Stuttgart, Germany	7th	Long jump	5.85 m
2007	European Indoor Championships	Birmingham, United Kingdom	2nd	Pentathlon	4927 pts
	World Championships	Osaka, Japan	3rd	Heptathlon	6510 pts
2008	World Indoor Championships	Valencia, Spain	2nd	Pentathlon	4852 pts
	Summer Olympics	Beijing, China	4th	Heptathlon	6517 pts
			5th	4×400 m relay	3:22.68

References

1. Former heptathlete Kelly Sotherton considered switch to cycling for London 2012
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/9147480.stm ; and, The Independent, 14 February 2011
3. McRae, Donald (14 November 2011). "Kelly Sotherton: I don't want to get to 60 and think 'if only'". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 November 2011. [...] having just lost all her funding from UK Athletics [...] [The doctor] said: 'Your back is still improving so maybe you can give heptathlon a go.'
4. Medallist Blonska fails drug test
5. Heptathlon silver medallist Liudmyla Blonska fails drugs test
6. British trio will miss Europeans. BBC Sport (2009-03-02). Retrieved on 2009-03-02.
7. Injury wrecks heptathlete Kelly Sotherton's season. BBC Sport (2010-05-21). Retrieved on 2010-05-26.
8. The Independent, 14 February 2011
9. "London 2012: Heptathlete Kelly Sotherton retires with back injury". BBC Sport. BBC. 27 May 2012. Retrieved 27 May 2012.
10. http://www.islandgames.net/pdfs/games_records.pdf
11. http://www.iiga.org/media/1999/1999_athletics.pdf

External links

• Kelly Sotherton profile at IAAF
• MTC Talent profile