Imke Glas Podcast Interview

[Hatsumomo]

Only caveat is that it's in Dutch. If anybody here knows the language or is enterprising enough to try and run the audio through a translator, here's the Spotify link:

 

[Amber]

Imke says that if she had a second chance she would never do elite gymnastics again and prefer to have a normal life.

She is doing well right now.
She started when she was 4 at a local gym. She appeared to be talented and she switched clubs.
What she loved about gymnastics was the variety and the flying. She misses the flying and would like to try but she is not strong enough.
In the beginning she was not ambitious, that came later. Her goal was to compete at the Olympics but took it step by step, first goal was Nationals and it evolved from there.
She trained twice a day during the week and attended a special school that accommodated her schedule.
She switched clubs regularly, trained at K&V Opmeer, left there because her coach left the club and ended up at BATO Haarlem.
She never saw herself as a good gymnast until she retired. She was insecure about her abilities, though she was always part of the national team.
When she went to BATO it went very well in the beginning but after a while suffered from mental blockages comparable with what Simone Biles went through. She worked through it but it was difficult for her.
During a training she had a severe fall on vault. She was training an Omelianchick (I think) she landed on her head and broke her neck. She was paralyzed from the chest down. She knows the fall happened but can't remember what happened after the fall. She was brought to the hospital but never had the idea that she would not be in the gym the next day (she was 13 at the time). Test showed that she had a spinal cord injury in her neck and that she needed surgery. She was operated on the same night which lasted about seven hours. She fully expected that after surgery she would be able to do everything and start training again. After surgery she still did not feel anything. The doctors told her she would not do gymnastics again and that the chances of walking again were very slim. That news helped her to motivate her and she decided for herself she would walk again. She started rehabilitation after a week and had to learn to use her hands and fingers and legs again.
When she arrived at the rehabilitation center she needed help with everything. After waking up she needed help with dressing and bathing. After breakfast until 17:00 she had different types of therapies. She made good progress and fairly quickly she was able to move her toes. As she still could not feel it, she had to ask her mother to check if her toes were really moving. In the beginning the toes did not move but later she managed to move them. These little successes motivated her to continue and work hard. She compares it with advancing in her gymnastics career.
The rehabilitation was physical but there was no room for processing what happened mentally, mainly because of her age. She was the youngest in the center and especially in the weekend, when there was no therapy, she felt lonely. She stayed at the rehabilitation center for six months.

After she learned to walk again she wanted to go back into the gym. The first time she walked in she felt good but very weird. Everybody was very happy for her. In the beginning she coached but later also started training again. It was apparent to her that she would never get back to her all level. She always said out loud she accepted that but secretly felt she wanted to do more and felt bad that she would not get back to elite. She was very much admired for her perseverance but never felt it. She did some lower level competitions (Level 5 or 6?) but soon decided that she did not want to compete anymore. She retired when she was 18. After her retirement she could fully process what happened to her. Even now she is working on processing what happened during and after her accident. At the time she was too young to fully see what impact the accident had on her life.
In retrospect it would have been better to not come back to gymnastics and in her teenage years, take the time to process her accident.
Even now she has trouble making decisions. As everything was decided for her in her younger years, she now is afraid of making the wrong decisions.
She is also searching for her identity. She is still approached as Imke the gymnasts and she is still finding out who she is without gymnastics. (her accident, and her return to gymnastics was BIG news at the time!).

Besides the negative aspects, she also names positive aspects of her gymnastics career: perseverance, discipline, flexibility. She however says that the positives do not negate the negative aspects. She had a lot of help processing everything especially with food. She had a very negative self image which caused problems with food. This is improving due to a new love: She now runs marathons.

 

[Amber]

This is a summary....

 

[Hatsumomo]

This is a summary....

It's much appreciated, thank you!

 

[RedBirdie]

Amber, thank you for that incredibly detailed summary!

 

[Passion]

Thank you @Amber !