There is no greater disappointment for an athlete than missing out on glory by the narrowest of margins.  It could be losing on penalties in a cup final, finishing a race a fraction of a second behind first place, or missing out on a medal by a single point.  But the pain of defeat is obvious for all to see.  It takes just one look into the eyes and the faces of the losing competitors, soaked and burning red with a cruel combination of bitter tears and futile sweat.

Conversely, there is nothing sweeter than seeing those same athletes exorcising their demons and capturing the prize they came so desperately close to. Tears of anguish become rivers of irrepressible joy as they salute friends, family, fans, or whoever is willing to hug them. 

It is something phenomenal for any athlete to have experienced such a range of emotions by the age of 23, but that is, in a nutshell, the storyboard of Susan Hughes’ career.  Scotland’s Number One badminton player, at 19, she missed out on a bronze medal in the 2002 Commonwealth Games by a single point in Manchester.  But there was no way she would let that happen again.

“I said to myself that I would make sure this wasn’t my only chance.  You make your own luck as well as being lucky, and I said if I can get so close when I’m 19, and I am still improving, then it’s a good thing that I got so close already,” she says.

But building such a mental attitude took time.  To make it so far as a teenager is an amazing accomplishment, but an even more difficult feat is recovering from the sheer dejection of such a near miss.  “It makes you want to do even better and work even harder, but at the time I actually could have killed myself.  It was terrible.  I thought I had blown my chance,” she admits. 

But Hughes took on board the 2002 experience as a lesson learned and moved on, eventually gaining her Commonwealth deserves four years later.  “In Manchester I had no pressure on me at all.  People had barely heard of me, I was a total surprise.  But then after I had done that everyone was saying I would definitely get a medal at Melbourne.”  She didn’t disappoint, and returned home with a bronze medal in the bag.  “You’ve just got to learn to cope, and when you do it is the best feeling ever, because you have proved you are good enough to do it.”

Indeed, ‘learning to cope’ is one of the hardest things that any elite athlete has to do.  And there are always new challenges to deal with.  Susan passed her first major test admirably, and has a Commonwealth medal to show for it.  But now she has the pressure that such an achievement can burden you with.  She is now the player that others want to beat.  The medal she wore proudly on the podium in Melbourne weighs much more symbolically than it does physically.  And she has many opponents who would gladly lighten the load.  So how does she ‘cope’?

“You have got to really want it,” is Susan’s simple answer.  She then continues:  “Take China, for instance, where many of the world’s best players come from.  They want to succeed because it gets them out of poverty and it gets them a decent life.  Obviously it’s not like that in Britain, so there isn’t that motivation, so you’ve got to really want to it for yourself.  You are not going to make a living like football out of badminton.  Someone can’t drill into you how much you should want to win.  You can’t really teach that.  You either want it or you don’t, and the training is too hard for someone to force you to do it.”

As Susan rightly says, the demands of a taxing training schedule are often the downfall of many aspiring athletes.  For a person in their teens or early twenties to fully commit to a punishing regime is a big ask.  No such quibbles for Susan though: “It’s not hard for me.  People would give their right leg for this to be their job, so really giving up the odd night out is a pretty small thing to have to do.”

So what advice would Susan give to young players coming through the ranks, experiencing the difficulties of balancing their accustomed lifestyle with the demands of a sporting career?  “I think you need to get into the habit of doing everything properly, rather than only giving 80% half the time.  You can’t just decide to step it up if and when you need to, you have to get used to doing it all the time.  Then it becomes your habit, and it is hard to pull yourself out of it.”

What Susan’s philosophy exudes more than anything is that it isn’t easy to become successful in your sport, and when you do, it is even harder to keep it that way.  Working your way to the top takes hard work, thorough training and sacrifice.  But staying there requires added dedication and determination.  There are always others jostling for position underneath the podium, so it is essential that your balance is maintained, lest you be toppled over.

“It’s not like I’m the world champion, but even if I was, you can always get better.  But I’m nowhere near that standard yet.  People always ask what it’s like to be the best in Scotland, but I don’t even think about it because my targets are much bigger than being the best in Scotland.  I want to work towards being the best in Britain, then the best in Europe and so on,” she says.

Her next challenge is the Olympics 2008 in Beijing. Her big chance to deliver the goods on the world stage.  And her chances have increased after it was announced that a British player will (most likely) be guaranteed a singles spot in Beijing, after the ranking cut was lifted from top 16 to top 32, with Susan placed at ?.  She is currently in competition for that one place with England’s Tracey Hallman.  “The Olympics are the pinnacle of anyone’s career, and the fact that badminton is a national sport in China, and the competition is being held in Beijing, means that it will be just amazing.  That is my only focus for the next 18 months.”

Focus is a trait that Susan has in abundance. Focus on training, focus on playing, and a focus on winning, because, as Susan knows all too well, a slip in concentration can cost you a match, and in some cases, a medal.  But her sights are firmly set on achieving the result because, essentially, that’s all that matters.  “When you finish your sporting career all you can do is look back on how many medals you won and who you managed to beat.  Results from years gone by don’t say who played well and who played badly, they say who won.  It’s as simple as that.” 

Her next challenge takes place this month at the World Team Championships in Glasgow, where she will be partnering this year’s Scottish Champion, Rita Yuan Gao, from June 10th.

RO

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