A victim before success — Harrison’s tale of horror and hope
And you certainly didn’t see her win a gold medal in high summer as judo was lost to a world beyond even the red button and around-the-clock coverage.
Then again, what makes Kayla Harrison’s story so uplifting and so sad, so shocking and so hopeful, so amazing and so disturbing is what nobody saw.
When she was 13, she was sexually abused.
It went on for three years until she finally told a friend who in turn told her mother, but more remarkable still given her achievements since, the man responsible, Daniel Doyle, was her judo coach.
Speaking in London before the Games began, most athletes were focussing on what lay before them. But Harrison was instead asked for just a moment to turn her neck and look back at a life she left behind but can never escape. Her response was both brave and insightful, especially given the fact she’s still just 22.
“I feel incredibly sad for that little girl,” she sighed. “I can still see her. I can still see her crying her eyes out and not knowing how to escape. But I’m happy for her because I know she had the courage to say, ‘I won’t be that victim of sexual abuse’. Now she’s got engaged, lives in a beautiful beach town and is going for glory at the Olympics.”
Just days later, she achieved that glory, becoming the first American to stand atop the podium in her chosen sport; the same sport that threatened to take away far more than it could ever give her.
But this isn’t so much a story about sport. And to say it’s a good news story would be insulting as well as inaccurate. It’s merely a life story, one rarely matched for its blinding highs and shadowy, lonely lows. Harrison may not have the mass appeal of McIlroy, or the relentless record of Shefflin but she has a past and present that matters more than any numbers, figures and statistics.
That it took an Olympic gold for her to be noticed by many is a little uncomfortable but it also shows the importance of what she achieved in 2012.
Harrison’s mother, a black-belt in judo, introduced her daughter to the sport at six. A couple of years later she joined the academy in the small city of Middletown, Ohio where she first encountered Doyle who was 24.
“Daniel was one of my mum’s friends, he babysat me and my brother and sister, he came over for family barbecues,” she recalled.
“It was devastating. When I was young, he would say, ‘We have to keep this between us or we will get into trouble’ and, honestly, as I got older, I was pretty brainwashed. I knew it was wrong but I thought I loved him.
“And I thought he loved me. I was young, terrified but really didn’t understand. Even at an early age, I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to please people. My world revolved around Daniel. He was my sun. All I wanted to do was please him. Unfortunately, he took advantage of that. During those years I was an emotional wreck, severely depressed, suicidal. I hated my life. Finally, it got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Looking back through her diary from the years of abuse, Harrison saw the raw notes where she threatened to leave it all behind. Yet she didn’t just stick with life but somehow with a sport that had seen her be a two-time American champion by 15 and while Doyle was arrested, she moved to Massachusetts to train under 1999 world champion Jimmy Pedro and his father.
“I hated judo,” Harrison noted. “I hated the Pedros. I didn’t want to be the strong girl. I didn’t want to be the golden girl. I didn’t want to be the girl who overcame everything.”
Leafing through interviews Harrison did over the summer, one from The Daily Telegraph stands out. And more specifically one line that Pedro told her at the time stands out. “One day, he sat me down and said, ‘You know kid, it happened to you – but it doesn’t define you and some day you’re eventually going to have to get over it’.”
It may seem a brutal and blunt piece of advice but it was exactly what was needed. Two years later Doyle was behind bars, starting into a 10-year prison sentence, while Harrison was winning a junior world title, edging ever closer to being the very best and tip-toeing further from what went on.
“Stepping on the Olympic mat is nothing compared to what she’s already beat,” Pedro has said of his pupil. “That’s what gives her incredible resolve. That’s what makes her a true champion with character. And that’s what makes her story so amazing.” But the most amazing stories aren’t about winning or losing. They’re about winning and losing.
“Yes, I forgive him. I almost pity him,” says Harrison. “This just proves that you’re only a victim if you allow yourself to be and that nothing can stop you. I want to be the person that stands up and fights for what’s right.”
