Olympic gold medalist Rebecca Adlington has become used to facing both physical and mental challenges, but she was kind in her admiration of Emma Raducanu, a fellow athlete who recently opened up about her struggle with performance anxiety.

Rebecca can relate to Emma’s challenges because she has experienced anxiety and panic attacks in the past and withdrew from Wimbledon.

Rebecca, a 34-year-old swimming champ shared this to a newsletter recently: “I think the whole experience caught up with me. It has been extremely brave of her to come out and say what she’s going through. So the fact that she’s doing that in a capacity where there is an immense amount of pressure and there’s an immense amount of expectation, it’s incredibly brave of her, I think.”

Emma Raducanu has been honest in sharing her struggles with performance anxiety. Rebecca is motivated to fight the stigma frequently attached to mental health because her own case of performance anxiety peaked after she retired, following the 2012 Olympics and that’s why she encouraged Emma to counter these conditions.

The 20-year-old Raducanu was only a teenager when she won US Open and hasn’t even come close to matching his achievements since then due to ankle and wrist surgery.

Emma Raducanu in 2023

Currently ranked no.151, Emma played her last match on the 18^th of April when she surrendered to world no.20 Jelena Ostapenko 6-2 6-1 in the 1^st round in Stuttgart (draw).

Presently, during this year the Brit owns a compiled 5-5 record.