Future TalentEd Summer Term 2020 Summer 2020 | Page 22

BECOMINGX
STUDENT RESOURCE
Becoming the
world’s best
goalkeeper...
BY LEARNING
HOW TO FAIL
PHOTO: BECOMINGX/MIKE LAWN
In an exclusive video interview with
BecomingX, Team GB’s Maddie Hinch
explains how she drew strength from past
failures to excel in women’s hockey. We
provide a taster here.
‘F
ailure’ isn’t a word you would automatically
associate with Maddie Hinch OBE. As an
international field hockey player, she has
reached the summit of sporting achievement,
helping to win Great Britain a gold medal in
the 2016 Rio Olympics – saving all four penalties
in the final shoot-out against The Netherlands.
So far, she has played hockey for her country more than 130 times
and won a range of awards and accolades, including the
International Hockey Federation’s Female Goalkeeper of the Year;
she has helped Team GB qualify for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.
And yet she puts much of her success down to the failures she
experienced along the way.
“I’m so grateful for this up-and-down journey that I’ve had,” she
says. “The tougher the journey, the tougher you are. All those
setbacks are literally like lessons to make you stronger.”
Strong self-belief
Hinch displayed talent in hockey from an early age and had
indomitable self-belief, even in the face of prejudice and
disappointment.
“Sport is definitely still perceived as a male-dominated area,” she
admits. “At school, it can give off an image that you’re a bit of a
tomboy if you want to play sport. But I didn’t really care. Ultimately,
it doesn’t matter what everyone around you is saying. If you truly
believe that is the path you want to go on, you have to stick by it.
As soon as you start losing that inner self-belief, then it’s a hard,
long road.”
Watch Maddie Hinch’s video interview with BecomingX
PLAY VIDEO
“I’m so grateful for this
up-and-down journey
that I’ve had”
However, she struggled to make the right impression early in her
career. “I’m smaller than most of the goalkeepers around the
world. And as a result, I remember the coaches saying to me ‘you
will not make it; you’re too small and too dynamic. You just need
to stay on your line and do less’. I knew that wasn’t my game, so
I spent the ages of 14-18 being told by the same group of people
that I wasn’t what they were looking for.”
Despite a few good years at under-21 level, she was not selected
to play for England in the junior Hockey World Cup – a pivotal
moment in her career.
“I found myself in the grey area where you are too old to play for
the junior set up and not invited to play for the seniors,” she
explains. “So I made the decision to move; to lose my entire
university scholarship to go and play for Leicester Ladies, who
were in the top division. I knew if I could get myself in the mix
with them, my name would travel.”
Her risk paid off. A “fantastic season” led to a trial with England’s
senior team, followed by a full-time contract. She began to dare
to believe that the London 2012 Olympics were within her grasp.
But again, her hopes were dashed.
“I think that was the first time in my entire career that I doubted
myself,” she admits. But what I did at that moment was to look
back at all the other up and down moments I’d had previously in
my career, and which had made me the person I was.
“And I wouldn’t change it,” she stresses. “It has made me much
stronger. I thought, ‘I fought back from that moment and that
moment… and I can do it again’.”
Hinch on the key
attributes for sporting
success
“Key attributes for being best in
the world come down to three
things: perseverance, resilience
and a ‘wanting-to-learn
attitude’. Work out where your
passion lies; what it is you want
to do. If you believe you can do
it and you’re willing to put the
work in, just stick at it and
remember that if you’re not
doing that, someone else is.
You have to want it more than
they do.”
Being the best
“And essentially, that’s what I did after London,” she continues.
“Both keepers retired. The number one shirt was there to grab…
and I felt so much more ready than the rest of the other goalies.
I won every goalkeeper of the tournament award that year; in
fact, in my first tournament, I won ‘player of the tournament’ as
a goalkeeper, which is unheard of. I knew this was where I was
capable of going.”
Even being part of the gold-medal winning Rio team in 2016 did
not fulfil her ambitions.
“It made me greedier!” she recalls. “[I thought] is there actually
more to this now than England and GB’s number one? Could I
be regarded as one of the best in the world? And I started to set
my sights higher and higher and higher. And I think that’s what
I’ve always done.
“That’s where it leads me to today. [Since 2013] I’ve been the
number one, and apparently the best in the world. And it’s “where
do I go from here?” I want to create a legacy from that. I want
to do more, be the best and step away as the best. That’s the
challenge that I face now.”
ABOUT BECOMINGX
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