Helping people who are suffering 'beats winning any gold medal'

Record-breaking teenage pentathlete Pippa Earley was tipped for the 2028 Olympics until relentless training and social pressures saw her succumb to anorexia. Now an athletics coach working with young people, she shares her powerful story of recovery

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Moving to the US, Pippa hoped for a fresh start. Instead, pandemic isolation in a foreign land at the tender age of 19 intensified the challenge she faced in an already mercilessly competitive field.

Eating patterns spiralled - access to unlimited food in college clashed with her ingrained habits.

"Binges became a dark coping mechanism. I couldn’t stop even when I wanted to," she tells me.

When her coach eventually discovered the problem, he insisted she return home to recover.

Yet despite intensive dietary work, Pippa’s downward spiral continued. The trauma of isolation, compounded by family anxieties and medical indifference, left her dangerously alone. "My dad called hospitals out of desperation - at under 40kg (6st 4lb), I was told there were sicker people."

He even arranged for her to spend a couple of months in a private UK clinic in a bid to help her find equilibrium and balance.

But it wasn’t effective. Then he organised a carer to look after her at home in an attempt to create the perfect conditions for his daughter’s healing. But Pippa’s mental health was failing.

She became increasingly unsettled, spending time with relatives in Yorkshire before staying with a supportive uncle and aunt in West Sussex. They arranged for her to see a psychiatrist who stated she would die within six weeks if not admitted to hospital.

In March 2022, Pippa was sectioned and placed in a secure ward at a hospital in London.