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Your support makes all the difference.Astonishment greeted the news last week that Jo Pavey, athlete, mother, superstar, gold medallist and racing certainty for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year shortlist, was told not to expect any lottery funding next year as she gears up for the Rio Olympics. Cue widespread bewilderment at the snub to one of Britain's most celebrated sporting achievers of the summer.
Pavey herself was more measured in her response. The record-breaking athlete, who at 40 became the oldest woman to win a European 10,000m title and a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games, has become well-versed in not expecting things during an international career almost two decades long, featuring everything from poverty to glory.
"Obviously, it's always disappointing not to be funded," she said, at home in the West Country, jiggling her 14-month-old daughter, Emily, on her hip while Jacob, five, was at school. "But I'm still happy and motivated really. It's just another obstacle to overcome. I just keep going. It is frustrating but I'm not really interested in getting controversial."
Gavin Pavey, her husband and coach, looked as though he'd like to say more but thought better of it. He is, after all, used to it. When Pavey was selected for the Sydney Olympics, she wasn't funded then either and the couple weren't even allowed use of UK Athletic's £25 vouchers for physio.
"I was so skint that, after I'd paid for my flight to Australia and a hire car, there was nothing left for accommodation, so I slept in the car or on a park bench in Brisbane," he said. He famously found a backpacker's hostel next to a brothel, for A$12 a night, during the Olympics themselves.
His wife's story is the tortoise and the hare brought to life: a late-coming rush of triumph when she thought that her chances of major medals were probably over.
"I'd describe this year as very, very surprising," she said. "I was thinking maybe I could just scrape into the team but probably not. I was just coming back from having a baby and it just seemed unrealistic. So to get a bronze and then a gold at major championships – I find it surreal. Plus, being a busy mum with two young children – I'm really pleased and surprised and amused."
There is doubtless an assumption in some quarters that a 42-year-old Pavey would be too old to compete at the Olympics in Rio. However, that would be ageism and illegal, and therefore not said out loud. Her age did not stop her from bringing the stadium in Glasgow to a roaring boil in the 10,000m final in the Commonwealth Games; while Gavin, in the crowd, tried to juggle the children and celebrate simultaneously. "I just remember screaming and shouting, and then it's all a bit of blur".
It also did not stop her overcoming the challenge of Frenchwoman Clemence Calvin, 16 years her junior and 20 seconds faster this year, to achieve her record-breaking gold in Zurich as the oldest female winner in the European Athletic Championships' history. "When I crossed the line, I didn't really believe I'd won. I felt embarrassed. I wasn't convinced. I wanted to see it on the scoreboard first. Then somebody handed me a flag. As Jacob put it: 'You wore a flag'."
It was a high point in a career that began with great promise when Pavey broke a 1,500m record and became English Schools champion in her teens, but then suffered a toe injury which blighted her running for six successive years.
"I'd have given up by then, but she kept trying," said Gavin. "She always felt she had it in her. She's very stubborn."
"I'm not stubborn," his wife said stubbornly.
The athlete wanted to be a footballer originally. Her two older brothers played football and she would scuffle around on the touchline with a ball, wishing she could be part of the action. Women's football came a generation too late, so she sunk her ambitions into athletics, first becoming a physio, while Gavin trained as a chartered surveyor, to earn the money to launch her career.
Despite bursts of funding, it's largely been a do-it-yourself operation. "Some of the years I've been competing I've been funded. I've been grateful for those. Sometimes I haven't been. But as an athlete you can't dwell on it. That's dangerous. You just have to get on with it."
Jo Pavey is on the shortlist for the BTSport Action Woman of the Year. To vote: btsport.com/actionwoman
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