"But she talked to her sister on the phone a couple of days before she killed herself and said she was still thinking about it. "She gave us her word she would not try again. "Part of her brain knew it was too much after the first attempt," says Carolyn. Something was definitely wrong." Catlin, third from left, sitting with fellow Team USA cyclists at Rio 2016Ĭatlin attempted suicide at the end of January 2019, but did not succeed. They trained her with all sorts of monitors and oxygen and blood pressure - all that stuff. They put her on some therapy for dizziness, light sensitivity and headaches. Mark adds: "She went to the Olympic Training Centre (OTC) and had a whole bunch of scans which didn't show up an awful lot. "She stayed an extra week after the team left because she couldn't cope with the airport lights and the noise." "She went to Germany for a World Cup thing, but she couldn't do it because she had severe headaches," says Carolyn. Doctors' diagnoses could not pinpoint exactly what was wrong.
![1985 murray bike 1985 murray bike](https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/21/2019/03/Joe-with-ti-bike-a4eb222.jpg)
Weeks afterwards, she was still in constant pain and discomfort.
![1985 murray bike 1985 murray bike](https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/fMgAAOSw-3BgpYRs/s-l300.jpg)
She had no idea how seriously her injuries would go on to affect her.
#1985 murray bike professional
She was out that day as part of her training with professional team Rally Cycling, one of America's best. Cycling was the thing it got channelled into."īy the time of her crash, Catlin was a postgraduate computer science student at Stanford University in California, a three-time world track cycling champion in the team pursuit and an Olympics silver medallist with the United States. Art, Chinese… With school assignments she would do it and go beyond. "Anything she focused on, she really focused. Not to be an Olympic athlete necessarily, but to excel or to be good at something," says her father Mark. "It was like she was born with this drive or obsessiveness. She was an especially talented football player, but when injuries saw her take up cycling as a way of keeping fit on the sidelines, there was no going back. She seemed destined to achieve in almost any sport she liked. One of triplets, Catlin was a gifted athlete growing up. Looking for answers has been a long, painful and complex journey for her family.īut they believe doing so will help raise awareness about an issue that sport - and especially cycling - has for too long ignored. Two months later, Catlin had taken her own life. Her family was worried - she no longer seemed herself. Her mood and behaviour changed, she became anxious and depressed. Soon after, she began to experience painful and confusing symptoms.
![1985 murray bike 1985 murray bike](https://bmxmuseum.com/image/59901398_427040374788135_4220238605966114816_n5cd4e8267049c_blowup.jpg)
But then she did check and it had dents on the front and back."Ĭatlin didn't realise at the time, but she had suffered a concussion. "I asked her: 'Did you check your helmet?' 'No it's fine,' she said. "She was telling me about it and kind of laughing," Catlin's mother Carolyn Emory told BBC World Service. Later she spoke with her mum on the phone. She was carried forward and skidded across the road, tumbling several times.Ĭatlin knew the drill of the hardened cyclist: jump up, survey the bike, examine the burning road rash and torn Lycra, get back up and finish the ride.
![1985 murray bike 1985 murray bike](http://cdn.ipernity.com/200/70/68/49717068.04ced2c3.500.jpg)
Her bike flew out from underneath her and tumbled down the hillside, coming to a stop in a cloud of dust.