Nile Wilson: ‘I was one of the fittest athletes on the planet. Then I was struggling to walk’ (2024)

Former Olympic gymnast and Go Hard or Go Home star Nile Wilson on the injury that ended his career, his descent into addiction and the power of asking for help.

In 2016, Nile Wilson won bronze on the horizontal bar at the Rio Olympics. That same year, he received an injury that he thinks led to his retirement from gymnastics, external three years later.

“I landed on my head quite badly," he tells BBC Three, "and that little niggle of neck pain never really went away.”

In 2019, another injury left Nile with a herniated disc, with the tissue between the bones in his spine pushed out of place. This required surgery – and left the athlete needing to learn how to walk again.

He began to drink alcohol to numb the pain – and gambling on the roulette wheel to compensate for the thrill he was missing from gymnastics.

Eventually, he says, “I hit rock bottom.” He reached out for help, and began recovery.

Now, the 27-year-old Commonwealth gold medalist and current Dancing on Ice contestant wants to help someone else as one of Go Hard or Go Home's ‘Warriors’. The BBC Three show sees elite athletes such as Nile train contestants stuck in negative patterns through a series of gruelling physical challenges.

Nile knows all about negative patterns. “I'm never going to be able to stop having an addictive nature,” he says. “It was what made me so strong at gymnastics. The process was the same when it comes to drinking and gambling – my attitude was ‘I’ll become the best at that.’”

This obsessive nature drove the Leeds-born gymnast to gymnastic glory, including five Commonwealth gold medals, silver at the 2015 World Championships and his 2016 Olympic bronze. It has also led him to score the highest scores of the series so far on Dancing on Ice this year.

It also meant he did not always give himself the recovery time he needed. “I had my surgery [in 2019],” Nile says, “which then led to other nerve damage. It’s not that I didn’t listen to the doctors. But I certainly rushed my comeback. You want to get back out there and compete again.”

He retired in 2021 due to his injuries, which was “completely heartbreaking.

“I wanted to be the best gymnast in the world, and then it's taken away from you. That knocked me for six and shattered my mind.

“It was tough to accept that I wasn’t going to be the athlete I once was. That's when my behaviour started to take a dive. It was tough to be positive because of the severity of the pain. I was one of the fittest athletes on the planet, then I was struggling to walk. I started to take lots of pain relief and drink lots of alcohol to try and numb the pain.”

“I found it difficult as well,” he adds, “because I'd put myself out there so much online. I was an inspiration, a powerful alpha. And then I wasn't. That's when my mental health started to spiral.”

Eventually, Nile realised something had to change. “I had to hold my hands up and ask for help. I kept going through the cycle of feeling a certain way, then drinking and gambling to get rid of it. All of a sudden, I wanted to switch it off. I hit rock bottom.

“I know not everybody's in this situation, but I was assigned to a therapist and doctor straight away. Fortunately I’ve got some amazing people in my life that have been through similar experiences that I was able to lean on.”

These people taught him recovery is a gradual process: “You're not going to move a mountain in one day. You take one step today and then take another step tomorrow.”

Some of these steps were physical, like joining a self-exclusion scheme that bans him from UK casinos. Other steps seem smaller, but were just as crucial. “It can be the tiniest of steps,” he explains, “like getting out of bed. You start creating a little bit of momentum and then take it from there.”

This lesson was central to his mentoring technique on Go Hard or Go Home. On the BBC Three show, he is paired with Carys, a contestant who wants to be more independent. Nile helps her become self-reliant through training sessions that gently take her out of her comfort zone, such as a pool-based workout that helps Carys face her fear of the water.

"The way I started was very gentle. I said, ‘we're gonna have fun for half an hour and then I want you to try to do a couple of things. We’ll take it week on week.'"

He advises the same approach for those who think they may have a problem with addiction. “Try and listen to yourself and know who you are. You have to ask yourself, ‘is there a deeper reason for the drinking?’ And if it's to remove pain, then you have to be honest with yourself and ask for help."

If you, or someone you know, have been affected by addiction, you may be able to help via the BBC Action Line, external.

Go Hard or Go Home episodes air Sundays and Mondays at 9pm on BBC Three. Episodes are released onto BBC iPlayer on Sundays.

Nile Wilson: ‘I was one of the fittest athletes on the planet. Then I was struggling to walk’ (2024)

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