It’s Sep 10, 2009. My body trembled with excitement. I gazed from the stage at the other participants and the audience, feeling the title ‘Vice world champion’ become more real with each passing moment.

Now the numbers confirm it, I can return with a medal from the Olympics. I am an ‘Olympic Hope’ the village where I grew up, friends, family, the country, now all depend on me to deliver them a moment of intense, life-greater excitement, a moment they can feel a part of.

On the podium, beneath the adrenaline, a sense of emptiness began to grow inside me, an abyss of fear, pain, and longing.

When I returned home, a grand celebration awaited me. Journalists and photographers waited alongside dozens of young children who looked up to me like a king. There, amidst the great commotion, I felt this gap opening between me and the world.

My ‘new role’ in the world distanced me from who I am. At times, I allowed my true self freedom, but mostly I remained loyal to the new character and role.

The greatest fear – disappointing everyone – is what now pushes me to new extremes. In this moment, cameras pointed at me like firing machines, the small crack opens, I break down, and the great pain I’ve locked away all my life bursts out, dismantling me in front of everyone