Chloe Birch: Changes give English players better mental health support

Chloe Birch and Lauren Smith won women's doubles silver for England at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

Chloe Birch believes changes made by Badminton England to their elite player programme are providing better support for those with mental health issues.

The 27-year-old suffered from fatigue and a lack of motivation following the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021.

But she bounced back as she and Lauren Smith won silver medals for England in the women's doubles at last year's Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

"I was a different person in and outside badminton," Birch said.

"I was exhausted. I really struggled to be motivated. It got to a point where I didn't want to get out of bed, and that's not me.

"Family and friends were saying 'are you really OK'? That was really difficult to hear, that others were concerned. 'How am I acting that these questions are being asked'?

Birch, who is based in Northampton, told BBC Look East: "We didn't have a culture or an environment where being open about mental health was spoken about.

"I had spoken about things in the past and it had been viewed as negative, so I didn't want more negativity to be drawn on me as an athlete. I'd already had situations where partners or funding had been taken away."

Birch blamed several factors for her problems, including funding cuts by UK Sport - which have since been reversed - and the upheaval at Badminton England, which was criticised for long-standing issues over selection and player welfare.

In response, the governing body said in January 2022 that it was "apparent that much more needs to be done to create the performance environment in which players and coaches can thrive and deliver medal success".

They produced a 50-point action plan which included a commitment to an ongoing development programme for coaches, including safeguarding, mental health first aid, and external mentoring.

'Sharing my problems massively helped'

A year on, in response to Birch's comments, Badminton England said in a statement: "'The wellbeing of our players is key to the success of our programme and we are working hard to create a great environment that supports athletes' resilience as well as athlete performance.

"Badminton England has over the past 12 months continued to ensure that it has put the appropriate support mechanisms in place for its players and the performance environment.

"Working closely with our partners UK Sport and English Institute of Sport, the programme now has an established Sport Science Sport Medicine structure in place along with a programme of development and education for the coaching and performance team as a whole."

Birch also found it difficult spending so much time away from her Sheffield home, at English badminton's headquarters in Milton Keynes.

"Fortunately I met my boyfriend down here, so I had a reason to be here that wasn't just badminton and it gave me an escape," she said.

"Sharing my problems with him massively helped me."

Birch won her first medal - another silver - at the 2015 European Mixed Team Championships.

She and Smith also won silver at the European Championships in 2021, held in Kyiv, before losing in the last 16 in Tokyo and then collecting her second Commonwealth medal - to go with a mixed team bronze in the Gold Coast in 2018.

She is now preparing for the All England Open in Birmingham, which starts next week, but also wants to use her experiences as a force for good and has become an ambassador for a mental health charity.

"If I can visit a school and provide a fun 20-30 minutes for kids, and they go home feeling mentally better and want to do it again, they might ask their parents to go and do a bit of sport," she added.

"My advice to anyone suffering is to write things down, get outside, do some activity, because it does help.

"Try to push yourself to make you feel better."