Charlie Guest: Scottish skier on autoimmune disease & Olympic hopes
- Published
Charlie Guest went to the Olympics in 2018 and hopes to compete at the Beijing 2022 Games
Scottish slalom skier Charlie Guest is determined that an autoimmune disease will not affect her Olympic hopes after a strong start to 2021.
The 27-year-old was diagnosed last year with palindromic rheumatism - "attacks of rheumatoid arthritis on any given joint, any given time".
Despite that, Guest has posted three personal-best times this year.
"I don't see why it would," she said when asked about whether it might impinge on her Olympic hopes.
"I would definitely challenge it if that became an issue because, so far, I've had a very successful season. Even last year, I dealt with it for the whole season and had a standout season.
"I've produced at three races in a row, under fatigue in Covid-challenged conditions. Just being able to produce those results under any circumstance was really cool."
After a long battle with a back injury, Guest started experiencing shoulder and wrist pain in 2019 and says learning to deal with her condition has been "a huge learning curve".
"It just got worse and worse into the summer," she told BBC Scotland's Women in Sport podcast. "I was in denial for quite a long time then it got to the point when it was really, really bad and I was like, 'I need to do something about this'.
"I googled 'athletes with autoimmune disease'. There's far more out there than you think. Venus Williams had a similar type of condition.
"We still are learning a bit - I just hope it doesn't get worse.
"There is the potential for it to kind of go away at some point. I'm on the lowest dose of medication as well, so I know there's a certain buffer zone I can go into."