Athlete mental health finally received attention from Kelly Catlin parents after she committed herself.
Olympic track cyclist Kelly Catlin committed suicide when she was 23 years old. Catlin won the silver medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio while a doctoral student at Stanford University studying computational and mathematical engineering.
She was also a three-time world champion in the team pursuit.
Kelly entered the room with her three violins, her Olympic training bike from 2016, her medals from regional, national, and worldwide contests, and her notes from graduate-level mathematics studies.
Kelly Catlin battled her problems but lacked the knowledge to realize that aiming for excellence wasn’t her sole course of action.
Meet Mark Catlin and Carolyn Emory, Kelly Catlin’s parents.
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Mark Catlin and Carolyn Emory gave birth to Kelly Catlin.
In the months after Kelly’s death in March 2019, Mark and Carolyn relocated her items into her childhood bedroom at the family farm outside of St. Paul, Minnesota.
Mark and Carolyn stored their daughter’s possessions and shut the door. They tried to move on with their lives while grieving Kelly’s departure and the space stayed empty for two years.
Kelly’s bedroom door was ultimately unlocked by Mark and Carolyn in 2019, and they have since begun gathering Kelly’s riding gear for donation to a local Minnesota historical society.
By some strange coincidence, the start of this endeavor coincided with the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, where Kelly’s fellow Americans on the track cycling team were competing for medals.
What Led Kelly Catlin to Take Her Own Life?
In an effort to prevent similar tragedies in the future, Kelly Catlin’s father has revealed the cause of her suicide.
He issued a report detailing the sequence of events leading up to his daughter’s death and an investigation of the possible contributing causes.
Her success-at-all-costs mindset, overtraining, stress, and physical injuries from a January suicide attempt are just a few of the factors Mark cites as contributing to her suicide. On both occasions, she inhaled toxic gas.
The terrible experience that Catlin’s family believes may have occurred during a training ride crash in January 2019 but was first misdiagnosed was a major contributing reason to her melancholy, according to Catlin’s family.
Parents of Kelly Catlin Recall Painful Memories
As a result of watching the 2016 Olympics, Mark and Carolyn may recollect details from Kelly’s life after the Games.
Kelly’s silver medal in the Team Pursuit that year was her finest cycling achievement. The 2016 Olympics gold medal favorites and defending world champions were the Americans.
When they were defeated by Great Britain in the final, some of the team’s riders were disappointed. That wasn’t the case with Kelly.
After traveling to Rio de Janeiro for the Olympics, Mark and Carolyn surprised Kelly there. After the marathon, she took advantage of every opportunity to display the gold and speak with spectators.
Whatever the causes, Mark and Carolyn concur that their daughter lacked access to sufficient resources to aid her in forming a positive outlook on her drive for success. For family and friends, she wore a tough façade that was impenetrable.
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