Dad tells of his family's 'unbelievable' pain after losing their daughter, who was also a professional road-racer and student
CYCLING is in shock after the death of 23-year-old Olympic silver medallist Kelly Catlin, after her father revealed she took her own life.
USA team pursuit star Kelly was also a world-class road-racer with the Rally UHC Pro Cycling Team.
She was only denied gold at Rio 2016 when the hotly-tipped Americans were beaten by Team GB, who retained their title thanks to a world record as Laura Kenny became the first British women to win three Olympic titles.
Dad Mark told of his family's "unbelievable" pain following Kelly's death .
He said: “There isn’t a minute that goes by that we don’t think of her and think of the wonderful life she could have lived
“There isn’t a second in which we wouldn’t freely give our lives in exchange for hers. The hurt is unbelievable.”
Kelly recently explained the stresses on her time while studying Computational Mathematics at Stanford University and maintaining a twin career in top-level cycling.
She wrote: “Being a graduate student, track cyclist, and professional road cyclist can instead feel like I need to time-travel to get everything done.
"And things still slip through the cracks.
"This is probably the point when you’ll expect me to say something cliche like, 'Time management is everything'.
"Or perhaps you’re expecting a nice, encouraging slogan like, 'Being a student only makes me a better athlete!'
"After all, I somehow make everything work, right? Sure. Yeah, that’s somewhat accurate. But the truth is that most of the time, I don’t make everything work.”
Kelly won women's 4km team pursuit gold at the 2016, 2017 and 2018 UCI Track Cycling World Championships.
The University of Minnesota graduate also took silver at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.
