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88 • Sport, Media and Society

read wake me up, it’s a dream says kelly, with an image of a surprised Holmes
as well as other assorted images. Steve Ovett’s (2004: 27) column in The Observer
alluded to a wider feeling of astonishment at her achievement: ‘to me, Kelly’s double
gold medal in the 800m and 1500m is a classic case of what the Olympics are really
about: unpredictability, not world records.’ The press responded to this unpredicted

and significant event by narrating Holmes as an instant national heroine. However,
Hills and Kennedy (2009) argued that the multiple and changeable storylines that ap-
peared in the press were a result of the challenge Holmes presented to the established
image of national sporting hero.

Uneven Narratives for an Unusual Champion

Hills and Kennedy (2009) identified inconsistencies in the narratives of two articles in
The Sunday Times. A profile of Holmes was included in the paper’s ‘Comment’ section.

The profile was accompanied by a cartoon head-and-shoulders image of Kelly Holmes

grinning broadly, with arched eyebrows and staring eyes, which Hills and Kennedy
(2009: 15) suggested gave her a slightly crazed look. The headline ‘Bad Luck Finally
Runs Out for Our Golden Girl’ departed from both ‘golden success’ and ‘ups and
downs’ narratives by constructing a different kind of story. The headline began with a
negative and ended by embracing Holmes as ‘our golden girl’; the story was framed
not as a rise to victory, but as the end of a long, drawn-out fall. Hills and Kennedy ar-
gued that the mood of the headline continued into the first paragraph of the profi le:

Kelly was a broken figure. Defeated, humiliated and hobbling on crutches out-

side Atlanta’s Olympic stadium in 1996, she concluded that if athletics could be
so cruel she didn’t need it. In an act of renunciation, she threw her spikes into a
dustbin. (Bad Luck, 2004: 15)

Hills and Kennedy argued that it was unusual to begin a piece celebrating a momen-
tous event involving one of Britain’s greatest Olympic athletes with an almost sadistic
interest in the low points of her career. There was a marked change to the narrative in
the second paragraph with an allusion to a better-known tale—that of Cinderella:

That was the poisoned apple moment in the fairy tale. The happy ending seemed
chalked in for last Monday night, when Holmes surfaced from years as the for-

lorn ‘bridesmaid’ of British athletics to find Lord Coe, her childhood hero, gently
removing her spikes in an act of homage to her stunning victory in the women’s
800m at the Athens Games. (Bad Luck, 2004: 15)

The quotation marks surrounding bridesmaid referenced the use of the word by Hol-
mes herself in an interview. However, Hills and Kennedy suggested that by marking
out the word in this way, the romantic storyline was lent an air of incredulousness.