Latest news with #ArchieGoodburn
The Herald Scotland
24-05-2025
- Health
- The Herald Scotland
Goodburn's story shows sport can steady the mind when body betrays us
I'm sitting recovering from a hard 18 holes of golf here in Jamaica and my mind drifts to next week. I'm returning to Edinburgh for an evening of conversation with Capital Conversations via America, London then a long drive up through the country to hopefully arrive fresh and ready. Capital Conversations: Inside the Mind will be held at The University of Edinburgh in partnership with Macleod Media. I'll be sharing the stage with Archie Goodburn, a world championship medalist, a Commonwealth Games swimmer, and someone who, like me, lives with a chronic, complex medical condition that offers no cure, but no clear end either. Archie represents the best of Scottish sport. But it's not just his speed in the water that makes him remarkable. It's his story outside of it. In 2024, Archie went public with a diagnosis that changed everything: three inoperable oligodendrogliomas, a rare form of brain cancer. The news came after months of unexplained seizures and numbness, symptoms which he initially wrote off as migraines. At just 22, he was thrust into a world of scans, uncertainty, and life-altering conversations with doctors, the kind that leave you suspended between hope and fear. What makes Archie's path so resonant for me is this shared middle ground we both occupy. We're not terminal. But we're not 'cured' either. We live in the grey area, the daily negotiation between gratitude for life and the anxiety of not knowing what's next. In those moments lying in the MRI scanner, hearing a consultant walk in with new results, you don't feel like an athlete. You just feel human. Exposed. Powerless. And yet, Archie keeps swimming. He won silver in the 50m breaststroke at the 2025 Aquatics GB Swimming Championships, a performance that speaks volumes not just about talent, but about sheer psychological endurance. Like me, he's found that sport becomes more than a profession or pastime it becomes a coping mechanism. A form of control when everything else feels unsteady. His strength, both physical and emotional, is exactly why I'm looking forward to this conversation. It's not about medals. It's about meaning. How we move forward, not because we're fearless, but because we've learned how to carry the fear. Beyond the pool, Archie is pursuing an Integrated Masters in Chemical Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. His academic excellence was recognised when he was awarded the Principal's Medal in 2024, honouring his outstanding contributions to the university community. For both of us, sport has been our scaffolding, a way to steady the mind when the body betrays us. Edinburgh also holds a unique place in my story. While I didn't study at the university, I spent countless hours at FASIC - the sports medicine clinic - tucked behind the gym. That's where I rehabbed many injuries over the years. Long before I ever sat across from a consultant delivering life-altering news, I would spend hours and hours with the medical team and the well known physio Sand Lysol who has looked after hundreds of Scottish athletes. And that's the thread that runs through this upcoming conversation: control, or the loss of it. Whether you're on the start line of a final, staring down the lane, or lying still in an MRI scanner, waiting for answers, the emotional weight is oddly similar. The same surge of anxiety, the same deep breath, the same flicker of doubt. You know everything could change in a moment. And you have no control. When a doctor walks into the room with a scan result, time warps. There's no warm-up. No preparation. Just news that can rewrite your life in a sentence. You try to brace for it, but the body reacts anyway, your heart races, your mouth dries, your legs feel like lead. That's why sport is more than an outlet. It's survival almost. It teaches us how to stay present. How to regulate the chaos. How to fall apart and still finish the race. The habits built on the track, in the gym, or on the course, they carry over into the darkest, loneliest places. They remind us that resilience is not about pretending to be okay. It's about finding rhythm in uncertainty. And rhythm, for me, has always started with movement. This event is about what happens inside, inside the mind of athletes, yes, but also inside the bodies that won't always cooperate. Inside the medical systems. Inside the quiet spaces between diagnosis and decision. If you're in or around Edinburgh this coming Thursday, we wouid love for you to join us. There are only a handful of tickets left. Rhona Macleod will be hosting the conversation, and if you know Rhona, you'll know she brings empathy and depth to every word. This is not a sports talk. It's a human one. A conversation about identity, pressure, uncertainty, and purpose. And maybe, just maybe, it'll help someone else standing on their own start line or sitting in their own MRI scanner feel a little less alone.
South Wales Argus
07-05-2025
- Sport
- South Wales Argus
Paralympian David Smith backs London to host Games in 2040
The Scotsman, who won rowing gold last time the Paralympics came to London in 2012, was speaking after Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan threw his weight behind the Games returning to the capital for a record-breaking fourth time. The rower was part of ParalympicsGB's successful LTA coxed four crew 13 years ago - having been world champion in the same event in 2009 and 2011 - and thinks a Games on home soil would put para-sport back in the spotlight again. 'It would be a phenomenal opportunity for para-athletes, and it would showcase the sport again, not just the stories,' he said. 'It would showcase the high performance of para-sport and ultimately, if you speak to any Paralympian, they want to be known for their sport, not just the story behind the medal. 'Another Games here would catapult para sport onto another level by 2040. I think the way media outlets will cover sport, and the way we will be watching it, will have completely changed by then, so it would probably allow for much more access to all of the athletes involved, which would be great.' Smith was first diagnosed with cancerous tumours on his spinal cord in 2010 and following serial surgeries to combat the cancer returning multiple times, was left paralysed down his left side after one of the aforementioned operations in 2016. But the 47-year-old from Dunfermline is keen to look forward and is proud of the role he has played post-London 2012 in helping other aspiring athletes. 'I remember after London, we came to a parade in Glasgow and visited what was known as York Hill Hospital,' he recounted. 'There was a young kid who had lost one of his legs to cancer and I remember chatting to him to ask what he wanted to be when he grew up. 'He looked at me as if I was almost stupid before saying, 'I want to be a blade runner'. 'I just thought, ''Okay, the Paralympics has done its job!' 'I do not see myself as a role model per se, but I do a lot of mentoring work. 'The great thing is when you retire from sport, it is a brilliant opportunity to give back. I have worked with a few programmes in Scotland which has allowed me to work with Scotland's next up-and-coming athletes. 'A lot of the joy and solace I get is the fact my journey was not always about standing on the top of podiums, but it was spent battling on the sidelines. There are a lot more athletes who battle on the sidelines than stand atop the podium. 'Sometimes, those athletes need a little bit more mentoring and support.' The next stop in Smith's post-sporting journey is joining 2023 50m British breaststroke champion Archie Goodburn at the University of Edinburgh's Capital Conversations: Inside the Mind event in Edinburgh on May 29. David Smith and Archie Goodburn will be at the University of Edinburgh's Capital Conversations: Inside the Mind event in Edinburgh on May 29 (Image: University of Edinburgh) Goodburn was last year diagnosed with a rare brain tumour but has continued to excel both in his sport and studies, embodying determination and positivity, and Smith is excited to join a discussion alongside him. He said: 'I love returning home and I am super thrilled to sit down and have a great conversation around sport and the lessons that we can take from it. 'Hopefully we can inspire plenty of people on the evening.' David Smith was speaking to promote The University of Edinburgh Capital Conversation series where he'll be appearing on May 29th. Tickets available at
BBC News
16-04-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Goodburn overcomes cancer diagnosis & 'demons' to win silver
Scottish swimmer Archie Goodburn fought back tears after overcoming mental "demons" to claim 50m breaststroke silver at the Aquatics GB Swimming 23, was diagnosed with three oligodendrogliomas - a rare type of cancer which can affect the brain and spinal cord - last year after suffering from numbness and seizures in the build-up to Olympic nature of the tumours makes surgery to remove them impossible, but Goodburn has has medical treatment to try to combat qualified second fastest for the final, the University of Edinburgh swimmer took silver with a time of 27.76 seconds - just seven-hundredths of a second behind winner Max Morgan - and was overcome with emotion in his post-race interview."Quite a lot," Goodburn said when asked how much resilience it has taken to get on the podium. "I'm lucky to have a fantastic family around me, girlfriend, my team. "It's been really tough. The last few days have been a real mental battle - I've been fighting a lot more demons than I thought I would be. "Well done to these guys stood beside me - they are doing a fantastic job to be racing at the level they are racing at at their age."
