‘WLondon 2012 Olympic gold medalist Etienne Stott recalled being arrested and briefly imprisoned for her environmental activities: . “Every time I use my platform to communicate, I sit in my cell and think: ‘What if everyone hates me and thinks what I do is so disgusting that they don’t want to talk to me?’ This is a terrible thing.
“But you keep the faith and say: ‘You’re doing the right thing. You have to follow through. It’s like Olympic training. You’ve been through hard times, in jail cells, in the media, and are the other half of my job. . Thousands of people have taken non-violent direct action and been arrested. These forms of protest are a form of desperate communication to shed light on an issue, so it’s important to explain what we do and why we do it, because sometimes you do. Meeting hostile people. I don’t seek hostility. I find it challenging, just like being in a prison cell.
Stout and Tim Baillie became Olympic champions 12 years ago when they won the C2 kayak slalom race. Nonviolent direct action to save the planet. He was arrested 10 times but was not sentenced to any form of jail time for his activism, but instead received a number of small fines.
We spoke before, during and after he took part in the Nature Now march, which attracted around 80,000 people to central London in late June. Rather than being provocative, Stout is friendly and considerate, while offering illuminating insights into how the “dark energy” of elite sport has bolstered his resilience. When I asked him about the state of our burning and flooded world, Stout used a simple football metaphor.
“With five minutes left in the game, we were down 10-0,” Stout said. “We’re running out of time. Positive change is happening, but all we can do now is minimize the damage. It’s really worth fighting for. The harder question is: ‘I’m going to pretend this didn’t happen. Should I turn around and leave?
Stout is going well. “To embark on any epic quest, you have to have some naivety, because if you knew how difficult and brutal it was going to be, you would never have started. But if you knew how amazing it would end up being, you would It’s going to be an instant hit. That’s the power of the movement, and that’s what we’re doing now. We set these beautiful visions for ourselves, and that gives you the energy to get started.
“I see a lot of similarities between sports and the struggles we face now. The winning ratio in activism and sports is similar. You won’t win often, but you will get satisfaction from a job well done and gain from small wins. Satisfaction. You don’t get the chance to play in a big tournament and win every day.
Stout is one of the few who knows what it feels like to win an Olympic gold medal. However, his path to glory was fraught with doubt. He and Bailly were not selected for the 2008 Olympics, he recalls: “We were technically and physically good enough to win medals in world-class competitions, but mentally we were broken. The pressure of competition was too much. We The painful reality must be faced that we need to go to those dark places we have been avoiding.
Their confident rivals David Florence and Richard Hounslow are a typical alpha-male pair expected to be British Canoe’s favorites at the 2012 London Canoe Races. Boating’s best hope. “We realize we have to improve our mental toughness, competing against them puts us in the face of adversity. It’s uncomfortable because you spend a lot of time getting beaten. They have different values and approaches, but we have the same coach – Every day is a challenge.
Stott laughed. “I’m bald because of those guys.”
They also faced the Hochschorner twins Pavol and Peter, The Slovak pair are on track to win their fourth consecutive Olympic title. “They were the best and everyone thought they were going to win,” Stout said. “They are our heroes, but we focus on doing our best while being comfortable with the idea that if we’re not good enough, we’ll accept that. That’s liberating.
As the slowest runners in qualifying, Bailey and Stout were the first to race against time in the final. “We weren’t the best on paper, but our mentality was strong,” Stout said. “When we crossed the finish line, our coach was jumping up and down and he said, ‘You’re two and a half seconds faster than the semifinal leader.'”
While the fastest qualifiers Florence and Hounslow prepared to compete, Stout and Bailey were already guaranteed silver medals. That quickly turned to gold, Stout smiled: “I remember standing on the podium with the hot sun on my face and hearing the national anthem. My hair stands on end talking about it now.” , because we worked so hard and went through all the ups and downs to be able to be at the top of our game and win the home Olympics is hard to describe, but I also feel like the time is there to prepare for what happens next. .
Baillie retired, and Stott and his new teammate Mark Proctor missed out on qualifying for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Stout became a vegetarian the next day and soon turned to activism after his first march in 2008. “At the end of the day, I found things getting more and more difficult,” he said of his athletic career. “We were racing in Rio de Janeiro, and the canoe track was in the middle of a favela, and it was so hot. I felt like my body was melting inside. It was really scary. We trained in Dubai, which is ostensibly free, but in reality But being very restricted and inhibited, training on a river in the middle of the desert became even more unfamiliar and difficult.
Stott and his friend Dave Hampton, a former British rower, started the Champions for the Planet campaign to bring together sport and environmental issues. “That was in 2017,” Stott recalls. “At the end of 2018, Extinction Rebellion burst into my world. It provided a formula that referenced science on the one hand and history and social change on the other. So. I thought, “This sounds smart, I should get involved as a minor public figure. “Any power I have is not about selling Rice Krispies. It’s about doing good things for people.”
“‘Extinction Rebellion’ has always referenced Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and other non-violent protests. I’m not a violent person, but I love how sports channel the dark energy within us all in a positive way. Thanks to ‘Extinction Rebellion’ ”, Greta Thunberg and the non-violent methods we use, we are making huge progress. “Just Stop Oil” is now moving forward, but it’s very difficult. It took a lot of courage for me to do this, but when I saw the challenge, it was the least I could do.
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Stott recalled a series of protests organized by Extinction Rebellion in 2019 that aimed to cause chaos to highlight the need to address the climate and nature emergency. “The first step was Operation Five Bridges, which was to test their approach to sealing off London. I was arrested for the first time. But in April 2019 we came to the most important moment, which was the first time I ‘went public’ ‘And when he was arrested as an Olympic champion.
As well as lying on the road to stop traffic, Stott and his partner, former Olympic sailor Laura Baldwin, were among the XR campaigners who blocked the Foley refinery in Hampshire. In April 2022, Stout also stuck with another protester on top of a Shell tanker on Bayswater Road, near Hyde Park.
While Stott believes some judges harbor animosity toward environmental activists, he has been largely treated fairly by police and courts. “I’ve only been roughed up by the police once, and that was at a protest against this terrible company, Amazon,” he said.
“I act as a liaison between the protesters and the police to make it a more controlled environment because no one likes panic or riots to spread. Normally, the police do not arrest protest liaisons. But in this case They grabbed me by the neck and dragged me to the van. A few hours later, while waiting in line to enter the holding cell, I talked to the police officer who was in charge of checking in. He said: “I feel bad because. You are a good person and I wish I didn’t have to do this. ” I was like: ‘I wish you wouldn’t do this either, because we could have lived in peace.
Stout acknowledged that changes to the law made protests riskier. “Right now, sitting in the road or deliberately obstructing the highway – which I have been convicted of – means you could be jailed for a year,” he said.
How does this make him feel? Stout, now 45, paused. “This is worrying. I have a partner, Laura has a young son and I am involved in family life. But I am prepared to go to prison if necessary. This is a sensible and responsible fight in a major emergency.” With this athlete’s mentality, if there was going to be jail time, then maybe it would have to be me.
Stott has little hope that the new Labor government will take enough action on environmental issues. He also warned: “In the future, young people may feel that nonviolent action is not enough. They may become frustrated by having done too little and become violent. Their anger may subside.”
As we take the tube from Waterloo to Green Park, Stout reiterates that he will never fly again – even though his close friend Bailey lives in Canada with his three children. They kept in touch, and whenever Stout was in his cell, he thought a lot about the Bailey children and Laura’s son.
Stott received hugs and high-fives from friends and colleagues ahead of the Get Nature Now march. He quickly took on the role of affable and efficient emcee, reminding everyone that with 400 organizations participating, the march would be peaceful. As Stout told me a week later: “It was a huge success. We had a lot of first-time marchers, and it was one of the most media-covered marches ever. But I didn’t know how many. People think they put pressure on governments to change their practices. I still believe that nonviolent direct action is an effective way to bring the unseen into the light.
As for our uncertain future, Stout said, “I didn’t know if we were going to win. But I tried my best. The most powerful thing I took away from my athletic career was a belief in human potential, and for me, It’s a power. No one knows what a person is capable of until the moment they really commit. That’s when amazing things happen. I choose to believe that great transformations and great collective changes are still possible.
