Going to the Olympic Games is something every athlete dreams of. But for the talented and dedicated few who actually make it there, the next biggest challenge is figuring out what do with their lives afterward.
For Suzy Favor Hamilton, running was her life and it was all she ever knew. So when her time on the U.S. Olympic running team came to an end, she struggled to settle into an ordinary life so much that she began leading a scandalous double-life…
A Natural Talent
At 9 years old, Suzy Favor Hamilton started running and it didn’t take long before it became apparent that she was a talented runner and competitor. By the time Suzy, who was the youngest of 5 kids, was in high school in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, she was training for the Olympics.
Making Her Way To The Top
Suzy graduated from Stevens Point Area Senior High in 1986 and went on to attend the University of Wisconsin, where she was given a full scholarship to run for their women’s team. While running for the University of Wisconsin, Suzy became 1 of the top middle distance runners in the United States…
The Accolades
During her time in college, she won 9 NCAA championships, a silver medal at the World University Games, won 4 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, and 3 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships. During that time, Suzy also met her future husband, Mark Hamilton, who played baseball for the University of Wisconsin.
The Road To The Olympics
By the time they graduated, it was clear Mark wasn’t going to play professional baseball. Suzy, on the other hand, was well on her way to achieving her dream of running for the U.S. Olympic team and even had a 5-figure contract with Reebok so that she could dedicate her time to training…
A Lifelong Dream
In 1992, Suzy lifelong dream was finally realized when she competed in the Olympic trials and made the U.S. Olympic team. Suzy competed in the 1992 Summer Olympics and finished 11th in the qualifying race. Despite not doing as well as she hoped, she was determined to continue competing and didn’t mind all the attention she received from the media.
A Household Name
“Being a celebrity became more and more attractive to me,” said Suzy, who went on to compete in the 1996 Summer Olympics. This time, she finished 4th in the qualifying race. The next time she went to the Olympics was in the summer of 2000 in Australia. She didn’t know it, but that race would ruin her…
The Race That Ended It All
While at the 2000 Summer Olympics, Suzy had the 2nd best time in the qualifying race. During the finals, she led the pack in 1st place up until the final lap. But when 2 runners passed her by, her dream of winning a gold medal was ripped away.
The ‘Injury’
“Those two girls took my dream and my life away. I remember thinking, ‘I can’t not win this race — that’s not how I planned this,” Suzy explained years later. Rather than lose the race, Suzy decided to fake an injury and intentionally fell on the track during the 1,500-meter race…
A Downward Spiral
“I came around the final corner, and five girls passed me, and that dream of having an Olympic medal was gone, and instead of finishing the race, like most runners would, I told myself, ‘Just fall,’ and I fell immediately,” Suzy said. “And that was the moment of my downward spiral. I didn’t know at the time, but that was step one of terrible things to happen.”
A Difficult Transition
That was the last Olympic Games that Suzy ever competed in, and after that race, her running career was over. Suzy and Mark returned home to Madison, Wisconsin, and the former Olympian started working in real estate with her husband. But for Suzy, transitioning into an average life wasn’t easy…
Life In Suburbia
Suzy once graced the covers of magazines like Vogue, Elle, and Rolling Stone. She couldn’t understand how she ended up living in suburbia in Wisconsin working in real estate. Suzy quickly became depressed. Then Suzy became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, Kylie, in 2005.
Time To See A Doctor
Suzy had been depressed before, but after giving birth, Mark started to notice his wife’s behavior change even more. According to Mark, Suzy was extremely angry and irrational. She also refused to put Kylie down. Eventually, Mark convinced Suzy to see a doctor…
The Prescription That Changed Everything
The doctor put Suzy on antidepressant medication. “It did not take long for [the antidepressant medication] to make me feel really good,” Suzy said. “Not just good. Really good. I’m talking amazingly good. I suddenly was so outgoing and just wanted to talk to everybody.”
Spicing Things Up
As their 20th wedding anniversary approached, Mark and Suzy’s relationship was still strained. So Suzy suggested they spice things up by taking a trip to Las Vegas to have a threesome and go skydiving. During that trip, she finally felt alive again and couldn’t go back to the boring life waiting for her in Wisconsin. Within a week, Suzy told Mark that she needed to go back to Las Vegas on her own so that she could sleep with a male prostitute. “He visibly flinched,” Suzy said. “It ended up being the most fabulous experience… And I was hooked. I was hooked,” she added. “It was as if I’d suddenly become a teenager. I wanted what felt good and fun, all the time…”
The Double Life
Then Suzy, who described herself as ‘hypersexual’ at the time, realized she could get paid to have sex if she became an escort. She called Jamie Rodman, the owner of an escort firm, and started living her double life shortly after. By day, she was Suzy Favor Hamilton, the former Olympian, and by night, she was an escort who went by the name ‘Kelly Lundy’. “I’m not going to lie. She had to sell it,” Mark said. “We’re on two totally different planes here. She’s kind of living her life. I’m living mine. She’s going to do what she’s going to do, to an extent. I don’t think I had a heck of a lot of say, but at least she’s not cheating on me.”
Separate Lives
“It was uncontrollable. I had lost control after that first appointment. I wanted more,” Suzy said. Meanwhile, Mark was back home raising their daughter on his own. “[Suzy] was hypersensitive. She was impossible to deal with,” Mark said. “And after a while, when it got to a certain point– after months of this, I was like, ‘Go. Get out of the house. Let Kylie and I have our normal life…’”
The Article
However, after about a year of escorting, Suzy’s scandalous double life was uncovered when an article, “US Olympian’s Secret Life as Las Vegas Escort”, was published by The Smoking Gun on December 20, 2012. Suzy lost all her endorsement deals with brands like Nike and promotional work with Disney. “It’s just a very dark, dark place like you wouldn’t believe,” Mark said. When Suzy tried to jump out of a moving car 1 day, he decided it was time to call a doctor.
The Diagnosis
This time, the doctor diagnosed Suzy with bipolar disorder, which her brother (pictured) had and lead to his suicide. Suzy’s doctor, Claudia Reardon, explained that the anti-depressant medication she had been prescribed for years had contributed to her manic personality and everything finally started to make sense. “In someone with bipolar disorder, you give them an antidepressant and it lifts their mood, but they don’t have as much of a ceiling on their mood and so it can push their mood too high,” Dr. Reardon said. “We often see symptoms such as hypersexuality, spending lots of money, engaging in lots of reckless kinds of behaviors because people generally aren’t in the state of mind to think through ahead to the consequences of those kinds of behaviors…”
Road To Recovery
Suzy was finally properly diagnosed and given the right medication. Today, she has come a long way in her recovery and is living and working as a yoga teacher in California with her daughter Kylie and Mark, who stood by her side through it all. In 2016, they even renewed their vows after 25 years of marriage. Since her double life was exposed, Suzy also wrote a memoir, “Fast Girl: A Life Spent Running from Madness,” in which she came clean about her life as a high-class hooker. “The first year of my recovery was awful,” Suzy said. “It was the hardest possible… I have worked so hard to get to this point.”
The Real Suzy
“It wasn’t Suzy. I keep trying to emphasize that wasn’t me. It was the disease. The one word I keep saying, ‘shame,’ because it can grab hold of you and you can never recover, can never, ever get better. I won’t let it happen to me. I refuse. I refuse to let the act ruin me,” Suzy said in an interview. “I know for a matter of fact I would never have become an escort if I wasn’t on the drug that made me hypersexual. There’s no way possible. But I also know that I was having sex for money. So when I say that it was the bipolar’s fault I’m not pinning it on bipolar and looking at that as the excuse.”
Former Olympian Has No Regret After Reporter Uncovers Her Questionable Double Life is an article from: LifeDaily