Sam Quek, who won Olympic gold with Team GB at the 2016 Rio Games, has spoken candidly about the identity crisis she experienced after retiring from professional field hockey later that same year.
The broadcaster, who earned 125 international caps for England and Great Britain during her playing career, said the transition out of elite sport left her feeling lost and isolated.
“I think every athlete after an Olympics has a little bit of a comedown and a bit of like, ‘who am I? What do I do?'” she told the Daily Mail.
She described how life inside a high-performance programme meant every decision was made in service of winning, and how stepping outside that structure felt disorienting. “When you come out of that system, and you’re like, okay, well, I haven’t got a job. Where do we go? What do we do? It can get quite lonely,” she said.
Body Image Pressures
Quek said she also felt the weight of public expectations around her appearance, particularly because of her status as an Olympic champion. She said people still expect her to look toned, slim, and strong, even a decade on from Rio.
She added that navigating multiple body changes, from retirement through two back-to-back pregnancies, made it difficult to feel comfortable and confident. “I think in terms of physically being able to feel comfortable in my body and feel confident in my body was something that kind of had like an internal monologue,” she said. She credited a broader culture of positive female reinforcement with helping her work through those feelings.
A Competitive Marriage
Quek married millionaire property tycoon Tom Mairs in August 2018, having met him during a night out in Liverpool in 2013. The couple have two children: daughter Molly Doris, born in 2021, and son Isaac Gregory, born a year later.
She described her marriage as intensely competitive away from work, whether the couple are playing football in the garden with their children, visiting arcades, or taking part in pub quizzes. She also said she plays Call of Duty with Mairs and two of his friends as a regular four-player squad.
When it comes to their careers, however, she said the dynamic shifts to one of mutual support. She explained that she and Mairs take turns carrying more of the load depending on who needs it at any given time, and that neither of them is ever running at full capacity simultaneously.
Having a husband outside the television industry has also helped her maintain perspective. She said being able to step away from the TV world and just be a mother and wife, in leggings and a hoodie, makes her appreciate the glitz of her broadcasting work all the more when she returns to it.
The Friendship Recession
Quek has also partnered with seltzer brand White Claw on a campaign examining what the brand describes as a “friendship recession,” focusing on how difficult it has become to form and maintain friendships in adulthood.
Research conducted as part of the partnership found that more than half of adults, 52 per cent, consider maintaining friendships to be a second job. A further 55 per cent said being a good friend now takes more effort than it used to, while 40 per cent said they have not returned to their pre-pandemic social habits.
Quek said she sees the problem in her own life, noting that her close friends in Liverpool, just 20 minutes away, manage to meet as a group only about once every six months.
She said women in particular tend to feel guilty about dedicating time to their social lives, and argued that face-to-face time remains irreplaceable despite the availability of group chats and instant messaging.
Psychologist Katherine Templar Lewis, who also partnered with White Claw on the campaign, said the data points to a decline not in friendship itself but in the conditions that allow friendship to form, including time, proximity, shared ritual, and low-pressure togetherness. She said loneliness is rising and that social connection is a fundamental pillar of emotional and mental health, not a luxury.
