'My only outlet was self-harm ... Í kept everything to myself'

The big interview Kimberley Woods Bullied as a youngster, the world champion canoeist has endured harrowing mental health struggles but now has her sights on Olympic glory in Paris

- Donald McRae

Kimberley Woods has been dumped off a high ramp into the roaring waters in her sleek kayak crossboat. As the rain falls K relentlessly at the Lee Valley White Water Centre just north of London, on the course where she became a world champion last September, Woods faces the raw elements and her past demons. In less than five months she aims to win gold in this wild and rollicking event at the Paris Olympics and complete an uplifting story of hope and healing.

Woods survived years of bullying, depression and self-harm and the 28-year-old slalom canoeist has a serious chance of winning an Olympic medal in the K1 class. But the jeopardy will be most intense in the kayak cross.

Yesterday, in one gruelling practice run after another, Woods defended herself as her teammates replicated the bullying tactics she may experience as world No 1 in Paris. Rival paddles and boats bash against her but Woods surges ahead, negotiates the heavy buoys, flips through an Eskimo roll underwater, flies across the rapids, and finishes the course in a minute'sworth of power and skill.

Woods has been through so much in life that she cracks a joke as she steps out of the water, carrying the boat, and trudges through the downpour to the ramp that stands more than two metres above the water. She and three other athletes will line up again on the ramp and wait for the shock when, without warning, it drops them into the foaming torrent.

Everything makes sense two hours later when, in a quiet cafe, she discusses her past adversity.

Woods was born in Rugby in 1995 and one of her earliest memories was of an apparent drug raid at a neighbouring house: "I remember looking out the window and saw a Swat team rushing in.

It's a bit crazy how I lived in a neighbourhood like that but when I go home now it's way different." Woods was naturally gifted in sport and, she says wryly, "I was that annoying kid that wanted to give everything a go."