Two-time US figure skating champion Gracie Gold admitted Friday she still struggles with depression but is targeting the 2022 Beijing Olympics as she begins a comeback at age 23.
Gold helped American women capture a bronze medal at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, but told NBC’s Today show that she struggled with her self-image even then.
“I was ‘America’s sweetheart’ or I was ‘the golden girl’ and I was afraid to be real with my struggles because then I wouldn’t be as perfect as the media saw me,” Gold said.
Struggles that have kept her off the ice for most of the past two years included an eating disorder that “got more and more extreme until it was just unbearable” and fourth-place finishes just off podiums at the 2015 and 2016 world championships, the latter on home ice in Boston.
“It was everything,” Gold said. “It was just one of those things where I couldn’t be the best in the world.”
