Player's Own Voice podcast: Arianne Jones confronts Lyme disease
Luge athlete describes her ordeal with the debilitating disorder
Physical setbacks are part and parcel of every athlete's career. But for Arianne Jones, the Canadian Olympic luge athlete, body size and function played an even more outsized role in her always surprising career.
According to Jones' own metaphor, she was "a golf ball in a sport which rewards bowling balls." Nay-saying experts drove Jones to compensate for her small mass by working obsessively on every possible technique of the sport —both mental and physical.
That served Jones well until she broke her back at the gym in 2015. Still, she rehabbed and went on to win World Cup gold barely eight months later. But that's when life threw her another wicked curve ball: Lyme disease.
Still fighting her way back to fitness four years later, Jones tells Player's Own Voice podcast host Anastasia Bucsis how her intense focus on nutrition has given her cause for optimism.
Jones also wrote about her ordeal with Lyme one year ago as part of CBC Sports' Player's Own Voice essay series,
The POV podcast lets athletes speak to Canadians about issues from a personal perspective. To listen to all three seasons, subscribe for free on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Tune In or wherever you get your other podcasts.