The Coach Video games, offered by iFIT, has taken seasoned athletes and promising newcomers within the discipline of endurance sports activities, and pitted them in opposition to one another within the run as much as the fever pitch ultimate on February 5, the place a $250,000 money prize and a possibility to hitch the iFIT teaching staff awaits the winner.
On this spoiler-free interview, M&F caught up with contestant and Olympic heptathlete, Chari Hawkins, to seek out out what she discovered most troublesome, and why irrespective of the self-discipline, it’s completely okay to come back final, simply as long as you strive your finest.
Who Is Chari Hawkins? The Olympic Heptathlete Constructed for Endurance
Chari Hawkins didn’t simply make an Olympic sport her chosen vocation, she just about selected to do all the Olympics as a substitute. As a result of, as a heptathletethis insanely match feminine from Idaho is required to smash seven totally different competitions over two days. For these retaining depend, day one includes the hurdles, excessive soar, shot put, and a 200-meter run, then day two rounds out with a protracted soar, javelin throw, and an 800-meter run. It’s a course of that calls for pace, power, and stamina, and luckily, Hawkins has all these qualities in abundance.
In 2011, whereas a freshman at Utah State, this tenacious monitor and fielder received the Western Convention Out of doors Championship. In 2018, she took gold within the England Athletics Mixed Occasions Championshipsand in 2022 received the Heptathlon Gold within the mixed occasions in Spain. Nonetheless, nothing may have ready her for the challenges that lay forward in The Coach Video games, now streaming on Prime Video, the place Hawkins could be required to navigate unfamiliar territory to succeed in checkpoints, abseil unstable cliff faces, and even wade via seaweed.
Olympian Chari Hawkins Shares Endurance Secrets and techniques from ‘The Coach Video games’
“The factor that’s loopy is, I don’t spend a lot time at sea,” shared Hawkins of being outdoors her consolation zone on the present. “That they had us swim two miles, on a paddle board, out and again. I bought caught in a rip present, and I used to be caught for such a very long time that any person got here as much as me on a ship and it’s like, ‘By the best way, you haven’t moved in an hour!” Hawkins turned accustomed to iFIT as a scholar in Utah. “I’ve been actually conscious of them for a very long time,” she defined, noting that the prospect to turn into a coach on the digital health platform could be an ideal match, since she already has her personal on-line teaching enterprise. What she wasn’t conscious of previous to filming, nevertheless, was the prospect to seize a hefty money prize. “They instructed us that on day one within the intro,” explains the athlete of the $260K jackpot. “Say what!?”
Throughout The Coach Video games, Hawkins could be compelled to dig deep, enduring immense fatigue and bodily stresses, at one level struggling extreme pores and skin abrasions and knee ache that left her unable to stroll. Nonetheless, getting proper again up after falling is tried and examined territory for this gutsy lady.
Psychological Toughness Meets Excessive Health in The Coach Video games Finale
In 2024, throughout her Olympic debut in Paris, Hawkins’ goals had been crushed when she did not clear her first excessive soar goal of 1.71 meters within the second occasion of the Heptathlon, placing her out of rivalry for a podium place. Whereas the devastated athlete was conscious that she may bow out early, this inspiration as a substitute accomplished all the occasion. “There may be that a part of you that simply desires to go house,” Hawkins tells M&F. “I used to be so unhappy, and I used to be so shocked and disillusioned and embarrassed.”
Fairly than lower and run, Hawkins created an unbelievable chapter within the story of her profession so far. “I form of needed to ask myself, ‘what do I must do proper now?’ and ‘who am I doing this for?’ And the reply that I got here up with first was that I’m doing it for the 2016 and 2021 me, who labored simply as onerous as 2024 Chari, however didn’t make the staff.”
Along with her family and friends within the crowd, Hawkins took a second of immense disappointment and turned it right into a celebration of each unhappy and completely satisfied tears in Paris, as she accomplished the heptathlon, and did herself proud. “Now I get to speak about this with a lot happiness and pleasure, as a substitute of a lot embarrassment and disgrace,” she explains.
Whether or not it’s through her tough Olympic check in 2024, or her most up-to-date challenges in The Coach Video games, Hawkins has an necessary message for individuals who lack the arrogance to crush their targets. “I feel the best factor for me, that I’ve discovered via my complete life, however one thing that the Coach Video games actually taught me, was each single factor you strive, you’ll all the time shock your self in the event you do it together with your complete coronary heart. I actually like to push myself in issues that convey me pleasure.”
The Coach Video games is obtainable to stream on Prime Video, with the finale scheduled for February 5, 2026. For extra info click on right here.
To observe Chari Hawkins on Instagram, click on right here.
