Olympics: Tearful Kelly flops - now for bossing athletics, and maybe a Playboy shoot

Olympics: Tearful Kelly flops - now for bossing athletics, and maybe a Playboy shoot
Britain's most outspoken athlete predicted gold and ended with nothing. But Kelly Sotherton is not one to give in, as she makes clear to Anna Kessel

Despite three personal bests Kelly Sotherton suffered a disappointing Olympics. Photograph: M Dadswell/Getty

It was supposed to have been her moment of ascension. Carolina Kluft, the heptathlete with nine gold medals to her name, had abdicated the throne and Kelly Sotherton, the so-called 'princess', was supposed to take her place.

But a hiccup in the high jump on the first day started the decline, and the Olympic and world championship bronze medallist rapidly unravelled, her body language that of a broken woman in a funk she could not shake. Unable to regain control, Sotherton finished in fifth place overall.

Three personal bests, in the hurdles, the 200m and the 800m - plus a decent throw in the dreaded javelin - rescued her blushes, but with her long jump and shot put well below par, there was never a chance of a resurrection.

A sixth-place finish in the high jump, in which she was unable to go above 1.83m, started the rot, with 14th place in the shot put to follow. By the time Sotherton lined up for the 200m, she looked desperate. While all around her rival athletes slapped their thighs and geed themselves on, Sotherton cast a lonely figure, fiddling with her shorts, sombre and seemingly defeated. A 200m time of 23.39sec took her into third place, but she spent Friday evening in tears and in tatters.

Yesterday a poor 6.33m in the long jump took her back down to fifth, and despite a decent javelin and a good run in the 800m there was nothing left to hope for.

Before Beijing, Sotherton had told the world that she wanted the gold medal. With the field wide open it was there for the taking. 'I'll be Queen bee,' she said, glowing. She believed it. Despite the kidney failure, the toe injury, the back and the foot injuries, the tear to the right thigh, another injury to the left thigh and not having competed in a heptathlon - 'all during the last 10 months' - Sotherton had high hopes.

She had laughed at the British athletes too afraid to state their ambitions for fear of an imaginary jinx. 'I did a magazine interview recently and they said: "Are you going to Beijing to win?" I said: "Yeah! I'm not going there to come second." They said I was the only athlete that said that. People just go: "Nah, well I'll see what happens." Well I don't train for four years just to go there and see what happens, I'm going there to win.'

But somehow, between then and the weekend at the Bird's Nest Stadium, belief and ability evaporated. In response Sotherton sealed herself off into a lonely, dark little world, refusing to speak to the press. Meanwhile her rivals grew stronger, the Ukrainians Natalia Dobrynska and Lyudmila Blonska eventually bagging gold and silver, while the American Hyleas Fountain took bronze.

Attempting to explain what went wrong, Sotherton talked about a lack of pressure, her face red with tears. 'I didn't feel any pressure and that in turn didn't give me any nerves. I was just flat and deflated. I'm glad I managed to turn it round and put it a bit behind me. I just wish I'd done that earlier.'

The performance - the collapse - made no sense, but then Sotherton has long been an enigma. 'I'm shy. But then I've got a big gob, so I don't know how you marry those two together.' The big gob is important to her. At last year's world championships in Osaka she criticised silver medallist Blonska who, in 2003, tested positive for steroids and is still allowed to compete following a two-year ban.

Yesterday she again slated the Ukrainian. 'I'm not happy that she competed. We have rules in our country that we abide by. We don't bring anybody who cheated previously, so why should any other country? That needs to change. If she had won gold it would have been embarrassing. I will always reiterate it, the biggest penalty you should pay if you take drugs is not to compete at the Olympics. Simple.'

Unlike the other lauded British multi-discipline athletes, Daley Thompson, Denise Lewis and Dean Macey, and despite her achievements, Sotherton's popularity has always been in question. Paula Radcliffe is described as the people's athlete, but it is Sotherton whose life experiences really resonate. Raised by a single mum, who is wheelchair bound after contracting lupus, an inflammatory disease, Sotherton worked as a debt collector for HSBC until the age of 25. By night she was a clubber. As a teenager she spent her Friday nights drinking in the park. 'Oh my god! 20/20 in the park!' she says of the popular spirit-based drink. 'Do you remember that? Saving up all week to buy it.' She beams, happy to have found an accomplice. You suspect she has few of those.

'Athletes are so boring!' she sighs, 'All "great, fantastic, blah, blah, blah". I've been a normal person with a real job, I've learned the hard way and now I'm successful. If it all went wrong tomorrow and I needed to get a job, I could. I don't talk posh. I've got really crap grammar. I don't have a degree. I'm like any other person on the street, really. Except I'm an athlete, I live in a nice house, I've got my own car and I've got four cats.'

One of Sotherton's great early soundbites was her confession of a love of fish and chips. Even in the build-up to Beijing she ate them. 'Oh, I love my chips. I take the batter off the fish, so it's not that bad. And then I put lots of salt and vinegar and tomato ketchup - you can't beat it! Yeah it might be 1500 calories, but I burn that off.'

She typically bamboozles her interviewers, with ideas contrary and outrageous. Some she believes in, others, you suspect, have just caught her fancy. When previously asked about competing in the heptathlon at London 2012 she was whimsical, suggesting a switch to track cycling, kayaking or beach volleyball.

The one constant in her mind is a role in sports politics. 'A lot of people think I'd be a good chief executive, chairman or performance director. I could take Dave Collins's job [UK Athletics performance director] after 2012! Only joking. But that's the way I want to go.

'I'm passionate about my sport. I want to make changes and you can only do that at the top. Women are very sensible at making decisions. They're hard nuts. We need a woman at the top of our sport. Any athlete who came to me and moaned, and there's been a lot of that, well, I've been at every rung of the ladder...' She grows shy. 'I dunno,' she says. 'I'm probably talking crap.'

Maybe, maybe not. Sotherton is already the athletes' representative in meetings with the sport's governing body. There may be hints and snipes about her popularity in the athletics world, but if something needs doing, her peers trust her to do it. 'If anyone's got a problem they say: "Get Kel - she'll do it".'

She revels in being a woman, in every aspect. She talks about female athletes being sexed up, of a society resistant to a woman with something to say, and in the same breath suggests getting her kit off. 'The thing is, a man can say what he wants, but with a woman either she's got to be a sex object or she's moaning. I'm moaning or showing my arse off - or throwing a crap javelin. You can never win.'

'I want to change things, that's why I'd like to get to the top of my sport. After an interview with Sport magazine where I was in a gold bikini, I said: "Why am I doing this to get space in a magazine? You don't see male athletes doing it." They made me girl of the week. Girl of the week? I didn't know I was going to be that.' The double whammy of being a bikini girl and demoted to the back pages provokes a grimace.

She is not afraid of getting her kit off though. 'Hot Kel' (an actual headline) was naked and sprayed gold for a photoshoot recently.

'Well, I had a crop top and shorts on, but they'll probably airbrush it so I look naked. I probably would have done it anyway. I always say to my agent: "When's Playboy coming in with the six figures?" Susan Sarandon did it and she was 40-odd and she looked brilliant. I'd do that if it was tasteful. Because I'd like to have the pictures. You don't have this body all your life, do you? But then you should be able to do that kind of stuff and still be recognised as an athlete and not "hot Kel". That's if I am hot Kel, because, well, I don't think I am.'

Yesterday night in Beijing Sotherton accepted the disappointment of finishing without a medal in a competition she should have bossed. With tears in her eyes she vowed to come back stronger. 'I can't quit now. If I'd have won gold or silver I'd have gone on to jumping, but now I'll give it another year. I want to at least win the world championships.'

Sotherton said the competition had precipitated a change in her, for the better. 'I've left the Kelly Sotherton of old behind,' she said, explaining her spirited final kick in the 800m. The 'princess' tag will inevitably stick, but it is clear that there is new substance to the lady in waiting, a mettle that will, she hopes, one day deliver her the crown.