The Coach Video games, introduced by iFIT, has taken seasoned athletes and promising newcomers within the area of endurance sports activities, and pitted them towards one another within the run as much as the fever pitch remaining on February 5, the place a $250,000 money prize and a possibility to hitch the iFIT teaching group awaits the winner.
On this spoiler-free interview, M&F caught up with contestant and Olympic heptathlete, Chari Hawkins, to search out out what she discovered most troublesome, and why regardless of the self-discipline, it’s completely okay to come back final, simply as long as you attempt 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 an alternative. As a result of, as a heptathlete, this insanely match feminine from Idaho is required to smash seven totally different competitions over two days. For these preserving rely, day one entails the hurdles, excessive leap, shot put, and a 200-meter run, then day two rounds out with an extended leap, javelin throw, and an 800-meter run. It’s a course of that calls for pace, energy, and stamina, and happily, Hawkins has all these qualities in abundance.
In 2011, whereas a freshman at Utah State, this tenacious observe and fielder gained the Western Convention Outside Championship. In 2018, she took gold within the England Athletics Mixed Occasions Championships, and in 2022 gained the Heptathlon Gold within the mixed occasions in Spain. Nonetheless, nothing might have ready her for the challenges that lay forward in The Coach Video games, now streaming on Prime Video, the place Hawkins can be required to navigate unfamiliar territory to achieve checkpoints, abseil unstable cliff faces, and even wade by 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 exterior her consolation zone on the present. “They’d us swim two miles, on a paddle board, out and again. I acquired caught in a rip present, and I used to be caught for such a very long time that any individual 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 grew to become acquainted with iFIT as a pupil in Utah. “I’ve been actually conscious of them for a very long time,” she defined, noting that the possibility to grow to be a coach on the digital health platform can be an ideal match, since she already has her personal on-line teaching enterprise. What she wasn’t conscious of previous to filming, nonetheless, was the possibility to seize a hefty money prize. “They advised us that on day one within the intro,” explains the athlete of the $260K jackpot. “Say what!?”
Throughout The Coach Video games, Hawkins can 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 woman.
Psychological Toughness Meets Excessive Health in The Coach Video games Finale
In 2024, throughout her Olympic debut in Paris, Hawkins’ goals have been crushed when she didn’t clear her first excessive leap goal of 1.71 meters within the second occasion of the Heptathlon, placing her out of competition for a podium place. Whereas the devastated athlete was conscious that she might bow out early, this inspiration as an alternative accomplished all the occasion. “There may be that a part of you that simply needs to go residence,” Hawkins tells M&F. “I used to be so unhappy, and I used to be so shocked and disenchanted and embarrassed.”
Relatively than minimize and run, Hawkins created an unbelievable chapter within the story of her profession to date. “I type 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 exhausting as 2024 Chari, however didn’t make the group.”
Together 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 glad 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 an alternative of a lot embarrassment and disgrace,” she explains.
Whether or not it’s through her tough Olympic take a look at in 2024, or her most up-to-date challenges in The Coach Video games, Hawkins has an necessary message for many who lack the arrogance to crush their objectives. “I believe the good factor for me, that I’ve discovered by my complete life, however one thing that the Coach Video games actually taught me, was each single factor you attempt, you’ll all the time shock your self if you happen to 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 offered to stream on Prime Video, with the finale scheduled for February 5, 2026. For extra info click on right here.
To comply with Chari Hawkins on Instagram, click on right here.
