Beth Dobbin: From Olympic Sprint to a Life Mostly in Bed

Beth Dobbin ME has become the defining fact of a life that once revolved around the track. The 32-year-old former Great Britain sprinter, who ran at the Tokyo Olympics five years ago, now spends more than 22 hours a day in bed. She has been diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis, the condition also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, and she rejects that second label because it understates what she endures.

A body that will not recover

Dobbin gets up only to eat and to use the bathroom. She prefers to be propped up in bed. Medication helps her sleep, though she is often too unwell to manage it. This year she has left the house five times.

The illness can produce more than 200 symptoms. Rest does not reliably restore her, and even minor exertion can trigger a crash that lasts for days or months. Conversation, light or sound may be enough to set one off. Dobbin has described her body as feeling as though it is shutting down, and she has said the condition has destroyed her life, taking with it her independence, her health, her work and her exercise.

How the decline unfolded

In winter 2021-22, Dobbin had Covid and glandular fever in quick succession. Neither infection made her feel unwell at the time; they were detected retrospectively. The early signs were easy to dismiss: she needed more sleep, her times slowed, her glands were sore.

British Athletics doctors ran tests and found no answers. She kept competing through 2022, appearing at the World Championships, the Commonwealths for Scotland and the European Championships. The condensed season took a toll. At the Europeans she false-started after losing feeling in her leg. A six-week rest followed, and her symptoms worsened. She returned to training for three weeks before stopping for good.

Multiple specialists eventually agreed on ME. She saw four or five of them, and when funding ran out she found a private specialist herself. The wait for that appointment was 22 months. Dobbin says there is no specialist ME service in the NHS, and she has ended up educating GPs about the illness.

Family, fundraising and a platform

At the family home in Doncaster, her parents, Jim and Jean, described their own strain. Jim Dobbin, a former footballer, said he is desperate to help but has no options. Jean spoke of daily sadness and worry about who will care for her daughter in the future.

Her sister Faye has taken a different route. On Sunday she runs the Yorkshire Marathon to raise money for ME Research UK. Faye has said the situation feels like grief and that the race is her way of contributing when she otherwise feels helpless.

Dobbin agreed to speak because she believes athletes are more readily believed, and because she feels a duty to use her platform. She knows the interview itself may affect her health years from now. She also points out that the Covid pandemic woke the medical community to the condition, and that long Covid has brought new attention and funding to ME research.

More than 400,000 people in the UK are thought to have ME, and the true figure may exceed one million. There is no cure and no specific treatment. Dobbin’s future looks bleak to her, but her sister will keep running, and Dobbin will keep speaking when she can.