Make Visible: Chronic Illness Explored #28 From Olympic hopeful to Long Covid: Oonagh Cousins’ story
When professional rower Oonagh Cousins was pre-selected for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, her dream was within reach. But when COVID-19 swept through the British rowing team, Oonagh didn’t recover like most others. Instead, she developed Long Covid, post-exertional malaise (PEM), and dysautonomia, forcing her from peak performance into chronic illness.
In this Olympic special episode, Oonagh joins Emily Kate Stephens and Gez Medinger to share her deeply personal story: from elite athlete and Olympic selection to Long Covid and ME/CFS advocate.
After university, Oonagh committed fully to professional rowing, training relentlessly, sacrificing socially, and pushing her body to its limits to represent Great Britain. But the very mindset that made her an Olympic contender — resilience, discipline, pushing through — ultimately pushed her into Long Covid.
As fatigue, brain fog and post-exertional malaise took hold, Oonagh was forced to confront the physical and emotional cost of training to be an elite athlete.
In this episode we explore:
- Long Covid in elite athletes
- Post-exertional malaise (PEM) and overtraining
- Why “pushing through” can worsen chronic illness
- The psychological impact of losing an Olympic dream
- Dysautonomia and recovery after COVID-19
- The grief cycle of chronic illness
- The advocacy gap in Long Covid and ME/CFS
- Finding renewed purpose beyond elite sport
Oonagh now works in Long Covid and ME/CFS advocacy, supporting patients through Long Covid Support and #ThereForME. She has contributed to scientific research, including Creating a Social Science Research Agenda for Long Covid, and is Comms and Policy Lead at Visible Health, bringing her lived experience to help build empathetic, patient-centered tools for living well with chronic illness.