It’s entirely unsurprising that Samantha Kinghorn struggled with separating her identity from her sport.
One of Scotland’s best-ever athletes, the 26-year-old wheelchair racer has been on the international scene for a decade, picking up medals from every major championship.
And in that time, her entire identity had become, as she describes it, “Samantha the athlete, and not really much else.”
But with age and experience, Kinghorn began to realise, to be happy, she needed to be more than just an athlete.
Which is perhaps why she’s quite so excited about her newest venture; television presenting.
Kinghorn, though, is not easing her way into the world of television gently.
The Borders native, who grew up on a farm, is the newest presenter of Countryfile, a show that regularly draws in millions of viewers and is one of the BBC’s most popular programmes.
For someone who had not a jot of presenting experience, it was quite a job offer to receive.
“The show contacted my friend and teammate, Hannah Cockroft, to ask for my number and when she told me they were going to call me, I thought it was just to do a wee interview on my dad’s farm and about me racing, because normally, that’s what I’m always asked about,” she says.
“But then I spoke to the producer and he said they’d love for me to join them as a presenter and I genuinely nearly died.
“I kept asking them if they were sure, were they not making a mistake? It seemed absolutely crazy.”
But the producers of the show held fast with their offer and now, it’s clear how excited Kinghorn is about her latest venture, in large part due to the fact it’s something entirely separate from athletics.
But she’s not just a keen presenter, she’s a good one too.
Although she admits that presenting a show she watched regularly growing up remains utterly surreal.
“It’s a show I’ve watched my whole life – my dad’s always loved it and so have I so to now be on it is absolutely mad.
“I think what helps me is that I’ve done so many interviews and so I know what makes a good and a bad interview. I’ve been interviewed so many times so it helps you learn how to be a good interviewer.
“I’ve got a year’s contract so we’ll see what happens at the end of it.
“It’s been so good doing something away from sport, though.
“Something I’ve struggled with in the past has been my identity away from sport.
“When I was young, I never dreamed of being an athlete or of going to the Olympics, I always wanted to be a zoologist and work with animals. And I think that got lost a bit when I came into sport, and then that became my identity.
“But at Countryfile, I love not being the centre of attention and it being about the person I’m interviewing.”
Despite the diversion into television, Kinghorn has lost no focus on her athletics.
In fact, the double Paralympic medallist is in the form of her life.
A Dubai-based training camp at the start of the year laid the foundations for a quartet of personal bests, in the T53 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m.
Such impressive early-season form certainly bodes well for the big one this season; the World Championships, which begin today in Paris.
The event has, in the past, been a happy hunting ground for Kinghorn - in 2017 she won her two world titles, which remain a career highlight – and while she’s in no doubt that she’s keen to return to the podium, particularly the top step, she’s now able to put her results into perspective far more than she was a few years ago.
“It was a very nice start to the year - when you’ve been doing this sport for a long time, PBs become harder to come by so it was really encouraging,” she says.
“Going into these World Champs, I’m fit and I’m fast.
“But as I get older, I’ve learnt that winning gold medals doesn’t always make you happy. In the moment, a gold medal is amazing but that moment fades away and in the bigger picture, you need to be happy in your life as well.
“The percentage of my time spent racing is probably about two percent – the rest of the time I’m doing other things.
“While winning gold medals is what I want to achieve, I also know that winning a gold medal alone won’t make me happy.
“So I feel like my goal at these Worlds is to have a bit more fun. When I was younger, I put so much pressure on myself and didn’t do that. I’m still going there to try and win the gold medal but knowing I’m happy in my life has been a big thing for me.”
What particularly thrills Kinghorn, who will co-captain the GB team in Paris, is the scope she believes she still has for improvement. And with next year’s Paralympics just over a year away, she remains as driven as ever.
“What’s so exciting is knowing that after the World Champs, there’s even more I can do to improve and that’s what keeps me motivated,” she says.
“It gets to a point where you can’t just work harder, train for longer or lift heavier weights.
“But there’s technical changes I can make like altering my positioning in the chair and changes with the chair itself that will make a big difference to me.
“I feel like these next Paralympics have come around so quickly but as scary as it is, it’s also really exciting.”
