When Hollie Webb’s shot hit the Dutch net in the Parque Olímpico da Barra, Rio de Janeiro, the women of Great Britain had sealed perhaps the greatest achievement in the GB hockey’s history, and equalled the feat of the men’s team of Seoul ’88.
That was the moment the team, squad and staff knew they were 2016 Olympic champions. Footage of that moment shows the extent of the celebrations; players and coaches leaping in the air, and tearing across the field to embrace each other, the tension of the shootout having turned to joy.
Watch closely. Animated as anyone, and wearing the ecstasy just as plainly, is Ellie Watton; the forward whose relationship with this triumph would be more complicated than most.
“It was such a massive moment for the hockey world in Great Britain,” she tells me. “I think it sunk in a little bit later with the medal ceremony that I wasn't on the podium.”
Watton had been selected as a reserve for the tournament, alongside defender Joie Leigh and goalkeeper Kirsty Mackay. This meant she travelled, lived and trained with the squad of sixteen, ready to step up in the event of an injury. But the entire squad made it through unscathed, and Watton had to look on imagining what might have been.
She had been in training with the group for weeks leading up to the tournament, and felt she knew her position in the pecking order before the official announcement.
“It becomes clear in training who is more likely to be in the team,” she recalls. “I was hopeful, but realistic that I knew I was on the edge.”
It meant she read the email notifying her of her selection as a reserve with mixed emotions, and found it difficult to celebrate fully.
“You have two feelings,” she explains. “Brilliant you're going and get to be there with all those people and experience the whole event, but you know you might never get to be on the pitch.”
As the nineteen players made final preparations in training, Watton says there was never any personal animosity with those selected ahead of her. The environment was inclusive and professional, and everyone was welcoming.
“They're all really good friends, and you get to know them so well spending so much time together,” she says. “In the end it's not their fault; it's a coach's decision. I would never hold a grudge.”
And she says she never wished an injury upon any of the players.
“I didn't really think about that much,” she insists. “[But] we [talked] with previous reserves about always having to be ready.”
In Rio, the squad had eighteen player passes for the athletes’ village; space for two reserves. GB had chosen to take a third, and goalkeeper Mackay was the one asked to stay outside and away from the squad.
“For Kirsty it must have been awful as she wasn't even able to be part of the team,” Watton says. “Just getting a pass for the village for a day was really difficult.”
From there, the three reserves were trained and coached for their dual role in Rio; the possibility of playing, but also providing support to the full squad, and managing themselves mentally.
“We did a lot of work with the psychologist about how to prepare ourselves for not playing, and having distractions,” she recalls.
She knew she would retire soon after the Olympics and go back to teaching full-time, so took work with her to keep her busy, and to make sure she wasn’t thinking constantly about hockey or the other players. She would take time away from the team to relax in her own space, and did a lot of fitness training; essential in the absence of matches to play.
“Psychologically I didn't find it too bad,” she says. “The hardest part was trying to remain positive when you're not feeling that brilliant adrenaline rush of winning.”
Despite not playing, her role was to help the team in any way possible to win that gold medal. The gold, of course, came in the dramatic shootout (‘shuffles’ as she calls it); the ultimate adrenaline rush that, for Watton, was tempered as she, Mackay and Leigh watched their friends climb on top of the podium. And the days in Rio after the match were the toughest.
“The thing I found hardest was the media in Rio immediately afterwards,” she remembers. “The media weren't interested in us because we weren't on the pitch. It's hard to take but understandable.”
She recounts the story of a BBC event where reporters would walk away as soon as they realised she hadn’t been part of the medal-winning squad. Mackay, with no pass for the village, had not even been allowed to attend.
“You had to be around the team, and they're all super happy and they've all got gold medals around their necks and you haven't,” she explains. “The few days before we flew home was the hardest time.”
Watton knew that Rio would be one of her last tournaments as an international player. She had tasted success for herself, winning a medal with England at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow; a silver that came with desperate disappointment that was the mirror image of Rio.
“That was a difficult one,” she recalls. “We should have won against Australia in the final. We were winning with about 20 seconds to go, they scored, then we lost on shuffles.”
She played on after 2016 and won another medal, this time bronze at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, and retired after a home World Cup in 2018. She had a great job offer, and had always struggled with the mental and physical strain of elite sport. It was time to move on.
“For me it was the right time to retire,” she says. “I had always been on the edge of the team, and struggled just being physically fit enough. Combined with wanting to go back into teaching and getting a bit older, the home World Cup just felt like the right time to retire.”
And despite coming so close to the coveted gold medal, she looks back at her career with great pride and overwhelming positivity.
“Of course it’s disappointing when you don't get a gold medal and your teammates do, but that's so minor in context of everything else I managed to achieve,” she says.
She has medals, met some outstanding people, and learnt about the psychology of elite performance; not to mention how much she found out about herself, and the dark feelings of exhaustion she could push herself through.
“When I was eighteen, I never thought I would play for my country, and then to win medals was phenomenal. I've got shirts around my house that remind me every day. I’m really privileged.”
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Watch highlights as Great Britain's women win gold in Rio 2016