Ellia Smeding

Name of coach	Daniel Greig [club], AUS
Club / Team	Team Novus: Netherlands

Injuries	A lung infection meant she was unable to compete at the 2017 World Junior Championships in Helsinki, Finland. (Twitter profile, 19 Feb 2017)
Awards and honours	She was flag bearer for Great Britain at the opening ceremony of the 2017 Winter World University Games in Almaty, Kazakhstan. (BUCS Twitter profile, 31 Jan 2017)

www.facebook.com/ellia.smeding
twitter.com/ellia_smeding

Famous relatives

Her partner Cornelius Kersten has represented Great Britain in speed skating, including at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. (Cornelius Kersten Instagram profile, 19 Sep 2022; SportsDeskOnline, 26 Oct 2022)

Reason for choosing this sport	She enjoyed inline skating as a child, so she decided to try speed skating and liked it even more. "I always really enjoyed rollerblading at birthday parties. I was really competitive. My mum said, 'Oh, we have an inline track', which is 400 metres, so it's the same size as a speed skating rink. They had this in the town that we moved to, and I really wanted to give it a go."
When and where did you begin this sport?	She moved to the Netherlands from England at age eight, and began skating two years later in Leeuwarden. "I think I started doing competitions when I was about 11 - my parents never decided to move back [to England], so we've been here [the Netherlands] ever since."

Other information	BUSINESS VENTURE In 2020 she and her partner Cornelius Kersten started their own coffee business called Brew '22, which is based in Heerenveen, Netherlands. The venture was intended as a way to help fund her and Kersten's bid to compete at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, and they also hoped to support other speed skaters with the profits. "We want to build towards athletes being able to fund themselves through our company, so that they don't have to set up their own business and spend all those hours that we did setting it up. They get to sell this product and earn money through that without having to do that much. We are starting collaborations with other teams and athletes now. That's what I'm really passionate about, to help other athletes who are in the same position find a way to earn money themselves without sacrificing their sport. We had to find a way to make money and hopefully [the business] is something we can continue to grow after our skating careers." (LinkedIn profile, 26 Sep 2023; olympics.com, 07 Feb 2022; bbc.co.uk, 17 Dec 2020; switchtheplay.com, 01 Sep 2020) BUILDING SELF-CONFIDENCE She underwent mindset training ahead of the 2019/20 season to boost her self-confidence and increase her mental strength. "I was afraid of making a fool of myself [earlier in her career] because no one had ever believed in me. It's only really been the last two years [speaking in 2020] that I've felt good enough to compete against others. My confidence has increased and I've learned to fight during races. I started working with a psychotherapist, which increased my mental strength and confidence. I realised I was worthy of competing." (switchtheplay.com, 01 Sep 2020) DUAL NATIONALITY Born in Great Britain, she is also eligible to skate for the Netherlands after moving there with her family at age eight. "People often think I went for the easy option because I chose to represent Great Britain, but I still have to compete at the same level at the same competitions." (switchtheplay.com, 01 Sep 2020) FURTHER EDUCATION She has studied psychology at the Open University in the Netherlands. (LinkedIn profile, 26 Sep 2023)
Hobbies	Cars. (team-novus-skating.com, 05 Feb 2022)
Ambitions	To compete at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milan-Cortina. (iceskating.org.uk, 07 Jan 2023)