Beth Dobbin: Olympic sprinter reveals ME diagnosis and life in bed
British Olympic sprinter Beth Dobbin has been diagnosed with ME and now spends more than 22 hours a day in bed.
The 32-year-old described her condition in an interview published on 16 October 2026 by BBC Sport. She said she gets out of bed only to eat and use the bathroom.
Dobbin said the illness followed back-to-back Covid and glandular fever infections in the winter of 2021-22. ME is myalgic encephalomyelitis, a long-term illness that can leave people severely depleted. She cannot train. She cannot race.
Dobbin competes in the 200m for Great Britain and Northern Ireland, according to World Athletics. The same profile lists her as a Commonwealth Games bronze medallist and a two-time European Team Championships winner. She was born on 7 June 1994 and ran for Great Britain at the Tokyo Olympics.
It is not her first fight to reach a start line. As a teenager she suffered an epileptic seizure so severe it left her unable to walk or talk, Team GB records. She made her Olympic debut in Tokyo 14 years later.
The recent absence has been long. In October 2024 she wrote on Instagram that she had been dealing with a health issue for the past few months and that it was still ongoing. She later said she had missed another season while continuing to deal with a health issue, and that she was praying every day to get back on the start line.
What makes this stand out is the contrast in pace. Dobbin built her career on speed over 20 seconds of effort. She once trained under Leon Baptiste and worked her way through the British sprint ranks to Olympic selection. Now her days are measured in small trips from bed to kitchen and back.
For fans, this means adjusting the lens. There is no split to read here, no world lead to check. There is an athlete explaining, in her own words, why she disappeared from the track and what daily life now asks of her.
