Bradly Sinden revealed he does not know what the future holds but was pleased to have his mum’s shoulder to cry on at Paris 2024.

The taekwondo star agonisingly missed out on a medal last month, with a knee injury shattering his dreams of gold and forcing him to withdraw from his bronze medal fight.

The aftermath reduced Sinden to tears, as his hopes of adding to his silver medal from Tokyo were dashed, but the Stainforth fighter took comfort from having his mum Sheryl on the sidelines to console him.

Sinden now faces the decision of whether to commit to another four years in search of that elusive gold at LA 2028 but will always have special memories of Paris despite coming home empty-handed.

“I said after Tokyo I was definitely going for the gold in Paris,” he said. “Right now, the weight is harder to make so I have got to think about it.

“I am pretty exhausted, a lot of competitions have been bunched together. It has been a harder schedule with lots of ups and downs. It is just getting my body in the right place at the moment.

“Even though Paris hasn’t turned out the way I wanted to, I think having my mum there helped me a lot.

“I wasn’t in a great place after that semi-final loss because my injury was the reason why I didn’t manage to get through that, I felt cheated. I needed it to hang on for just two more fights, couldn’t it just hang on?

“I had mum there for me to cry, she was nothing but proud of me. Being able to have that cry with them and get over it as quick as possible with them. They’re always proud of you no matter what.

“How many people can say ‘my son is an Olympian?’ Having everyone there was more than I could have asked for.”

Defeat in Paris will take time for Sinden to compute, but he revealed how opening up to friends, family and others has been a key part of the process as a professional athlete.

Sinden was speaking at SportsAid Live, where he gave advice and insight to some of the country’s next generation of athletes, and revealed how important it is to deal with disappointment, having previously bounced back from narrowly missing out on Olympic gold in Tokyo to be crowned world champion two years later.

“I can’t remember the last time I cried until then,” he said. “It was the first time I had cried out of sadness in a long time. It just kept coming and coming but having family there helped.

“It’s a very hard thing to deal with, I don’t mind losing if I can fight my best and the better man won on the day, but having that opportunity taken away from me like it was, it was gut-wrenching, but having family there helped me deal with it. I have got the support network I need around me to overcome it.

“We’re only meant to deal with so much. Taekwondo, or sport in general, it can be the highest of highs or the lowest of lows.

“You need to let it out. You might never cry or crying could be the best way for you. For me, just talking to people and them showing that it’s not the end of me. Taekwondo is my life now but will eventually be a very small part of my life. It will be a big part of what shaped me to who I am but everything moves on.”

SportsAid Live, hosted by Marsh McLennan, brought together over 40 athletes and their families, across more than 20 different sports, to meet each other and share their experiences and knowledge, while also benefitting from mentoring and valuable workshops in areas such as mind health, sleep, performance, wellbeing and building your brand.