Jon Goodwin exclusive: From Olympic athlete to first Olympian in space, defying age and Parkinson’s disease

Where do you go after competing at an Olympic Games? Jon Goodwin took off for space.

The 80-year-old, who represented Great Britian in canoe slalom at Munich 1972, became the first Olympic competitor to fly to space when he boarded a commercial spaceflight by Virgin Galactic in August.

Goodwin was the fourth person to sign up once the opportunity to be part of the first commercial flights came up. Eighteen years later – and a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis mid-way – he made the trip in the hopes of inspiring more people to defy the odds.

“I don’t set out to do these things. It just seems to be in my nature,” Goodwin told Olympics.com. “To do something that very few other people have done… to have the opportunity was the appeal. I had a desire to go to space because it appealed to my adventurous nature.”

Olympics.com spoke to the octogenarian after he touched down to find out how he trained for the spaceflight, the extra challenges he faced since getting diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and why Earth looks more impressive from a spaceship porthole than in a photograph.

• British canoeist Jon Goodwin becomes first Olympic competitor to travel to space

Jon Goodwin: From Olympian to adventurer

Jon Goodwin’s life is a road map of the world’s greatest peaks: Kilimanjaro, the Himalayas, and most recently, space.

But it all started with Olympus.

Goodwin took part in the Munich 1972 Games where canoe slalom made its Olympic debut. While finishing without a medal was not the result he wanted, it proved to be the best motivator as he launched into other pursuits.

“Disappointment, it improves the breed. You want to do better so you carry on trying to prove that. Subconsciously, mind you,” Goodwin said.

“Obviously to compete in the Games was terrific, but it must have been 20 years afterwards before I thought to myself, ‘Yes, that was probably quite an achievement’.”

After leaving the GB national team, Goodwin channelled his competitive energy into history-making canoe expeditions instead.

Over the following years he became the first person to canoe the Marshyangdi river between the peaks of Annapurna, won a six-day race in the Arctic Circle, went down the Ganges, and led a crew of nine in an outrigger race in Hawaii, to name just a few of his multiple adventures.

“I’d stopped competing for the country, but I took to doing the expeditions,” Goodwin said. “So I changed. I was still canoeing but doing different aspects of canoeing. The Arctic canoeing that we won, where we paddled 19 hours non-stop on the first day and managed to win every day of the six days, that record still stands today.”

Having completed the ultimate adventurer’s check list on Earth, Goodwin looked turned his gaze upwards to yet unchartered territory.

In September 2004, he put his name on the list for Virgin Galactic’s first commercial spaceflight. The ticket cost him $250,000 USD and required an 18-year wait.

But, as Goodwin soon found out, time was not the biggest obstacle standing in his way.

Parkinson’s diagnosis: ‘There was no use moaning about it’

At 71, and 10 years into Virgin Galactic’s wait list, Goodwin was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

The progressive disorder targets the nervous system and has no known cure. Symptoms start with small tremors and progress to slowed movement, rigid muscles, and difficulties with speech and writing.

Since getting the diagnosis, Goodwin has seen his energy levels dip and some everyday tasks become more complicated.

“I've only got 20 per cent of dopamine,” he said. “Dopamine supplies all the energy to the muscles, every part of the body is requiring dopamine, so it takes me time to get dressed, for example, and doing buttons up on your shirt, it's an impossible task.”

The British adventurer has come up with creative solutions to adapt to his new reality, such as spacing shirt buttons further apart and rolling up shirt cuffs.

He has also made a special effort to keep a positive mindset.

“I was 71 at the time. I’ve had a fantastic life and there was no use moaning about it, ‘Why me?’ I took the attitude of, when I get up in the morning that there was nothing wrong with me,” Goodwin said. “It seems to work very well. If you believe you can do everything else that you've done in the past, it doesn’t restrict you. I've proved to people with Parkinson’s, and other diseases like this, that it isn’t the end of the road.”

This is a message that Goodwin is eager to share when he speaks to other people with Parkinson’s.

The World Health Organization estimated in 2019 that over 8.5 million people around the globe have Parkinson’s disease, which is double the figures from 25 years ago.

Goodwin attends a weekly class near his home in Staffordshire in England, together with 30 to 40 people who have the same diagnosis.

“It’s trying to help others to take the same attitude as I do because it creates a real mental problem. Forty per cent of people diagnosed with Parkinson’s suffer from severe depression, so it's helping other people to fight it in the same way that I’ve tackled this. It's been one of the most satisfying things,” Goodwin said.

For Goodwin, such statements are more than mere words. Seven years after getting diagnosed with the disease, he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in five days and then cycled back down within the same week.

While Parkinson’s did not stand in the way of his mountain and canoe adventures, Goodwin did fear that it would rule him out of the spaceflight.

He underwent numerous tests to prove that he could take part in Virgin's Galactic 02 mission and ultimately got the green light.

“I succeeded in going weightless in a simulated aircraft over the Bay of Los Angeles, so I was able to show that I was still able to do most of the things that a normal person [can do],” Goodwin said. “It's been interesting proving them wrong.”

Jon Goodwin: Training for space tourism

Space scientists were not the only ones that Goodwin has proved wrong. His grandson’s schoolteacher was also initially among the sceptics.

“Sebastian at six years of age turned up and said, ‘My grandad is going into space’, and the teacher said, ‘Next question, please’. Obviously didn’t believe him. And he went up afterwards and said to the teacher, ‘My grandad is going into space’,” recalled Goodwin, who was subsequently invited to the school to give a talk about his upcoming mission.

“When you tell them you’re going into space, they look at you as though, ‘That can’t be right’, because of course it's just an unusual thing to be doing.”

Five years after that school talk, Goodwin was at Spaceport America, New Mexico as he and the other two passengers, a mother and daughter from Antigua, started training on site.

They practised being weightless in a centrifuge machine for three days and also got familiarised with the inside of the rocket ship.

“The weightlessness is just a little thing to do, to unbuckle your seatbelts and to float around the cockpit… The problem that you have in being weightless is that you’re being pushed towards the ceiling all the time, and at some point, you've got to get back into the seat, put your seatbelt on,” Goodwin said.

“That was the thing that we trained for, more than anything else, is finding windows, seatbelts, seat sides, so that you could pull yourself back into the seat to buckle yourself in before re-entry.”

Zero hour, 9 am: An Olympian becomes an astronaut

On the morning of August 10, everything was ready.

Goodwin was calm on board VSS Unity as he sat on the runway for half an hour before take-off.

“There wasn’t a lot of difference between that and being in a conventional airplane and taking off of the runway. I was confident that everything would work because we trained just as we've trained for the Olympics, to improve our ability,” Goodwin said. “And it's that inner confidence in your own ability that takes a certain amount of the fear away.”

Forty-five minutes after take-off, the three passengers were able to unbuckle and experience weightlessness in space.

It was five minutes that Goodwin, looking through the portal at the blue and green orb below, will never forget.

“The most impressive thing, without a doubt, is the view of the Earth from space. It was a very clear day. You could very easily see the Pacific coast of America below, and this lightness of space which presides is an indescribable moment,” he recalled.

“The thing that I said to myself all through the day and even before, in the training, is ‘I want you to enjoy that moment’. I didn't want to be taking photographs. Somebody else could do that. I wanted to live this hour and a half of something exceedingly special, and it did exceed my expectations of how beautiful it is from space.”

The biggest highlight of the day, however, awaited Goodwin back on solid ground.

“It was a magical moment,” he said of seeing his family, including wife Pauline Goodwin who is also an Olympic canoeist, waiting for him on the tarmac.

“My wife ran towards me on the runway. I ran to her. My youngest son said it was incredibly moving. He said he hadn't seen that in a long time. In a marriage, you don’t go running to your wife or husband every day of the week.”

Grateful messages from people with Parkinson’s soon also flooded in.

“I certainly had congratulations from the Parkinson's community, thanking me for highlighting it, because it is only recently that people are starting to be honest about it, which is the best way of tackling it rather than trying to hide it away,” Goodwin said. “And the world reaction…has just been amazing. I never anticipated that it would touch the public's imagination like it has.”

So, after conquering outer space, what’s next for the Munich 1972 Olympian?

The man who likes pushing the boundaries of human ability is keeping up suspense about his next adventure: “Something will crop up”.