Hi there,

It is the job of the press to cover power, not cover for power—to hold those in power accountable by documenting what's happening on the ground and amplifying voices at the grassroots. In this critical moment, as attacks on the media escalate, we must continue to cover crackdowns on dissent, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, public health and academic freedom. Thanks to a group of generous donors, all donations made today will be DOUBLED, which means your $15 gift is worth $30. If our journalism is important to you, please donate today. Every dollar makes a difference. Thank you so much.

Democracy Now!
Amy Goodman

Non-commercial news needs your support.

We rely on contributions from you, our viewers and listeners to do our work. If you visit us daily or weekly or even just once a month, now is a great time to make your monthly contribution.

Please do your part today.

Donate

Olympic Athlete and Stanford Student Kelly Catlin Dies by Suicide

HeadlineMar 12, 2019

And U.S. Olympic cyclist Kelly Catlin died by suicide last Thursday at the age of 23. Catlin, who won a silver medal with her cycling team at the 2016 Olympic Games, was a graduate student in computational and mathematical engineering at Stanford and died in her residence on the university’s campus. Catlin was one of a set of triplets. In addition to cycling, she was an accomplished violinist. Her family reports that she seemed to change after two accidents at the end of last year, one of which resulted in a concussion. Speaking to The Washington Post, her father said, “She was not the Kelly that we knew. She spoke like a robot. … [S]omehow her thinking was changed and she couldn’t see beyond, I guess, her depression. After her concussion, she started embracing nihilism.” Her family says she first attempted suicide in January and that the family narrowly stopped her death by calling the police after receiving an alarming email. In a post for the website VeloNews last month, Kelly Catlin wrote, “[M]ost of the time, I don’t make everything work. It’s like juggling with knives, but I really am dropping a lot of them. It’s just that most of them hit the floor and not me.”

Last month, another Stanford graduate student, 26-year-old Ziwen “Jerry” Wang died by suicide. Wang was a fifth year Ph.D. student in materials science and engineering.

You can reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top