From Trauma to Triumph: An Olympian Mom’s Journey After a Harrowing Kidnapping

Some episodes of Hustle Zone are fun. This one, hosted by Ryan Perez, is something else entirely — a conversation with a guest introduced simply as Lear: a single mother of three, a woman working three jobs, and one of only three Black women in the world competing in short-track speed skating at an elite level. She trains up to six days a week, sometimes two to four times a day, and is now pursuing a second Olympic sport, track cycling, alongside speed skating.

But the story underneath the athletic resume is what makes this episode land. Asked Hustle Zone’s standard opening question — “what is your story?” — Lear didn’t start with medals. She started with track and field, where she’d competed since ninth grade, running relay legs and posting a personal-best mile of 4:55. Then she explained why she walked away from the sport entirely: she was in an abusive relationship, one she describes as her first ever experience with abuse, involving physical, verbal, and psychological violence severe enough that she feared for her life — including an injury to her arm that changed color, which she thought might kill her.

The relationship ended in something far worse than a breakup. When she tried to leave, her partner held a knife to her throat and forced her to drive 18 hours, with her two children in the back seat, to a location she didn’t recognize. She was held for three months, beaten daily, and never allowed to hold her own phone or keys. Even bathroom stops were monitored — he stood outside the door so she couldn’t signal for help. She told Perez that thoughts of her children, not herself, were what kept her from trying to run, even in moments she believed she could physically outrun him.

She was eventually freed not by her own escape attempt but because the friend whose house they were staying at grew suspicious — noticing she wore the same outfit every day — and because his daughter had seen her being beaten through a bathroom door left ajar. That family called the police. In a strange coda, Lear later learned her abuser was arrested again after kidnapping another woman and her daughter using the identical method; the family that hadn’t believed Lear’s story the first time reached out to apologize.

Recovery, she said, involved therapy, a long stretch of depression, and what she describes as leaning heavily on prayer and faith — she noted she never turned to substances. From there, the conversation turns toward how she found speed skating: skating for fun at a regular rink, drawing attention from strangers who couldn’t understand why she was so fast, and eventually discovering short-track speed skating on television and deciding, almost on the spot, that she had to pursue it. She later learned she’d be one of only three Black women worldwide competing in the discipline.

The episode also touches on the attention that’s followed her rise, including a personal encounter with Dame Dash, who told her to “be your own superhero” — a line she returns to more than once. She’s candid about the volume of online negativity she receives, including people who’ve told her they hope she dies, and describes her method for handling it simply: “I do not receive it.”

Asked what she’d tell her younger self, she didn’t hesitate: don’t get married at 18. She did, had two children, and divorced six years later — advice she extends to young women broadly, encouraging them to build stability and self-worth before rushing into relationships. The interview closes with a rapid-fire lightning round (Sunday is her favorite day, Sacramento her favorite U.S. city, Michael Jackson over Prince) before she shares her competitive timeline: an April tryout, with track cycling aimed at the 2024 Olympics and speed skating targeting the 2022 Winter Games.

It’s a conversation that moves, without much transition, from one of the more disturbing survival stories Hustle Zone has aired to a genuinely uplifting profile of an athlete building something new out of what was left. Perez doesn’t try to smooth that over — he lets it sit exactly as heavy and as hopeful as it is.