How 2024 Olympics Heptathlete Chari Hawkins Turned “Green Goblin” of Anxiety Into a Superpower

Chari Hawkins is no stranger to overcoming hurdles. 

After all, it’s one of the seven track and field events she competes in as part of the heptathlon. But before the 33-year-old ran, jumped and threw her way to representing Team USA at the 2024 Olympics, she struggled with anxiety and panic attacks that nearly stopped her in her tracks. 

Like at the 2019 USA Indoor Nationals, where she was competing in the pentathlon (a.k.a. 60m hurdles, high jump, shot put, long jump, 800m run in one day).

“I was just having a really hard time,” Chari recalled in an exclusive interview with E! News. “I couldn't take a full breath. And I remember going to the bathroom and crying my eyes out. Praying, ‘Please, please, please, I just want to get this feeling taken from me and I'll do my best.’ But I couldn't. I was so miserable and so scared.”

So, when the tension on her body led to her pulling a hamstring and having to withdraw from the final, she remembered feeling “more relief than sadness.” But when it sunk in that Chari—who had been in second place before her injury—had given up the chance at a medal, she knew she needed to make a change.

Turning to friends, coaches and people online, she started getting insight into their struggles with anxiety and panic attacks.

“I learned that I'm not alone, there's nothing wrong with you if you do have anxiety,” she explained. “I learned that I was assuming that my worth as an individual, as a human, was directly applicable to my performance.”

“If I performed well, I was worthy. If I didn't perform well, I wasn't,” the 2022 USATF Indoor Championship Women’s Pentathlon winner continued. “That was the first time that it clicked in my head. Ever since then, I haven't really had a full-blown panic attack.”

That’s not to say there aren’t moments when anxiety creeps in—including during the Olympic trials. But Chari has a new way of looking at the anxiety she calls her Green Goblin.

“With my panic attacks and with the Green Goblin, what I've learned is that it's okay to be scared,” she noted, “and it's okay to feel like you can't do it as long as you are also willing to hold space for the potential that you can do it.”

When intrusive thoughts do start to creep in, Chari—who is married to CJ O’Neal—instructs herself to instead focus on what success might look and feel like.

“That changes a little bit of the chemistry of your body to give yourself this space and stand a little taller,” she explained. “You still have all of the doubt, too, but allow that to exist, too.” 

With that mindset, running—which she initially hated “with a burning passion”—has become more than a passion but a lifeline, too.  

“Running has given me that ability to overcome something physically while overcoming something mentally,” Chari shared with E!. “It allows you to put yourself in both realms, almost on a pedestal—you're so proud of yourself for doing the thing you didn't want to do. Even though you were tired, you chose to do it.”

As she put it, “Anytime that you can really say to yourself, 'I rock' is a win. And I think running gives you the opportunity to do that a lot.”

To get to know more of Team USA competing at the Paris Olympics, read on…

Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history, full stop. But the 2016 all-around Olympic gold medalist has unfinished business to attend to in Paris after a case of the twisties prompted her to pull out of most events in Tokyo in 2021.

Representing Team USA alongside Biles are Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera.

Longtime women's national soccer team goalie Alyssa Naeher has two World Cup titles, a slew of impressive stats and a big gap in her resume she'd love to fill with Paris gold after the squad's bronze showing in Tokyo.

Sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson was supposed to make her Olympics debut in Tokyo but was sidelined after a positive marijuana test. Now the reigning world champion in the 100 meters, she's a favorite to torch the competition in Paris in her signature event.

Swimmer Katie Ledecky has 10 Olympic medals, seven of them gold, and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in May. Competing in her fourth Games, the Stanford grad has a chance to become the first female swimmer to win gold four straight times if she dominates once again in the 800 meters. 

Olympic soccer requires the men's teams to be all 23-and-younger with three spots allowed for "overage" players—which is why veteran defender Walker Zimmerman thought his dream of playing on this stage ended when the U.S. men failed to qualify in 2016.

"Then as things materialized this year," the 31-year-old told the LA Times, "just getting the opportunity is amazing." 

"If you had asked me at the Trials in 2021 if I regretted coming out, I would have said yes," runner Nikki Hiltz told NBC Sports of coming out as trans and nonbinary not long before they failed to qualify for Tokyo. 

But Hiltz didn't give up—on their truth or their sport—winning U.S. indoor and outdoor titles in the 1500m in 2023, repeating the indoor feat in 2024 and running a field-leading 3:55.33 to take the women's 1500m at Trials on June 30.

"It's the last day of Pride Month," Hiltz told NBC Sports at the finish line, "and I wanted to run this one for my community."

Tennis champ Coco Gauff, winner of the 2023 U.S. Open, is ranked second in the world heading into Paris. The 20-year-old is making her Olympics debut after a positive COVID test dashed her plans for Tokyo.

Top-ranked in the U.S. and No. 2 in the world, B-boy Victor Montalvo is ready to turn the Olympics on its head as breaking makes its long-awaited debut at the Paris Games.

There's never only one superstar on the U.S. men's basketball team, but four-time NBA champion LeBron James is appearing in what will almost certainly be his last Olympics and he'll be one of Team USA's two designated flagbearers at the July 26 Opening Ceremony.

James told reporters he was "super-appreciative and-super humbled" by the honor.

There's nothing not badass about wheelchair rugby and Chuck Aoki has been a star of the U.S. Paralympic team since London in 2012. With a bronze and two silvers under his belt, winning gold in Paris would really complement his collection.

While Hunter Woodhall is not least known for being long-jumper Tara Davis-Woodhall's supportive other half, the University of Arkansas grad is also a sprinting machine. The two-time Paralympian—and first-ever double-amputee athlete to earn an NCAA Division I scholarship—heads to Paris having dominated in the men's T62 400m and T62 100m at Trials.

Two athletes, but a packaged set as far as beach volleyball is concerned. Louisiana State alums and best friends Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss hadn't even turned pro yet when, in April 2021, Nuss gifted Kloth an ankle bracelet for her birthday inscribed with "August 11, 2024."

If you're guessing that's the date of the women's finals at the Paris Olympics, you are correct.

Six-time Paralympian Oksana Masters was born in Ukraine in 1989 with radiation-related birth defects—including webbed fingers and tibial malformation—connected to the Chernobyl disaster. Growing up in Louisville, Ky., with adoptive mom Gay Masters, she underwent a number of surgeries, including respective leg amputations at 9 and 14—after which she took up rowing.

But sun, snow... It's all the same for the seven-time gold medalist, who has three Winter Paralympics as a para-cross-country skier and para-biathlete and three Summer Paralympics as a para-cyclist and para-rower under her belt heading into Paris, where she'll compete in cycling events.

After finishing just shy of the podium in Tokyo, surfer Caroline Marks is ready to ride her 2023 world title to Olympic victory in... Well, not Paris. All of the surfing will be taking place at Teahupo'o on Tahiti, nearly 10,000 miles away from the rest of the festivities.

Swimmer Jessica Long, whose Instagram bio reads "Born without legs + living my best life," is headed to her sixth Paralympics. The 29-time medalist, 16 of them gold, is pretty much just racing for bragging rights at this point. 

Las Vegas Aces, um, ace and two-time WNBA MVP A'ja Wilson will be leading the U.S. women's basketball team in their quest for their eighth straight gold medal. (The men are looking for only their fifth straight, having been vanquished in 2004.)

Butterfly and freestylin' fool Caeleb Dressel won five gold medals in Tokyo, no big deal, to bring his career Olympic gold tally to seven. Paris will be the swimmer's third Games and first as a dad, having welcomed son August Wilder Dressel with wife Meghan Dressel in February. 

After Jessica Parratto earned a silver medal in Tokyo for women's synchronized 10m platform with partner Delaney Schnell—Team USA's first-ever medal in that event—the 5-foot-2 athlete retired to, as she told NBC Sports, "finally be a normal person."

She did that for, like, a year until Schnell wooed her back into the pool. But to be clear, Parratto said of her return before they qualified for Paris, "I didn’t do it because she wanted me to. I really did it because I wanted to."

But she doesn't mind the camaraderie, either. When Schnell banged her feet at the Montreal Diving World Cup in May, Parratto's first international event back from retirement, "it was a really good bonding moment for us," she said, "and just being like, okay, we got this."

The U.S. men do gymnastics, too, and Fred Richard was the top scorer on both nights of the 2024 Olympic Trials. Obviously fans will flip if the 2023 NCAA all-around (and horizontal bars, and parallel bars) champion from University of Michigan helps the national team make an Olympic podium for the first time since 2008.

Watch the 2024 Paris Olympics starting Friday, July 26, with the Opening Ceremony at 7:30 p.m. ET/PT on NBC and Peacock.