Draperstown broadcaster Orla Chennaoui talks sobriety, wellness, fashion and her passion for sport

County Derry presenter and writer Orla Chennaoui is an immediately recognisable face and voice to followers of professional cycling.

Throughout her career the Draperstown native and multilingual TV sports presenter, host and journalist has over 18 years of experience working in both news and sport.

Orla is currently a cycling presenter for sports broadcasters Eurosport UK and TNT. She has presented on location from nine Tours de France, two Giros d'Italia, two Olympic Games and one Commonwealth Games. Her career has included working lengthy spells for Sky Sports News and the Sky Sports Rugby and cycling coverage.

With her confident personality and successful career, behind the scenes it’s hard to imagine that Orla battled with anxiety. This eventually led to the presenter going sober as a means of coping with the dread she would feel after drinking.

Here the presenter talks to the County Derry Post about her journey to sobriety, the growth of her brand ‘Ten Times Braver’, and the impact her passion for fashion has had on the sports industry. 

A full 10 years on from dedicating herself to sobriety, Orla reflected on her path saying: “For me it was a big deal, a challenge to go sober. I realised early that I had committed to something that completely turned my life around. I look back to the reasons I stopped drinking and blame myself and carry that guilt with me still. Actually I should look back at the last ten years and be proud of myself. It is quite something that I had the discipline and dedication and I wanted to make something of my life that was a fuller existence. I have managed to do that and it feels nice. 

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“On the anniversary of my ten years sober I took time to reflect. My friend, who was there at the time I went sober, sent me a lovely message. I thought I’m going to take this praise on board thank you. I feel good making it this far.” 

Orla continued explaining why she took the leap and decided to go sober in the first place. 

“It was a case of drinking too much,” she said. “About four years into sobriety I started to see the connection between my drinking and anxiety. I’ve had anxiety all my life and was using alcohol as a way of trying to run from my anxiety. I was trying to mask it and silence it. Nobody would’ve known any of this from the outside. I am an outgoing person, and look confident. I’m really interested in people so I am always chatting. That looks like someone who is happy within themselves. I wasn’t ever fully unhappy, I just felt at odds and some sort of a disconnect. Alcohol stopped me thinking about that and silenced those feelings. Of course the next day when you get hangxiety everything becomes worse. Then you think I know what will fix this because it fixed it before and you start drinking again.”

The presenter suffered from postnatal depression after the birth of daughter and said things changed for her when she became a first time mum. 

“I felt something had to give. I absolutely love my daughter and want to do the best for her. I wanted to be able to do my job and enjoy life. I realised the one thing I could get rid of was alcohol. I knew if I stopped drinking that would turn everything around for the better. It was a win-win situation. It was just a case of knuckling down and changing my habits. If I decide I want to start drinking again I can. I haven’t made a deal with anyone, but since stopping drinking I feel a better person for it.” 

Orla has shared her tips for anyone who is sober, curious and thinking about giving up alcohol. 

“If you are curious, give it a go. What have you got to lose? There is a fear around being sober. We seem to think if we step into that realm it’s another world and there is no bridge back again. We think we are stuck there forever and it will be boring. If you decide you want to pick up a drink again then you can. I would say depending on your level of drinking you won’t see a difference straight away. You will feel better that you don’t have a hangover, but it will feel hard at the beginning. Give it time. 

“Dry January and Stoptober are great concepts but the problem with them is that they happen in the dark cold winter months. So many associate those periods with staying inside, stopping having fun, and counting down the days until we get to drink again. The difference is with stopping drinking you need to fill that time with fun things, create new habits, and not sit waiting for the calendar to click along. You have to reform your neuronal pathways and find ways you can socialise without relying on the clutch of alcohol.”

For Orla she didn’t want her decision to stop drinking to stop her having fun. She found how stopping drinking allowed her to have fun again. At the start of her journey she even managed to go on a girl’s trip to Ibiza while remaining sober and had the ‘best time’. 

“I am really lucky that I don’t get triggered by others drinking around me,” she admitted.

Another tip Orla shared was to buy a nice journal, write who you want to be inside. Any time you are tempted to have a drink, take it out, look at it then make the decision. 

Off the back of her sober journey Orla’s wellness brand ‘Ten Times Braver’ was born. 

Orla shared how the brand began saying “It all began with a very simple, yet powerful question, and it’s a question that has stuck with me since I was first asked it. The question is this: What would you do if you were ten times braver? Following through on this idea I decided to explore meditation after experiencing a panic attack before I went live on air. I heard something triggering and it set me off. I was experiencing the grief of losing a close friend at the time. I remember crying and being locked in a toilet unable to breathe. I was struggling with the finality of death, the fear of it all. I was thinking along the lines of it is all going to end anyway so what odds about what I want to do. 

“That breakdown became something of a breakthrough. Something shifted and I realised the fear was completely pointless. The fear of not being liked didn’t matter anymore, I was on daily TV which I received daily trolling for anyway. I needed to stop and listen to what the fears were telling me.” 

Orla has a fascination for all things philosophy and counts this quote from Greek Stoicism as one of her favourites: ‘Memento Mori: Remember that you must die, Memento vivere: Remember you must live’.

“The quote reminds me it’s all going to end at one stage anyway so if you want to go for it, do it. Look at those fears and what they are trying to tell you. The fear is your signal for where you want to go. 

 “Just because I preach this method doesn’t mean I am not crippled by anxiety. That is ok, it is just the human condition. As long as you are checking in with yourself and looking at what that is trying to teach you. We are taught to fear aging but there is beauty in growing older. We learn more about ourselves. How to pick ourselves up and how to live our lives. The key is not to allow fear to dominate too much, don’t allow it to hold you back. You have to back the choice to smash through it.” 

Simple things in life are what Orla appreciates more than anything. She loves the joy of her children, husband, parents, siblings and her new dog. 

Starting her career in hard news, Orla worked in print before moving to radio and tv.

In 2005, Orla joined Sky News as its Northern Ireland correspondent. Five years later, she moved into sports broadcasting for Sky Sports specialising in cycling; she was also Sky Sports’ principal correspondent for the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games.

Nowadays she loves stories that bring hope and inspiration. Counting hearing people’s stories as her favourite aspect of her job. 

Speaking on the idea of news, Orla said: “I have become disillusioned about how the cycle of news works. So much of the world’s fear is sold to us on a daily basis through our media. It gives us a very skewed view of what the world is. It leaves us thinking that any act of goodness in the world is an anomaly. This is a dangerous and unhealthy way of looking at the world. There is way more good in the world than there is bad.”

On her love of sport, Orla said: “Sport is a way for me to access the virtues of humanity. It shows discipline, hard work, the power of self belief and teamwork. Through sport and cycling in particular the lows of pushing yourself and learning lessons from that. It is a beautiful filter in which to see the world. I think cycling represents life well. There are stages for every kind of rider, every kind of role imaginable involved in a bike race. I love being part of that generation of women involved in sport. From professional athletes to journalists.” 

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Reflecting on her life growing up in Ballinascreen, Orla shared how supporting the county’s GAA team was and still is a way of life for her family. 

“My parents still go to as many Derry matches as they possibly can. They are absolute fanatics. My mum will rewatch Gaelic matches on TV three or four times throughout the week. That love of sport was passed on to us. Sport is my happy place.” 

In terms of ambitions Orla said she has plenty but doesn’t like to set herself targets. 

“When you feel you have to achieve targets this can close paths to other areas. I tend to move a few steps at a time. I would love to take ‘Ten Times Braver’ to festivals. I want to create a community out of this. So people are able to come forward and share their brave stories with each other. I feel this would ease the collective burden. I would love to write books and do more podcasts.”

The presenter is known for her bright, bold and outstanding sense of style. Orla counts fellow Irish broadcasters Laura Whitmore and Angela Scanlon as her fashion inspiration. 

Talking about her fashion Orla said: “I try to wear what I like. That can be disingenuous because we are all influenced by current trends and the people we see. I try not to copy and just wear what makes me happy. It’s a funny thing people started to look to me for fashion, I never set out to engineer it. I’m a woman covering cycling but I like being feminine and that really stood out in cycling. Being there in a skirt stood out so people would comment. Even when what I was wearing wasn’t that outrageous. People were used to seeing polo shirts and jeans. 

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“I was taken aback by how shocked people seemed to be. I felt I lost myself after having my child and suffering post natal depression. So I thought I was in a position of being on tv and could show people there is a way to have fun with your identity. Beyond your twenties, depression or having kids. Women are told fashion is for women in their early twenties and thirties. Beyond that people seem to find it offensive. They expect you to pipe down and wear sensible clothes. I didn’t want my daughter to feel like that when she gets older so I thought let’s change that narrative. At one stage I had a boss tell me that I wasn’t allowed to wear a short skirt. I was told I was the credibility of the channel. I thought ‘I can be credible and authoritative regardless of what I’m wearing’. 

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“Lots of women over the years have been in touch to say that they value my fashion on tv and that I bring a sense of fun. Some said they feel I give them permission to dress how they like and add colour. When you start to get feedback like that then all the trolling in the world doesn’t matter. I think nobody should judge someone’s ability based on what they wear. I have fun and experiment with it.”

For more information on Orla’s brand visit: tentimesbraver.com

Catch Orla covering The Tour de France on TNT throughout July. 

You can also see Orla in Tour de France unchained now on Netflix.

Follow on Instagram @ sportsorla