'I believed in my abilities'

Three-time Olympic gold winner Stephanie Rice opens up about her life in the pool and off it

Stephanie Rice was an eight-year-old kid when one day, her school Physical Education teacher walked up to her mother and said that he didn’t think she could be an elite athlete. For a kid of that age, it could have been earth-shattering. But Rice decided to take it up as a challenge and prove her teacher wrong. And the rest, as they say, is history.

“I think when that happened, because I was young, I thought what would he know? If I have a goal of being an Olympic athlete, I am going to do that regardless of what anyone thinks or says,” she said in Bengaluru where she is the international ambassador for the TCS World 10K.

“If you don’t believe in me, then that’s your fault. Obviously, at a young age to have your sports teacher tell you that you are not going to be good at sports was rude. But then, I said to myself, ‘let’s prove him wrong’, and that’s what I did.”

Rice broke into the limelight with her scintillating performance at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Three gold medals, and that too in world record times, saw her become the face of Australian swimming, a fashion icon and more by the time she was 20. But a series of injuries and a difficult time in the pool saw Rice retire by the time she was 26.

In an interview, the Brisbane lady opens up about her career, life post retirement and more.

Excerpts:

What were the reasons behind you calling it quits at 26?
I think I had mentally decided around two-three months before the London Olympics (in 2012) that this will be my last Olympics. I had two shoulder surgeries and I had to, as soon as the race was finished, have the third surgery because I had torn a tendon in my shoulder and I didn’t have time to fix it before the Olympics. Every day I was training it got worse and worse and I couldn’t push to get myself out of the pool and it just became really hard. So it was kind of I need to stop after London.

How hard was it to come back to the normal life post retirement?
It was hard because I like all the media attention, the events, the races and so on. Nothing will ever give me the feeling I get when I walk out to an Olympic Stadium with the screaming crowd and all the energy, thinking about all the preparation and the race I prepared four years for. That experience does not get replicated. But then, I didn’t want to decide straightaway (after London 2012) because there are so many different things that can happen after Olympics. So I decided to wait a year before I came out and announced. But in my mind, I was 95 per cent sure that I would stop.

What is the hardest part of being an Olympic champion?
I think it’s going from being a normal person to being someone that everyone recognised overnight. Because no one can prepare you for that and no one can tell you what it is going to be like. It’s a very big change and a lot to get used to. I love talking to the media, meet new people and so on. Through sport, I have the ability to inspire someone.

But in saying that it is nice to switch off but you don’t have the option. That was probably the hard part, just figuring out how to make this work for me. Do I need to take time off to be able to do the other stuff.

And what was difficult part post retirement?
The biggest hurdle in overcoming life after sport was to know who Stephanie Rice as a person is? Because you have only known Stephanie Rice, the swimmer. That's how everyone knows you. So to not be an athlete and to not compete or doing everything you believe you are as a person, you just have this big identity struggle of who am I? What do I stand for? What am I passionate about outside of sport and that's a very big self discovery and a transition that you have to go through.

I found that it took me two years just to figure out what I am passionate about outside of swimming.
The other really challenging aspect of it is not getting recognised for competing, like I said before the feeling of being empowered and confident all that adrenaline you feel when you are competing. That feeling doesn’t happen anymore or to that level. So that's hard because you have to be able to let go of those things.

Swimming has undergone a massive technological shift. Has that made the discipline too complicated for the athletes?
It can get complicated and we find that in Australia because there are a lot of intelligent and educated people that will want you to try and do this specific technique or whatever but they have never played the sport. You sometimes have to find a balance between education and technology and all that, and training hard. Because you can’t do any amount of advanced special exercises that will compensate for training. You have to have a balance and sometimes the athletes do get caught up in this flashy stuff.

In the 400M individual medley, you were the first one to break the 4:30 seconds barrier (4:29.45 at the Beijing Games). And now Katinka Hosszú of Hungary broke your record in the 400M IM at the Rio Games (4:26.36). How lower can one go?
I don’t know, it just seems to be improving all the time. I don’t think it is going to stop because there are so many improvements in technology, the swimming suits that you wear, how you train, specific nutrition, gym work and everything keeps improving and getting better.

It’s only natural that athletes will get better and better. The time will therefore continue to drop. Sometimes you have someone like a Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt come along and no one will go faster than them for like 10 years. But that will still break at some point. There will always be another superstar that comes along and breaks the record. Who knows? I am glad that I can be there then and not now because they are so fast.

Social media, nowadays, help stars like you connect with your fans in a much easier manner. Your thoughts..
Definitely. I think, it’s because of social media that I always had a big Indian following. But I had never been here until last year. It was interesting as female to come here and talk about something other than cricket (I don’t know much about cricket). India just welcomed me and have been so supportive. I felt very comfortable as if I had been here many times before. It’s very different to Australia and I love that.