For Ellie Simmonds, swimming became a millstone in the wake of the Rio Paralympics.
Behind a fifth Paralympic gold medal, the then 21-year-old was proverbially being dragged below the surface, weighed down by the expectation from the public but, more importantly, herself.
“If I didn’t swim well, then it was life and death,” she says looking back on that time. “I was just living and breathing swimming, and it was really unhealthy. I needed a break and to be a normal 21-year-old. Finally, I didn’t have to think about swimming, I’d wake up saying ‘what do I do today?’”
Simmonds, like many twenty-somethings, took a year off and travelled the world, backpacking in Vietnam and working on a conservation project in South Africa, a decision which has proved life changing.
“It’s the best thing I could have done,” she said. “It was a hard decision but it made life better. Now I try to picture life like a pie chart - it’s 50% swimming and 50% me. There were points where I didn’t want to come back but I did and I’m loving it now.”
The self-expectation remains high as she lines up for this week’s Para World Swimming Championships, with her first final on Monday night the London pool which acted as her career high for the double 2012 Paralympic gold as well as now her training base.
But her mindset has shifted from seven years ago: “I was talking to my physio and saying I’d achieved my dream of getting Paralympic gold and was lucky enough to have five. Now I just want to enjoy it, and whatever comes now is a bonus.
“Sure, in London I’ll want to have a good race and be competitive. If I get a medal I’ll be so happy but, if I don’t, it’s not the end of the world. I don’t need to put pressure on myself as there’s already pressure from the public. Whatever happens, happens. And even if suddenly I start hating swimming tomorrow, there’s nothing stopping me from retiring. I don’t have to do this and can decide when I stop.”
Now inside a year to go until Tokyo and what will be her fourth Paralympics, it would be an apt time and place to announce her retirement, although she admits the prospect of another four-year cycle in the pool is perfectly plausible.
For now, she is just relishing the chance to shine again in her adopted home city. She said: “I look that pool and I still look back at 2012. Sometimes you forget the memories for a moment when training there but the memories of 2012 will never really disappear. That spark will never go.”
This week, she hopes to reignite memories of 2012.
