Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see a side of life the average person is
Speaker 1: never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys, staid,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of I Catch Killers. We all
Speaker 1: carry our own personal demons. Sometimes you look at other
Speaker 1: people's lives and think, because of the success they've achieved,
Speaker 1: life must be pretty good. But sadly life can be
Speaker 1: a bit more complicated, even for Olympic gold medalists like
Speaker 1: today's guest Matthew Mitcham. This might be a slight deviation
Speaker 1: from your typical eye Catch Killers. But I thought in
Speaker 1: the Olympic spirit, it would be good to get an
Speaker 1: Olympic athlete on I Catch Killers. In two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: Matt stood on the podium at the Beijing Olympics to
Speaker 1: receive his gold medal for ten meter platform diving. He
Speaker 1: was only twenty years old at the time, and he
Speaker 1: was the first individual openly gay male athlete ever to
Speaker 1: win an Olympic goal. What the public didn't realize at
Speaker 1: the time, Matt had been dealing with his own issues,
Speaker 1: including drug addiction. Today, Matt has agreed to come on
Speaker 1: I Catch Killers and talk about the highs and lows
Speaker 1: of his life. Matthew Mitcham, Welcome to I Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Is it a bit daunting the name of the podcast
Speaker 1: I Catch Killers? And you're talking to an next homicide
Speaker 1: detective And I know in the chats we've had before
Speaker 1: you're thinking how do I fit into this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, what do you know?
Speaker 1: Well, that's what we're going to get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of to get confessions out of your mat. Look, thanks
Speaker 1: for coming on your life. In prepping for the podcast
Speaker 1: and following your career. You know your household name at
Speaker 1: certain times in this country over here in Australia that
Speaker 1: you've experienced the highs and layers of life like most
Speaker 1: of us do. But in your case it was probably
Speaker 1: more difficult because it was such a public thing and
Speaker 1: you're only twenty when you won Olympic gold, and in Australia,
Speaker 1: as you know, when in Olympic gold, you've become a
Speaker 1: household name. What was it like dealing with dealing with
Speaker 1: that sort of attention at such a young age.
Speaker 3: It's one of those weird things. I think, I I
Speaker 3: kind of I think I wished it upon myself for
Speaker 3: a very long time in that a very powerful driving
Speaker 3: force throughout my teenage years. Like that actually kept me
Speaker 3: in the sport for you know, many years longer than
Speaker 3: what I probably would have otherwise.
Speaker 2: Was the fact that you know.
Speaker 3: I I was very driven by external motivation, like by
Speaker 3: external validation, because I I've never been able to esteem
Speaker 3: myself and within I've never had good self esteem.
Speaker 2: My idea of my value has always.
Speaker 3: Been completely dependent on you know, like feedback from other people,
Speaker 3: like you know, validation and positive reinforcement from you know,
Speaker 3: my mother who didn't give it freely, or you know,
Speaker 3: from validation from other people or you know, then I
Speaker 3: ended up finding a sport where I got feedback about
Speaker 3: myself in the form of numbers. So if I got
Speaker 3: an eight, they thought I was good. If I got
Speaker 3: a nine, they thought I was great, And if I
Speaker 3: got a ten, they thought I was perfect, which you know,
Speaker 3: was a very It was a very powerful motivator for
Speaker 3: me to try and be better and better in order
Speaker 3: to feel better about myself just because of my achievements.
Speaker 1: Right. It's interesting that your validation of yourself is from
Speaker 1: X journal achievements, and I want to dive deeper into
Speaker 1: that later on in the podcast, because that certainly came
Speaker 1: out in the interviews that you've done and the way
Speaker 1: that you talk about what drove you. I want to
Speaker 1: ask the question. You're the first Olympic gold medalist. We've
Speaker 1: had on Eye Catch Killers, So congratulations. We got to
Speaker 1: bronze with Harry Garside, the boxer, we've had him on
Speaker 1: the podcast, but we've never got to the gold. So
Speaker 1: you're the first gold medalist. I want to ask you.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get a sense of what drives you,
Speaker 1: what gives you the sense to believe that you could
Speaker 1: be the best in the world in your chosen field. Now,
Speaker 1: I think I'm a fairly driven person. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can achieve this, I can achieve that. But there's
Speaker 1: different levels and what mindset do you have to think
Speaker 1: I'm going to be the best in the world of
Speaker 1: what I'm doing? What drives you for that?
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I think as a child and as a teenager,
Speaker 3: the motivation was actually quite negative because I grew up
Speaker 3: in you know, probably not the I guess, the healthiest
Speaker 3: of environments. I grew up as an only child of
Speaker 3: a single parent who had you know, she had me
Speaker 3: extremely young, she was eighteen, and she also had undiagnosed
Speaker 3: aspergers like autism and ADHD, and so she found it
Speaker 3: extremely difficult to cope with well even just you know,
Speaker 3: living life on life's terms, like dealing with her own emotions,
Speaker 3: let alone having this you know, completely chaotic, you know, unpredictable,
Speaker 3: you know thing running around that. You know, I think
Speaker 3: it stressed her out a lot, and you know, so
Speaker 3: her default reaction to everything was kind of I guess, rage,
Speaker 3: because she didn't know how to handle her feelings at all.
Speaker 2: That's just how they came out.
Speaker 3: And you know, she has admitted to me in later
Speaker 3: years that you know, she kind of you know, used
Speaker 3: that fear that I had of her volatility as a
Speaker 3: way to control me, to make me easier to control.
Speaker 3: But the impact of that was that I had anxiety,
Speaker 3: like from as early as I can remember. And and
Speaker 3: you know, she also used to spend a lot of
Speaker 3: time in bed, you know, with chronic fatigue, and she
Speaker 3: would just go absolutely baalistic if I, you know, if
Speaker 3: I made noise and woke her up, and so you know,
Speaker 3: there was a lot of neglect there as well. And
Speaker 3: I found out I figured out pretty early that when
Speaker 3: I did something really good, then I got this positive
Speaker 3: reinforcement and this validation that like that felt really good,
Speaker 3: and that's I guess I felt like that's what I
Speaker 3: need it.
Speaker 2: And so then I guess my child mind kind of.
Speaker 3: Played that forward and thought, well, if I do something
Speaker 3: good and I get that positive reinforcement, then if I'm
Speaker 3: the best in the world at something, then you know,
Speaker 3: then Mum will love me and everyone will love me,
Speaker 3: and you know, I'll feel whole, I'll feel complete. So
Speaker 3: you know, right literally from the age of about you know, eight,
Speaker 3: I had this really profound thought like I have to
Speaker 3: be the best in the world at something, had no
Speaker 3: idea what it would be. Definitely wasn't going to be
Speaker 3: sport because I was, you know, one of those kids
Speaker 3: that was, you know, always picked last at lunchtime for
Speaker 3: soccer and cricket and football and all that. It was
Speaker 3: not good at running carnival, swimming, swimming carnivals like nothing.
Speaker 3: You know, I just got really lucky that I ended
Speaker 3: up finding trampling and happened to be pretty good.
Speaker 1: At it, and that led into diving. Breaking it down
Speaker 1: even further, the psychology, the psychology of thinking, yeah, they're lucky.
Speaker 1: Were you intimidated by watching other people what they could
Speaker 1: do and think I can do better, Like I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm trying to understand that mindset because I think I've
Speaker 1: got a strong mind. But I'd get to a level
Speaker 1: and just go I can't compete on that level. There
Speaker 1: must have been some confidence, internal confidence that thought, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can be the best.
Speaker 2: I think I was just kind of blessed with.
Speaker 3: Quite a lot of natural ability in terms of the
Speaker 3: you know, the trampolining and then the diving.
Speaker 2: You know, I it was more a case of.
Speaker 3: Having to just stick it out because you know, I
Speaker 3: saw diving as my ticket to being special. But I
Speaker 3: hated diving from about the age of fourteen, so I've
Speaker 3: already started to slide into a pretty profound period of
Speaker 3: depression from fourteen and so, and I hated I hated diving,
Speaker 3: and but I saw it as my ticket to being special.
Speaker 3: So I kept on doing it. But because I wasn't
Speaker 3: enjoying it, I you know, I would get to the pool,
Speaker 3: I would do everything I needed to do as quickly
Speaker 3: as possible, but all on autopilot, like without being mentally present,
Speaker 3: just completely checked out and letting my body kind of
Speaker 3: do what it needed to be done, and then leaving.
Speaker 3: And you know, by the time I was eighteen, I
Speaker 3: was the third best in the country in Australia, like,
Speaker 3: you know, not just juniors but senior as well. So
Speaker 3: I kind of knew that, you know, the longer I
Speaker 3: held on, I would eventually be going to an Olympics.
Speaker 2: You know, it did take. You know, I was good.
Speaker 3: I wasn't great, but I was I was good, And
Speaker 3: that was kind of that was that was basically just
Speaker 3: a bit of natural ability really and repetition over time.
Speaker 3: My biggest issue was the mental side of things in
Speaker 3: not wanting to be there.
Speaker 1: I suppose in a perverse sort of way that might
Speaker 1: have might have helped. It took a little bit of
Speaker 1: pressure off because it wasn't something this golden dream I
Speaker 1: want to be this world champion. It was more I
Speaker 1: need to be this world champion. So maybe it was
Speaker 1: helpful in a perverse sort of way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it was, of course, like in a way
Speaker 3: it was in a perverse kind of way. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: was helpful in that it just kept me in the sport,
Speaker 3: you know, for a certain amount of time. I did
Speaker 3: retire at eighteen with no intention of ever returning to
Speaker 3: the sport and ended up taking a year off. And
Speaker 3: in that year I got a message from a coach
Speaker 3: in another city saying, look, Matt, if you ever want
Speaker 3: to start diving again, I'll always have a place in
Speaker 3: my squad for you. And you know, it was just
Speaker 3: the way that that message was worded in a really nurturing,
Speaker 3: like not pushy way. Who it kind of demonstrated to
Speaker 3: me that he cared for my welfare as a human
Speaker 3: being more than just me as a as a competing
Speaker 3: athlete that's going to get them results. And and you know,
Speaker 3: I knew this guy and I knew that he would
Speaker 3: be kind of the right person for me, and so I,
Speaker 3: you know, I packed up everything in Brisbane, which wasn't
Speaker 3: that much because I was eighteen and really just you
Speaker 3: know basically and and yeah, moved to Sydney, and that
Speaker 3: was fifteen months before the Beijing Olympic Games. But the
Speaker 3: you know, the environment that that coach created for me,
Speaker 3: that really inclusive environment, that where I knew that I
Speaker 3: was accepted for exactly who I was, meant that you know,
Speaker 3: there weren't a lot of the issues of you know,
Speaker 3: feeling alienated like I had before. That massive geographical had
Speaker 3: a huge impact on you know, on my mental health,
Speaker 3: and and that training environment actually had a huge impact
Speaker 3: on my mental health. And that enabled me to be
Speaker 3: very present in my training sessions for the first time
Speaker 3: in years. And being present enabled me to be very
Speaker 3: analytical about you know, my dives and very technical and
Speaker 3: so I basically broke my technique down to scratch, down
Speaker 3: to basics, and then rebuilt it up to get you know.
Speaker 2: Closer and closer to perfection.
Speaker 3: And you know, I was kind of I was really
Speaker 3: only able to do all this because you know, I
Speaker 3: guess because I was happy in my training environment and
Speaker 3: being present that. I guess the motivation changed from you know,
Speaker 3: being very externally focused to actually, I wanted to see
Speaker 3: how good I could get, like how close to perfect
Speaker 3: I could get, And so the motivation became an internal motivation.
Speaker 3: I was now driving, you know, how hard I was working,
Speaker 3: which then meant that I could push myself further and
Speaker 3: further into discomfort where the growth is. And so my
Speaker 3: progress just shot up like an absolute rocket because you know,
Speaker 3: fifteen months isn't it really isn't a lot of time
Speaker 3: to prepare for an Olympic Games, especially after you know,
Speaker 3: spending a year doing very very unhealthy things with my body.
Speaker 3: So it, yeah, the catalyst for there was, you know
Speaker 3: that that environment that the coach created.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. And I hear a lot and we've
Speaker 1: had quite a few sportsmen on the podcast, but I've
Speaker 1: heard a lot of people talk about people that have
Speaker 1: been identified as good coaches, the Wayne Bennett types in
Speaker 1: rugby league, Johnny Lewis in boxing, and quite often it's
Speaker 1: about I don't want to just make them a better player,
Speaker 1: I want to make them a better human being. And
Speaker 1: people seem to resonate and respond to that, and it
Speaker 1: sounds like you found a coach that adopted that same
Speaker 1: type of mindset.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, you know, he.
Speaker 3: I guess, and maybe it wasn't you know, this hugely
Speaker 3: kind of remarkable special thing. But I mean, no, it is, like,
Speaker 3: here's a remarkable guy. But I think it was such
Speaker 3: a huge contrast because I'd only ever been with one
Speaker 3: kind of coach, you know, from one country that is
Speaker 3: the leading country in the sport, but it's so culturally different,
Speaker 3: and the way that these coaches would coach was very
Speaker 3: corrections only, like they would only ever give the corrections.
Speaker 2: For what to do. And when you are.
Speaker 3: When you've got this, you're hearing everything through this filter
Speaker 3: of depression, hearing nothing but corrections only for five hours
Speaker 3: a day, six days a week, week after week, month
Speaker 3: after month, year after year, just over and over, it's
Speaker 3: nothing but like what you did wrong?
Speaker 2: It really starts to just feel like criticism.
Speaker 3: And so you know, here I am just being criticized
Speaker 3: for years, and you know, it took me a few
Speaker 3: years to be like, why don't you ever tell me
Speaker 3: what was good about it? And you know, for them
Speaker 3: to go, well, if I say nothing, then there was
Speaker 3: nothing wrong. With it, but you know, you don't unless
Speaker 3: you kind of you know that that is the framework
Speaker 3: that you're working with. And even still like it's you know,
Speaker 3: particularly for someone with such for self esteem to never
Speaker 3: ever get validation was just kind of it just felt
Speaker 3: like punishment all the time, nothing but criticism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you've explained it well, and I can understand
Speaker 1: the reason that you'd be be thinking that way. I
Speaker 1: often look at life and I think about the way
Speaker 1: I was brought up, and I say this, and I
Speaker 1: tried to correct it with my kids. I went through
Speaker 1: life competing in things through fear of failure, and that
Speaker 1: was what was driven into me. Don't fail at this,
Speaker 1: So the way I might play sport will be you
Speaker 1: won't get the best out of me until I've got
Speaker 1: my back to the wall. It's not about the joy
Speaker 1: of success. I tried to flip that with my kids
Speaker 1: and just encourage like the success more than the fear
Speaker 1: of fear of failure. So I suppose it's each individual
Speaker 1: has a different way of approaching things and what resonates
Speaker 1: for them. The type of coach that you're talking about,
Speaker 1: I would imagine in certain cultures that's what's needed. But
Speaker 1: for you, it sounded like it was the wrong fit,
Speaker 1: just the criticism of correction, correction, correction, instead of giving
Speaker 1: you some positive feedback. So I understand where you're coming from.
Speaker 3: I actually read a study recently about two groups of
Speaker 3: I think it was like math students, like the students
Speaker 3: basically who were doing math competitions or something, and one
Speaker 3: group of students was praised for their outcome for their success,
Speaker 3: and the other group of students was praised for their effort.
Speaker 2: And what ended up happening.
Speaker 3: Over time was that the students who were praised for
Speaker 3: their effort ended up outperforming because the students who were
Speaker 3: praised for their outcome became too stressed about having to
Speaker 3: always be the best and be sics as for that
Speaker 3: that ended up giving them kind of I guess in
Speaker 3: a way like a performance anxiety or you know, you
Speaker 3: know that perfectionism where you you know that that fear
Speaker 3: of criticism and so you almost don't try things because
Speaker 3: you are fear of not getting it perfect. So so
Speaker 3: it was it was the students who are praised for
Speaker 3: the effort who ended up progressing and outperforming the outcome focus.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, isn't it The way to approach things. You
Speaker 1: mentioned something when we first started speaking, and I've just
Speaker 1: it's not a direct quote, but it's something in one
Speaker 1: of the interviews that you've done, one of the many
Speaker 1: interviews that you've done. It says a lot about what
Speaker 1: you've learned about life, and it also gives me a
Speaker 1: good insight in the type of person that you are.
Speaker 1: And you touched on it right from the start, so
Speaker 1: it sounds like it's consistent in the way that you
Speaker 1: approach it. I've sort of combined the essence of what
Speaker 1: you've been saying in your interviews. Your success does not
Speaker 1: define you as a person or helps you with your
Speaker 1: own self esteem. Helping others generates your self esteem more
Speaker 1: than focusing on your own achievements. Do you want to explain,
Speaker 1: if I've quoted you correctly, what you mean by that
Speaker 1: that approach?
Speaker 3: I mean, I didn't learn that until I, you know,
Speaker 3: finally went to rehab in twenty eleven, I think when
Speaker 3: I was twenty three years old, and that was after
Speaker 3: you know, using drugs and alcohol as a not coping
Speaker 3: mechanism all throughout my teenage years and then you know,
Speaker 3: having a relapse of that after the Beijing Olympics until
Speaker 3: it got to a point of absolute desperation when I
Speaker 3: finally went to rehab. And you know, that's where I
Speaker 3: learned about, you know, that I had such poor self
Speaker 3: esteem and why I, you know, couldn't handle my feelings
Speaker 3: and why I was so entirely dependent on.
Speaker 2: All of these external sources of esteem.
Speaker 3: In order to just survive, really because I just couldn't
Speaker 3: esteem myself from within. And and it's like that thing
Speaker 3: of what's the difference between what you can control and
Speaker 3: what you can't control? And you know, external sources of esteem,
Speaker 3: you can't control that because you can't control anything outside
Speaker 3: of yourself.
Speaker 2: You can't control other people, other places, other things.
Speaker 3: Try as you might, but you can't guarantee that you
Speaker 3: can actually control that. You will continue to get that
Speaker 3: consistent source and flow of external esteem, and so, you know,
Speaker 3: in order to generate it from within. It's like, well,
Speaker 3: how do you build your own value as a person?
Speaker 3: How do you feel good about yourself? And to me,
Speaker 3: the best way, the most effective way I found to
Speaker 3: do that was to be of service to other people,
Speaker 3: To help other people with no expectation of receiving anything
Speaker 3: in return. Is like the you know that's the the
Speaker 3: crem dela cremb even you know, just help anybody else
Speaker 3: out in any way, is you know, it makes you
Speaker 3: feel good about yourself, and so you know, that's that's
Speaker 3: why I you know, that's why I do stuff like
Speaker 3: this and talk about my mental health and you know
Speaker 3: all of this what's and all kinds of stuff that
Speaker 3: you know, I used to be and you know, maybe
Speaker 3: sometimes occasionally still do still feel a little bit of
Speaker 3: shame every now and then, but I'm able to knock
Speaker 3: it on the head.
Speaker 2: But I share my story.
Speaker 3: Because in the hope that it will help other people
Speaker 3: to relate to it or you know, to help to
Speaker 3: make change in sport for example. And I you know,
Speaker 3: I do a lot of work with you with with charities,
Speaker 3: you know, particularly like around drug drug charities or lgbt
Speaker 3: Q plus charities, and I also do I guess most
Speaker 3: of my work is you know, within diversity, equity inclusion
Speaker 3: to try and make the world corporate spaces and particularly
Speaker 3: sports much more inclusive places so that you know, to
Speaker 3: to give everybody the environment for them to thrive.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think when people talk and people with a
Speaker 1: profile like yourself that talk openly about strengths, weaknesses, fears, successes,
Speaker 1: or that it has to help because we all put
Speaker 1: ourselves in their little bubble and think you people just
Speaker 1: don't understand, and then you have conversations like we're having
Speaker 1: now and you go, oh, yeah, I get that. I
Speaker 1: look at my life and talking back like I was
Speaker 1: a homicide detective and I could be failing in every
Speaker 1: aspect of my personal life and relationships and things like that,
Speaker 1: but I got something from helping people when I as
Speaker 1: a homicide detective. And when I lost that, when that
Speaker 1: was taken away, I saw they had to look at
Speaker 1: myself and go, well, are you really a good person
Speaker 1: or are you just a good person because people said
Speaker 1: you were because you were helping victims. And I realized
Speaker 1: that how much I got from that, how much I
Speaker 1: got from helping others, and it made me feel good
Speaker 1: about myself, no matter how bad my personal life or
Speaker 1: other aspects of my life was. Well within I was
Speaker 1: telling myself, well, I'm a good person because I'm helping
Speaker 1: other people. So it helped me through through stages like that.
Speaker 1: You touched briefly on your childhood. Where did you grow up?
Speaker 1: And you're a single child with single mother, and as
Speaker 1: you explained, that had certain issues that she was dealing with.
Speaker 1: How would you describe your childhood when you look back.
Speaker 3: I grew up in Brisbane and it was a pretty
Speaker 3: lonely childhood. I'm not gonna lie. I you know, I
Speaker 3: spent a lot of time it was very I had
Speaker 3: to be very quiet a lot of the time, so
Speaker 3: I you know, any kind of silent, silent thing I
Speaker 3: could do, I would do. So I was either outside
Speaker 3: jumping on the trampoline, or I was kind of reading
Speaker 3: the encyclopedia because I just loved I mean it was
Speaker 3: it was escapism basically, like you know, learning reading the encyclopedia.
Speaker 3: But I just I loved it. I just loved loved reading.
Speaker 3: But never fiction, always nonfiction. And yeah, it was a
Speaker 3: very anxious childhood. You know. I just remember constantly being
Speaker 3: afraid that I was going to be you.
Speaker 2: Know, screamed at.
Speaker 3: You know that kind of blood curdling scream that just
Speaker 3: like that goes all the way to the core of
Speaker 3: you and just rattles your bones and just and then
Speaker 3: that that that feeling of dread just kind of then
Speaker 3: radiates out from your body and you just feel ill.
Speaker 3: That was the kind of you know that was that
Speaker 3: was a pretty common occurrence. But I think, you know,
Speaker 3: there's there's something about being screamed at that that really
Speaker 3: just does something to your self esteem. Like, yes, I
Speaker 3: don't know, for some reason, I'm particularly affected by words
Speaker 3: more so than you know, like words affect me more
Speaker 3: than being hit does, which is just so weird. But
Speaker 3: you know, that's that's just how I made and you know,
Speaker 3: and when I'm aware of it, you know, I can
Speaker 3: try and do put in measures to stop that. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it's for some reason, you know, bones, bones, heel, but words.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's stay with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand that, And it's the type of person
Speaker 1: person you are. I can understand how it would affect
Speaker 1: you deeply. Did you have any role models, anyone that
Speaker 1: you looked up to, aspired to, or people that you
Speaker 1: thought were ah good influences in your life in those
Speaker 1: early years.
Speaker 2: Not really, I think I don't know.
Speaker 3: I feel like I was just kind of in survival
Speaker 3: mode and I was very like kind of yeah, I
Speaker 3: was always looking very inwards, very you know, introspective, very reflective,
Speaker 3: you know, just very very trapped up here rather than
Speaker 3: looking to the outside world for you know, for guidance
Speaker 3: or of support or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, you look back at that, and I think every
Speaker 1: child deserves that safe space. And that's thoughts with you
Speaker 1: growing up in that environment. That's good if you've got
Speaker 1: someone that can support you and build that confidence. You're
Speaker 1: also dealing at an early age we've come in to
Speaker 1: terms with your sexuality. When did you discover your sexuality
Speaker 1: and when did you try to suppress it? Because that
Speaker 1: must have been hard to.
Speaker 2: I had a Okay, I.
Speaker 3: Just quite a little kind of little shame thing going on,
Speaker 3: like I was going to filter myself.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, it's like, I mean,
Speaker 2: it is what it is. It.
Speaker 3: I had a sexual experience. You know, I think I
Speaker 3: was about five or six and he was probably twelve
Speaker 3: or thirteen, and.
Speaker 2: You know that ended up Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that I guess that was probably the first sexual experience.
Speaker 3: And but I knew, I guess I kind of knew
Speaker 3: that I liked boys, you.
Speaker 2: Know, around then or you know, and beyond then. I
Speaker 2: went to a.
Speaker 3: Very religious primary school because it was kind of local
Speaker 3: and and you know, the there was kind of the
Speaker 3: assumption that because as a private school, you're going to
Speaker 3: get like a better educational you know, those religious schools
Speaker 3: because they had this sort of semi private you're going
Speaker 3: to get a better education than at a state school.
Speaker 3: So but so I went to a quite a religious
Speaker 3: primary school that had like a church on the grounds
Speaker 3: and everything, and you know, there was a lot of
Speaker 3: religious education. There were like a little old little tabernacle
Speaker 3: kind of thing in the in every room, and you know,
Speaker 3: lots of Bible.
Speaker 2: Reading throughout the week.
Speaker 3: And it was you know, kind of around the eight
Speaker 3: or nine mark where I started. You know, nobody, I
Speaker 3: don't think anybody ever said it to me explicitly, but
Speaker 3: you know, I think through all of that and and
Speaker 3: you know, probably messages that I was absorbing from society
Speaker 3: as well growing up in the nineties. You know, I
Speaker 3: just I basically kind of got the idea that gay
Speaker 3: was not as good as straight, and I knew that
Speaker 3: I liked boys, and and I guess the shaming of that,
Speaker 3: you know, started around that age. And and so I
Speaker 3: put a rubber band around my risk because I, you know,
Speaker 3: having a shame around you know, how I was feeling.
Speaker 3: I'd put a rubber band around my wrist and every
Speaker 3: time I had a gay thought. I would kind of
Speaker 3: snap the rubber band against my wrist as heart as
Speaker 3: I could to try and like train myself have Loovian
Speaker 3: style out of out of being gay, you know, to
Speaker 3: try and associate pain with these gay thoughts. I'm hoping
Speaker 3: that that would kind of train me out of it.
Speaker 3: And yeah, so I.
Speaker 1: Just want to say, on that matter, what a horrible
Speaker 1: way to go through your life trying to suppress your feelings,
Speaker 1: like feelings like, yeah, they're strong, it's to suppress them.
Speaker 1: You're lying to yourself and you've taken it to the
Speaker 1: next level. Have loov Dog style that you inflicting pain
Speaker 1: when you when you have a thought, yeah about your desires.
Speaker 1: It must have it must have stuffed you up in
Speaker 1: the in the mind. That must have really confused you
Speaker 1: as a young guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know there's not only is there kind
Speaker 3: of this fear, but then there's then there's even more
Speaker 3: shame put onto it because it's like this isn't working,
Speaker 3: like I can't, like I'm failing it there, like you know,
Speaker 3: so there's a far out man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3: It is pretty upsetting to think about, Like you know,
Speaker 3: I did eventually kind of figure out that it wasn't
Speaker 3: working and just kind of let it go.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think I just had to stop
Speaker 2: thinking about it for a while.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I don't remember kind of thinking about it
Speaker 3: anymore for a couple of years, and so I think
Speaker 3: it was just stop stopping thinking about it, basically suppressing it.
Speaker 2: Just stop thinking about it, it'll go away, ignoring it.
Speaker 1: When did you come out and acknowledge, like we'll talk
Speaker 1: about your time when in the media interview before before
Speaker 1: the Olympics, but in your personal life, when did you
Speaker 1: come out and just acknowledge it and accept Well, that's
Speaker 1: that's who I am.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess I was. I guess I was
Speaker 2: getting more comfortable with it.
Speaker 1: See.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The thing is like, yeah, probably around sort of thirteen fourteen,
Speaker 3: you know, like I had a close girlfriend who knew,
Speaker 3: and then I guess I started finding a few more friends.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it was only like people who are kind
Speaker 3: of very close to me. And because I'd started diving
Speaker 3: with the AIS from the age of eleven, which is
Speaker 3: way too young to be confident enough in your sexual
Speaker 3: identity to be telling anybody. By the time I was
Speaker 3: kind of comfortable enough to start telling people I'd already
Speaker 3: been training with these people for five hours a day,
Speaker 3: six days a week for several years, and so I
Speaker 3: then consequently felt very stuck in and not being able
Speaker 3: to really to talk to anybody within my training environment
Speaker 3: and open up to them, because I felt like that
Speaker 3: would be admitting that I had been lying to them.
Speaker 2: I've been deceiving years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can understand that. It makes it makes it
Speaker 1: a little bit difficult, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that left me feeling stuck in that training
Speaker 3: environment for a couple of years, which consequently left me
Speaker 3: feeling quite alienated. And that didn't That really didn't help
Speaker 3: with you know, how happy I was within the training environment.
Speaker 1: With the training environment, when did you you start off
Speaker 1: doing trampoline and you reached the high level in that?
Speaker 1: Talk us through that, how you how you got into that,
Speaker 1: and what level you reached, and then how you diverted
Speaker 1: your interests in diving.
Speaker 3: I started trampolining when I was nine. I because I
Speaker 3: got given a backyard trampoline by my brand dad's girlfriend
Speaker 3: at the time, just a super functional family going generations back.
Speaker 3: But her son didn't need the trampoline anymore, he'd grown
Speaker 3: out of it. So I got given the trampoline and
Speaker 3: I just absolutely loved it, and so went to trampling
Speaker 3: lessons from the age of nine, and you just absolutely
Speaker 3: loved flipping and being acrobatic and performing. And you know,
Speaker 3: probably the you know, the pretty leotards didn't hurt either,
Speaker 3: but you know there was something.
Speaker 2: About in your boxes, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: There was something about, you know, the idea of the
Speaker 3: aim is to be kind of prettier, all better than
Speaker 3: everybody else that you know, that kind of resonated me
Speaker 3: on a very deep level, you know, because I'd never
Speaker 3: be competitive at anything before. So I, you know, I
Speaker 3: was doing trampoline. I went to my first World Junior
Speaker 3: Championships at eleven, and then you know, and then started
Speaker 3: diving not long after that because I you know, in
Speaker 3: the summer holidays, yeah, mom just used to use the
Speaker 3: local pool as like a babysit all day daycare. Basically,
Speaker 3: they dropped off at nine o'clock in the morning, pick
Speaker 3: me up at five or six o'clock in the evening.
Speaker 3: And my local pool just happened to be the Slimen
Speaker 3: Aquatic Center, which is the national training center for diving.
Speaker 2: Okay, and you know, back in the nineties, they used to.
Speaker 3: They used to have the boards open to the public,
Speaker 3: you know, for like an hour or two, like every
Speaker 3: every day before I reaches shut all that dawn.
Speaker 1: I remember those days. It just sounds ridiculous jump off
Speaker 1: the ten minutes. Okay, well have you ever done it before? Man? Can?
Speaker 1: I just can't imagine that these days. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: know it was a different different times. Wasn't a different times?
Speaker 3: It was, you know, so everybody was kind of doing
Speaker 3: bomb dives and I was showing off doing double flips
Speaker 3: into bomb dives because I was a show pony. And
Speaker 3: one of the national coaches just happened to be walking
Speaker 3: out along pool deck and saw me, and I was like, Hey,
Speaker 3: how do you know how to do that?
Speaker 2: Do you do? You want to try diving?
Speaker 3: And so I started diving the next week and I
Speaker 3: was doing both sports for a couple of years. Went
Speaker 3: to my second World Junior Trampoline Championships at thirteen, won
Speaker 3: a gold medal, and I was progressing through up through
Speaker 3: diving very very quickly because I already had all the skills,
Speaker 3: and you know, trampling was just a demonstration sport in
Speaker 3: the Olympics at the time. And so there was not
Speaker 3: even a one guaranteed spot for Australia to compete, and
Speaker 3: I was a fourteen year old competing against twenty six
Speaker 3: seven year olds. You know, it just wasn't It was
Speaker 3: a more logical decision for me to go to diving,
Speaker 3: which you know, it was much better funded, had a
Speaker 3: lot more opportunities for international travel and to go to
Speaker 3: the Olympics, a lot more more opportunities to go to
Speaker 3: the Olympics. So I ended up making the switch full
Speaker 3: time to diving at you know, thirteen, fourteen.
Speaker 1: And you hang on to that for quite a few years,
Speaker 1: but then you said you fell out of love with
Speaker 1: diving and your life went off the track before you
Speaker 1: decided to straighten out and go for the Olympics. What
Speaker 1: was that period of life? Like what happened there?
Speaker 3: I just from about the age of fourteen, I started
Speaker 3: to just sink into this this depression which I can't
Speaker 3: there was no one triggering traumatic event. I think it
Speaker 3: was just you know, just the hormonal goat rodeo you know,
Speaker 3: of being a teenager, and also quite a lot of
Speaker 3: genetic predisposition, I'd say as well. But yeah, so from fourteen,
Speaker 3: you know, I was having these very big feelings that
Speaker 3: I couldn't handle, and I discovered, I mean that at
Speaker 3: some stage in my childhood I had made a promise
Speaker 3: to myself that I was never going to act out
Speaker 3: my anger on another person because of you know, because
Speaker 3: that's how it had made me feel, and I never
Speaker 3: wanted to make another person feel that way. Unfortunately, I
Speaker 3: did have very extreme, like uncontainable anger, but I acted
Speaker 3: it out on myself in with self harm, and you know,
Speaker 3: I ended up having to like I was, I was
Speaker 3: self harming. I was, I was, I was cutting myself
Speaker 3: and and I ended up having to pull my grandma
Speaker 3: one time to pick me up from where I was
Speaker 3: and take me to the hospital to get some stitches.
Speaker 3: And and you know that's and and the the worry
Speaker 3: that I caused in her from that made me realize
Speaker 3: that that's not an acceptable way, that's not an appropriate
Speaker 3: way for me to deal with my feelings. But rather
Speaker 3: than actually find an appropriate way to do with my feelings,
Speaker 3: I was just like binge drinking on the weekends because
Speaker 3: you know, I had this wonderful, wonderful effect of making
Speaker 3: me throw up and pass out, which was kind of
Speaker 3: like a mental break for me. It was a break
Speaker 3: from my head and a break from my feelings. And
Speaker 3: so I was literally just sculling, like blocking my nose
Speaker 3: and sculling pure spirits like every weekend. And then that
Speaker 3: you know, progressed to you know, weed and LSD and
Speaker 3: other drugs, and yeah, by the time I was eighteen,
Speaker 3: it just wasn't enough for me.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, diving was good in that.
Speaker 3: I guess it probably did provide some sort of like control.
Speaker 3: It controlled it in a way because I wasn't seldom
Speaker 3: sometimes it was, but I was seldom drinking during the
Speaker 3: week because I had to keep on showing up for diving.
Speaker 3: So in some ways, you know, diving was really good
Speaker 3: at that. But then you know, by the time I
Speaker 3: was eighteen, that that ticket to being special was not
Speaker 3: enough to outweigh how much I was hating it.
Speaker 1: It sounds like self loathing, and it's you weren't drinking
Speaker 1: for the fun of it. Hey, we're going to get
Speaker 1: wild and enjoy ourselves. You were drinking the mask the pain,
Speaker 1: literally knock yourself, knock yourself out.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it was escapism for sure.
Speaker 1: And I would imagine after you come down from that
Speaker 1: and also when you've gone down the path of the
Speaker 1: drugs that you'd wake up feeling worse about yourself, just
Speaker 1: just be spiraling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, particularly the you know, once I turned eighteen, it
Speaker 3: was it was all like it was the party drugs
Speaker 3: as well, like it was the stimulants. It had never
Speaker 3: been the stimulants before, but when I eighteen, it was
Speaker 3: it was everything, and the stimulants had more of that
Speaker 3: had that effect of like making me feel worse afterwards.
Speaker 2: Then you come down front high and exactly.
Speaker 3: So then you know, then that kind of reinforces the
Speaker 3: cycle of like, you know, feeling even worse. So oh,
Speaker 3: I know, I know what's going to make me feel better.
Speaker 3: So you know, you take your pick me up again
Speaker 3: and then you know, temporarily you do feel better, and
Speaker 3: then you feel worse again, and you know, and that's
Speaker 3: you know, so horrible, that feeling is so so horrible
Speaker 3: that you you know, you know, okay, I know how
Speaker 3: to fix this very quickly, and so that's how it
Speaker 3: perpetuates and it reinforces the cycle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for that, Like I hear a lot of people
Speaker 1: have come on my catch killers and they've been at
Speaker 1: that point in their life and then their life goes
Speaker 1: left and that means you know, twenty years in jail
Speaker 1: or all sorts of things. They hit some layers. How
Speaker 1: did you at that age turn it round to say, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to clean up my act and going to
Speaker 1: the Olympics. What was was there one thing that pointed
Speaker 1: you back in the direction or how did you how
Speaker 1: did you turn your life from the obvious direction that
Speaker 1: was heading at that stage to the success that you
Speaker 1: achieved at the Olympics and the dedication and the focus.
Speaker 3: It was literally that text message from that coach, you know, saying, look,
Speaker 3: if you ever want to start diving again, I'll always
Speaker 3: have a place in my squad for you. And you
Speaker 3: know that's I knew that it would be different to
Speaker 3: how it had always been, like to what I was
Speaker 3: used to in terms of, you know, the dynamic within
Speaker 3: a training environment, the dynamic between myself and a coach,
Speaker 3: and you know, I felt it was a shame to
Speaker 3: you know, to quit and to never actually go to
Speaker 3: an Olympic Games. Yes, so you know I knew that
Speaker 3: this was was, you know, my best chance and and
Speaker 3: you know it being only fifteen months on Beijing, I
Speaker 3: didn't want anything to jeopardize my chance of making it
Speaker 3: to that Olympics. So I went cold turkey off absolutely everything,
Speaker 3: you know, drugs, alcohol, junk food, like, you know everything.
Speaker 3: I didn't want anything to jeopardize my chants. And you
Speaker 3: know it, it was a lot of like catching trains
Speaker 3: because I couldn't afford you know, to pay car insurance.
Speaker 3: But it was also a lot of like you know,
Speaker 3: checking the tracks of the seats and of the car
Speaker 3: seats for you know, trapnell that's fallen down there, and
Speaker 3: looking under couch cushions for for train fares. But but it,
Speaker 3: you know, I was catching trains a lot. And you know,
Speaker 3: at I was living in Sydney. So at Lidcombe Station
Speaker 3: there's you know, there's the the bit that's kind of
Speaker 3: separate from the rest of the platforms that goes over
Speaker 3: to Olympic Park and there's this graffiti there that says,
Speaker 3: or there was, I don't know if they've painted over
Speaker 3: it yet, but it says like you know ice age,
Speaker 3: like the movie in that that that type of font.
Speaker 3: But then it says underneath like the crackdown and then
Speaker 3: there's like a crack pipe and a syringe there, and
Speaker 3: so obviously it's a it's a reference to crack or math.
Speaker 3: And you know, it took me six months for me
Speaker 3: because I'd already suspected suspected, I already.
Speaker 2: Knew that I was an addict. At that stage.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have used that terminology, but I already knew
Speaker 3: that I was struggling with addiction.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I just hold that point there for a
Speaker 1: sec like when you get to that point when you
Speaker 1: realize you're an addict, Like we've all had addictions to
Speaker 1: certain things, and you can delude yourself and go, I
Speaker 1: could give up that anytime I wanted to. But then
Speaker 1: you realize that you're making that excuse time and time again.
Speaker 1: You came to terms of the fact that you're, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you hate to say it, I'm a drug addict.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would never have said it. I would never
Speaker 3: have said it then, Yeah, that I was struggling with addiction.
Speaker 2: I had. I had been to a GP.
Speaker 3: And said, you know, like I'm struggling with you know,
Speaker 3: with with Matthews and not being and not being able
Speaker 3: to stop using crystal meth. But he didn't really provide
Speaker 3: me any solutions, and so I just kept on partying,
Speaker 3: but like knowing that I.
Speaker 2: That I was really struggling to stop.
Speaker 3: But then when I got this opportunity, that was enough
Speaker 3: of an impetus for me to be like, you know,
Speaker 3: cold turkey off everything. But it took me, I was
Speaker 3: it took me six months of like and I had
Speaker 3: to stop listening to dance music like it was all,
Speaker 3: you know, I just got into super into acoustic music,
Speaker 3: folk music, and you know, then and catching the train
Speaker 3: to Olympic Park everywhere and going past this you know, this,
Speaker 3: this graffiti it. You know, it took me six months
Speaker 3: to stop thinking about meth every single day. But I
Speaker 3: you know, but luckily I had had such a powerful
Speaker 3: goal that was pushing me in a certain direction that
Speaker 3: I managed to stay like you know, completely cold turkey,
Speaker 3: clean and sober for the you know that whole time.
Speaker 1: Well, full credit to you, because I know I've spoken
Speaker 1: to people that get that high from the meth, and
Speaker 1: it's just once I've had the taste of it, they
Speaker 1: fight it for the rest of their lives. It sounds
Speaker 1: like you break away from the lifestyle like the dance music.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you had to break away from a circle
Speaker 1: of friends and just focus on what you were doing.
Speaker 1: So what what sort of commitment we've got, you know,
Speaker 1: the Paris Olympics. What type of dedication and commitment do
Speaker 1: you have to have to get to the elite level
Speaker 1: of your sport just to get to the Olympics. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about winning the gold medal later, but just to
Speaker 1: make it to the Australian team. Is it all consuming?
Speaker 1: Do you have to just that has to be your
Speaker 1: only focus?
Speaker 2: I think to win it? It does?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: I think maybe not necessarily, like just to make it.
Speaker 3: I think some sports are more competitive than others. And
Speaker 3: you know, and and a lot of athletes, you know,
Speaker 3: will a lot of athletes have to work, you know,
Speaker 3: whilst doing their sport or they won't be able to
Speaker 3: support themselves because you know, so many athletes don't get
Speaker 3: funding to be able to support yourself.
Speaker 2: And I didn't. I had to work luckily.
Speaker 3: I you know, there was a woman who like a
Speaker 3: dive mum basically, who had her own company and so
Speaker 3: I worked as an adminissistant for the five hours in
Speaker 3: between training sessions. So I worked five hours a day,
Speaker 3: five days a week as an admin assistant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's pay through What about the physical thing.
Speaker 1: And I've got to ask, and I've always I always
Speaker 1: wanted to ask divers, is you guys and girls look
Speaker 1: like the most fifth fifthest athletes? And I'm thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm only seeing them dive off. What other exercise and
Speaker 1: training do you have to do other than walking up
Speaker 1: the platforms, climbing the ladder or the stairs all the time?
Speaker 1: But why is it such like I'm looking at it
Speaker 1: and you look like extreme fit athletes in diving? It's
Speaker 1: just the nature of the sport. What is a physical
Speaker 1: training you have to achieve to get to that level?
Speaker 3: I mean, you have to be super strong to deal
Speaker 3: with the g forces that you're putting your body through,
Speaker 3: Like as you're you know, you're kind of not only
Speaker 3: falling at like sixty kilometers an hour, but you're also
Speaker 3: rotating so fast that you know, if you if you
Speaker 3: have a look at a photo of a diver kind
Speaker 3: of mid flight, you'll see like, you know, their skin
Speaker 3: kind of trailing behind their skull. You know, So you
Speaker 3: have to be strong enough to actually hold those positions,
Speaker 3: and so you know there'll be every diver will do
Speaker 3: two sessions a day, so between ten and eleven sessions
Speaker 3: a week, and it's usually all the morning sessions will
Speaker 3: be dry sessions, so in the drilling center, like you know,
Speaker 3: doing all the acrobatic stuff into foam pits or onto mats,
Speaker 3: as well as a lot of core exercises. And divers
Speaker 3: will also have you know, at least two but normally
Speaker 3: three purely strength based right sessions a week. You know,
Speaker 3: to build not only your strength but your power. So
Speaker 3: that's strength plus speed.
Speaker 1: Now, your event that you went into the Olympics had
Speaker 1: three disciplines or three levels that you were diving at,
Speaker 1: so you've got that. The ten meter platform which you
Speaker 1: won the goal. I won't give away. People know you
Speaker 1: won the goal, so we're not giving away the story.
Speaker 1: People know that. But ten meters. I've jumped off ten
Speaker 1: meters and if you don't land properly, and I won't
Speaker 1: say I dived. I'd like to say a dive, but
Speaker 1: I've never had the carriage. I always went feet first,
Speaker 1: and sometimes if you didn't land properly, you felt it.
Speaker 1: The impact that you're receiving each time with the dives.
Speaker 1: Talk us through that, because I've been fascinated by it
Speaker 1: doing it time and time again. There must have been
Speaker 1: times when you feel like oop, that didn't land properly.
Speaker 1: So it's like hitting hitting concrete.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is, because you do you know that you
Speaker 3: do hit the water at sixty kilometers an hour from
Speaker 3: the ten meter and you know that. So you'll see
Speaker 3: that every diver has got at least their wrists strapped
Speaker 3: to try and I guess provide a bit of reinforcement
Speaker 3: because your wrists are what is taking all of that
Speaker 3: hit for that you know, that fraction of a second,
Speaker 3: and that's the goal is for only your your hands
Speaker 3: to be taking that hit. And I guess the more
Speaker 3: either either side of vertical that you go, the more
Speaker 3: of your body is taking more of the hit. And
Speaker 3: so obviously you know when you land flat, your whole
Speaker 3: body is taking all that force all at once, and
Speaker 3: so you'll get you'll get all this bruising, you know
Speaker 3: if you if you do land flat and you know
Speaker 3: it's it's happened a couple of times.
Speaker 2: It does happen.
Speaker 3: It's one of those things where you just have to
Speaker 3: get straight back up on the horse, you know, to
Speaker 3: make sure that you don't then get the ips or
Speaker 3: the twisties or you know whatever your your profession's version
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 2: In your mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, what about the you're breaking the water with
Speaker 1: your hands, I'm talking to ten meter with the impact
Speaker 1: on the head, Any concussions or is there anything like that?
Speaker 1: The shop that you get from going in the water.
Speaker 3: Only if you land sort of flat on your back
Speaker 3: or your stomach right, or if you hit your head
Speaker 3: on the platform or the springboard. Yeah, which is you
Speaker 3: know it happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think we've all seen it on tiktop
Speaker 1: where a diver's gone bad. Okay, you're training, you're putting
Speaker 1: in those hours hours a day, you're working. When did
Speaker 1: you find out that you made the Olympic team and
Speaker 1: talk us through that, because that must be a special
Speaker 1: moment in anyone's life, I would imagine.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I guess I probably wasn't that surprised, to be fair,
Speaker 3: just because I my progress was going really well, my
Speaker 3: diving was going really well. That the National Championships, you know,
Speaker 3: there are many there are many competitions.
Speaker 2: You have to qualify at.
Speaker 3: You know, you have to call her for the next rip,
Speaker 3: competition for the next So I guess the first stage
Speaker 3: of that was the Australian National Championships. And I I
Speaker 3: won every event one meter, three meter, three meters and
Speaker 3: crew ten meter, like you know that there was so
Speaker 3: you know, I kind of you know, and then as
Speaker 3: things progressed, like you know, it was clear to me
Speaker 3: that you know. And then I went to the World
Speaker 3: World Cup and I qualified Australia's spots for Australia to.
Speaker 2: Dive in the Olympics.
Speaker 3: And then and then I went to the Olympic trials
Speaker 3: and I qualified my spot to fill the spots that
Speaker 3: I had already qualified for Australia.
Speaker 2: So you know, like I knew that I was going.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so when I did actually get announced on
Speaker 3: the team, it wasn't a surprise, but it was. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was I don't remember feeling any kind of I
Speaker 3: guess it was kind of expected.
Speaker 2: But you know, then when then when the this journalist.
Speaker 3: Came out to profile me and a couple of my
Speaker 3: teammates who had also qualified, Yeah, it was just this
Speaker 3: journalist was just asking me all the you know, the
Speaker 3: usual questions, you know, how old I am, where I live,
Speaker 3: who I live with, and and because I had spent
Speaker 3: the last year I mean even even actually when I
Speaker 3: retired from diving, I made a promised to myself when
Speaker 3: I was eighteen, I made have promised myself that I
Speaker 3: was going to be one hundred percent upfront and honest
Speaker 3: with everyone I met from that point forwards, because it
Speaker 3: was you know, it was just a.
Speaker 1: Horrible live a lie or the deception.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and and you know, and my coach had created
Speaker 3: such a wonderfully inclusive environment that I had just gotten
Speaker 3: so used to just to being you know, myself, my
Speaker 3: authentic self, and so you know, I just I just
Speaker 3: say I live with my boyfriend. And this journalist was
Speaker 3: so excited by that. You know, she thought it was
Speaker 3: absolutely wonderful, and she thought that you know that Australia
Speaker 3: would really sort of you know, get behind me. But
Speaker 3: she did actually give me the option of whether I
Speaker 3: wanted that to go into the story, because yeah, I guess, well.
Speaker 1: That was decent of her, because it's you know, it
Speaker 1: wasn't the intent of I'm sure she didn't sit down
Speaker 1: going out. I'm going to get this as a scoop,
Speaker 1: but it's nice that she asks you. There's things that
Speaker 1: you've been quoted about saying about that that when you
Speaker 1: did come out, and one of the things, and I
Speaker 1: think you've just touched on it, but I just read
Speaker 1: this quite there. I was so scared of it that
Speaker 1: it would actually tie a rubber band. We've talked about that,
Speaker 1: so this is the fear that you've had in childhood.
Speaker 1: And then when you did come out, I was scared
Speaker 1: about the response. But going into the Olympics, I didn't
Speaker 1: want the Australian public to think of me one way
Speaker 1: as straight and then have to come out afterwards feeling
Speaker 1: like I lied to them. So I can understand that,
Speaker 1: because with the Olympics comes the focus, the attention, and
Speaker 1: you've gone in there and you'd feel I won't say hypocrite,
Speaker 1: because it's personal and people can talk about their private
Speaker 1: life if they want or don't want. But I can
Speaker 1: understand where you felt like it was a weight off
Speaker 1: your shoulders by actually coming out and saying, hey, this
Speaker 1: is who I am. Accept me or don't accept me.
Speaker 1: Did it it feel like it was liberating for you?
Speaker 3: I mean, everybody who was around me you But you know,
Speaker 3: I guess I you know, I think I just won
Speaker 3: the last international event before the Olympic Games, so I
Speaker 3: knew that I was doing quite well and that there
Speaker 3: were a chance that I could do quite well in
Speaker 3: the Olympics, and so I kind of wanted to save
Speaker 3: myself a very very awkward like you know, oh by
Speaker 3: the way, you know, because and you know, the other
Speaker 3: thing was there was nothing that could happen to me
Speaker 3: that I felt like, you know, you know when you
Speaker 3: you know you're scared of something because you do the
Speaker 3: worst case scenario all the time, and queer people do it.
Speaker 3: You know, it's it's basically it's quite it's a universal experience,
Speaker 3: you know, before coming out. It's you know, the worst
Speaker 3: case scenario thing, and that I think that stops people
Speaker 3: coming out a lot of the time. But there was
Speaker 3: nothing that could happen to me that would be worse
Speaker 3: than going back into the closet for me, And so,
Speaker 3: you know, I feel like that's that's kind of a
Speaker 3: really good that that's a testament to kind of what
Speaker 3: how I guess soul destroying it is to to actually,
Speaker 3: you know, to not be able to be your authentic
Speaker 3: self and to be in the closet. Is you know
Speaker 3: that literally nothing in the world could happen to me
Speaker 3: that would be worse than that. And so you know,
Speaker 3: and you know, all of those fears that I had.
Speaker 3: I didn't care if nobody supported me, you know, it
Speaker 3: was it was still more important for me to you know,
Speaker 3: to just to come out to the world before the Olympics,
Speaker 3: and you know, and none of those fears came to pass.
Speaker 3: Like my coming out to the world was front page
Speaker 3: news of the biggest newspaper in Australia and I loved
Speaker 3: abs so extra it's you know, it felt kind of
Speaker 3: appropriate actually, but you know, none of those fears came
Speaker 3: to pass. It was ninety nine point nine nine percent
Speaker 3: overwhelmingly positive and supportive from you know, from the public,
Speaker 3: from the media, from everyone in sport. Like it was
Speaker 3: just it was such an incredibly wonderful positive experience.
Speaker 1: Isn't that great? And it's all my pluck and irony.
Speaker 1: I don't now if I any he's the right word
Speaker 1: for it, but the fact that this is something you
Speaker 1: feared for so long and then you've done it and
Speaker 1: it's all positive. It's I think we hold a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of concerns that perhaps if we were
Speaker 1: just open about it, that might might be as bad
Speaker 1: as the perception of it.
Speaker 3: Yes, and no, I think you know, historically I had
Speaker 3: there was a lot of fear because I had no one,
Speaker 3: There was no precedent for me, you know that any
Speaker 3: other gay sporting people I knew were kind of Greg
Speaker 3: Lar Gainus in eighty eight, and you know, but he
Speaker 3: wasn't out when he dived.
Speaker 2: You know, he didn't come out.
Speaker 3: Until afterwards, so you know, that almost doesn't really count.
Speaker 3: And also there was a lot of controversy around, you know,
Speaker 3: when he did come out, because he also had to
Speaker 3: come out about his HIV status.
Speaker 2: There was Ian Roberts in the nineties who you know,
Speaker 2: didn't didn't have the best.
Speaker 3: Time, Like it wasn't it wasn't a super positive experience,
Speaker 3: you know, how he was treated. And justin fashion U
Speaker 3: the English footballer in the nineties who you know, the
Speaker 3: first black player to get a million pound transfer fee,
Speaker 3: but he came out and was just bullied mercilessly and
Speaker 3: ultimately ended up taking his life. And you know, so
Speaker 3: I didn't have any good positive role models to show
Speaker 3: me that it would be okay. So you know, in
Speaker 3: some ways, like it's you know, you can kind of
Speaker 3: be like, you.
Speaker 2: Know, isn't it funny that you know you fear the worst?
Speaker 3: But I didn't have any evidence to kind of to
Speaker 3: contradict that, and you know, and you think, okay, well,
Speaker 3: society's progressing, that's wonderful. But just this year the Olympics
Speaker 3: Instagram posted an Australian rock climber who qualified for the
Speaker 3: Paris Games and they posted about him him kissing his
Speaker 3: partner and his male partner, And the amount of hate
Speaker 3: that that post has generated is just like more hate
Speaker 3: than I got in my entire career, just in that
Speaker 3: one post.
Speaker 2: So you know, you.
Speaker 3: Feel like society is progressing, but actually I feel like
Speaker 3: at the moment, if for the last couple of years,
Speaker 3: there's been a bit of a swing backwards, like in
Speaker 3: more conservative values, a bit of a like an anti
Speaker 3: woke kind of sentiment where it's people are really really
Speaker 3: pushing back in quite a quite a horrible way.
Speaker 1: That shocks me. I didn't realize and I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: anticipated that. I thought it would have just been a
Speaker 1: blase a thing and it's accepted. But when you talk
Speaker 1: about woke, I know, when extreme views at one side,
Speaker 1: then the other views become just as extreme and they
Speaker 1: keep they play off each other. So maybe that's part
Speaker 1: of it. But you make a valid point and also
Speaker 1: the sportsman that you did mention. I can understand then
Speaker 1: what you're saying that, Okay, it did work out well,
Speaker 1: but it could have gone either way for you when
Speaker 1: you came out. Yeah, and perhaps even costs your sponsorships
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 3: I suppose God exactly, that's absolutely a fear. And you
Speaker 3: know that was a fear at the time. Well actually,
Speaker 3: you know that was It was certainly a thought that
Speaker 3: I'd had at the time, but it was something that
Speaker 3: I ended up saying, you know what, that's just not
Speaker 3: that important. But you know, this, this this boy, Campbell Harrison,
Speaker 3: he's he's he's quite affected by you know, he puts
Speaker 3: on a very brief face, but you know I've been
Speaker 3: talking to him privately, you know, because I've reached out
Speaker 3: and have been supporting him, and you know, he's quite
Speaker 3: he's quite affected by it, you know, which is such
Speaker 3: a shame. We were about to go into your first Olympics.
Speaker 3: He didn't, you know, it was just it was something
Speaker 3: that you know, the Olympics posted that's gotten you know,
Speaker 3: all of this this huge just this hatred and you know,
Speaker 3: it would take a very very strong person to not
Speaker 3: take it personally at all, which you know it's not
Speaker 3: about him at all, obviously, but you know it would
Speaker 3: take a very strong person to not internalize any of it.
Speaker 1: Most definitely, And you're quite right and identifying as a shame,
Speaker 1: like he's going to something that should be highlighted to
Speaker 1: get negative feedback from that over something that, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: really thought we had passed that point. We might take
Speaker 1: a break now for part one, and then we're going
Speaker 1: to get into the excitement of going to the Olympic Village.
Speaker 1: And I got to experience the Olympic Village during Sydney Olympics,
Speaker 1: and not as an athlete, sadly, but a close personal
Speaker 1: protection looking after dignitaries going into the Olympics at the
Speaker 1: Sydney Olympics. And I got to say, I've been to
Speaker 1: a lot of places in my time, but going into
Speaker 1: the Olympic Village just had a buzz of excitement about it,
Speaker 1: and I'd love to hear from someone that actually experienced
Speaker 1: it as an athlete and the excitement of going in
Speaker 1: there and competing against the of the best. So we'll
Speaker 1: take a short break and when we come back to
Speaker 1: part two, we'll go into that and talk about more
Speaker 1: of your highs and lows and everything else has happened
Speaker 1: in Matt's life, so we'll have you back soon.
Speaker 2: That's good. Cheers,