Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Britain's most successful female swimmer, multiple Olympic medalist and world record breaker, won two golds at Beijing 2008 and two more medals at London 2012.
On the island
Eight records
I have chosen Saturday Night at the Movies by The Drifters as it was just for me. This is a song that just makes me so happy and it just reminds me of family life.
This was just my era growing up. I just absolutely loved the Spice Girls.
I just love Disney movies, all Disney movies. I'm such a Disney girl. And for mine and Harry's um wedding after our honeymoon, my present to him was Disneyland for a week as well. So even though I'm twenty six, we're still like such big kids at heart. So I had to have a Disney song in there.
Hungry Eyes. I absolutely love dirty dancing. It is my favourite.
I'd never heard this song before. And obviously for us, we were out in Beijing at the Olympics, where we weren't watching the coverage back here, so we couldn't see anything. And then we came back home and I was watching all these highlights, I was seeing it all on TV. My parents were showing everything and this song was just the common theme. It just reminds me of winning two gold medals.
This was for me a real big turning point kind of in my career. I'd been to Beijing, I had a really tough 2009. And then it was kind of like one of those things that it was in 2011. This song was played at the World Championship trials, and I qualified. I just felt like I was now a woman. I wasn't this little girl that kind of had been overwhelmed by everything from Beijing. I wasn't this 19-year-old vulnerable person anymore. I felt really strong. I felt confident. And I managed on going to the World Championships and come away with a gold medal, which for me, a year ahead of the London Olympics, was just amazing. But this was the song that I just constantly listened to. Dog days are gone, and I was finally able to put that to bed and move forward in my career.
This was the song of the London Olympics. Elbow played at the closing ceremony. I really took a step back and thought, this is just amazing. Not many people get to experience a Home Olympics, let alone be in my career, have a chance to compete at a Home Olympics. To then be my last Olympic Games and to be with all my best friends standing there at this closing ceremony was just one of those breathtaking moments where it just seems like everyone in the world just slows down and you're just taking everything in. And it was it's such a beautiful song anyway. My sister then went on to choose this as her first dance at her wedding. So again, it's a really nice special thing that it just reminds me of my sister's wedding now as well.
Thinking Out LoudFavourite
When we got married last summer. We tried to think of a song I could walk down the aisle to, and I heard this Ed Sheeran song that was just an album song. And we thought we had found this hidden gem, this little secret that was just our little baby. That I thought those words are just perfect. And then, after the wedding, the song became huge, and now it's so overplayed. And it was just obviously one of the best days of my life, marrying my best friend, the love of my life. So it brings back amazing memories.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:54Of all the accolades you've received, which one personally means the most to you?
Getting the world records in Beijing, it was as old as myself when I broke it. It was 19 years old. It was the longest world record in the history books. It was kind of the one that was seen as this one's going to be going on for 20, 30 years. So to break it at kind of 19, I was just like, oh my god, I'd never thought that a girl from Mansfield, just me, somebody that just loved to get in the pool and swim, would ever be able to break such a record. And it was just incredible to have my mum and dad there as well.
Presenter asks
9:28Is that really part of the recipe for a champion — to have a coach who is as close as family?
Yeah, your coach is the person that will motivate you, will help you, will literally has to be everything. And I think me and Bill just had this instant respect for each other.
Presenter asks
13:44Can you truly be friends with someone you're training with who could win the medal ahead of you?
Yeah. My best friend. She was my bridesmaid at my wedding. We were rivals. We were everything. um, when in Beijing for the four hundred free, I got the gold. Joe got the bronze. And we have just been so close our whole entire career.
The keepsakes
The book
Enid Blyton
Well, the survival guide would be quite good, but I love famous five books. Absolutely loves them.
Presenter asks
14:23What do you make of the idea that the single-minded pursuit of Olympic glory is inevitably selfish?
It's a very selfish thing to do. All these people giving up stuff just for you. I'm not becoming a doctor to save people's lives. I'm not even doing something that's benefiting other people. I'm doing something that's so self-centered and that's for me and my benefit as well.
Presenter asks
16:55Your older sister Laura became seriously ill with encephalitis in 2005. What do you remember about that time?
It was a really just tough couple of months. I had had glandular fever, so I was taking a bit of time, kind of a backstep from swimming, just because my body couldn't do it anymore. I was just so exhausted. And then within that time, my sister had just a really bad cold. She just had a really bad flu. She went up to her room, and my mum, she was there for like three days, just in bed. My mum was like, this doesn't seem right. Her temperature's all over the place. So she phoned the doctor to come out to the house. And the doctor came out to the house and said, she needs to go into hospital. We need to do some tests. … She had a massive fit. … She was in intensive care, hooked up to all the tubes, everything like that for about three, four days. … And at first she woke up and I can remember seeing her for the first time and I went into the room. She was still on oxygen, she still had tubes in her mouth, and she just tapped her chest to say, I love you and she just kind of was trying to mouth to us all that she loves us. We knew that she was going to be okay just from that point.
Presenter asks
27:57Your experience on 'I'm a Celebrity' seemed to upset you — particularly around body image. What's your version of events?
It was a shame how they edited that because it was such a positive piece. … I'd never really talked to somebody that had been through similar things, like the abuse on Twitter, getting harsh, like negative feedback about the way you look. I'd never spoken to anyone about that before. So actually, what was fascinating for me is hearing how everyone in there was getting this. It was actually a massive therapy session for me.
“Yeah, I loved my time and I loved my career and I absolutely loved swimming but definitely it was time for the new generation to come through and I always is even from being tiny tiny weenie and knowing that I wanted to be a swimmer, always said I wanted to finish my career on a high and then start the new chapter of my life as well.”
“I was a very different person in the pool to what I was out of the pool.”
“You have to have this animal instinct and that's what it is even with me and Joe, even being best friends. As soon as we dived in that pool, we weren't friends anymore. But at the same time, we still supported each other and we still loved each other and wanted the best for each other.”
“when I touched the wall, the first thing that you see is WR. So the first thing I realized was I've got a world record. And then you realize the time that you broke that world record. And I don't know how the cameraman did it. In 17,000 people, the cameraman found my mum and dad, and they flashed up on this big screen. My dad was in tears. It was just incredible I couldn't have pieced it together more perfectly. That was just the best moment of my whole entire life. It just having that the world record, the gold and my parents was just unbelievable.”
“I don't think I did cope. Do you know what I mean? I don't think you can ever can. I was from such a small town anyway. It was a strange situation for myself going, Why do you want to talk to me? I'm just a swimmer. I literally eat, sleep, swim, eat, sleep, swim. It's very, very boring. I just didn't understand it. It was just bizarre.”
“I feel like I've just moved departments. I'm still so involved in swimming from, like I said earlier, mentoring some of the younger guys, the commentary. I run my own learn to swim program that I still feel like I'm so involved in the sport. I still wake up every single day and I'm doing something that I love. Not many people have that.”