Diving destiny awaits for Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix | The Journey | Team GB x Toyota
The stairs you just take him one step at a Time I don’t look Anywhere But Where my feet are [Applause] going once I’m on that Teter platform I hear the cheers and I drill through my dive I close my eyes and I visualize myself doing it centralize focused I hear the whistle go and then it is just silence I’m Andreas spendal syx I’m a team GB athlete and I’m a 10m
Diver my journey so far has been quite tumultuous tumultuous T tumultuous is that right I love diving because it’s so peculiar I just feel like a feather like I feel light and springy I go in the water and usually you just feel like a bullet even though I’ve been doing it
For 11 years now 11 years now it’s still peculiar but it’s so beautiful at the same Time but it was not easy when Mama was taking you you know with a car straight after school remember straight from school and I had to get changed in the car eat dinner in the car in the car yes then do some homor yeah I’ve gone through a lot with diving
And it’s shaped who I am not just who I am as a diver but who I am as an athlete and the drive and the focus and the determination that I have at training I brought into my School Andrea is incredible she’s got mindset and a believe in herself where she can push to win mat who’s the better cook me or mama my to who’s the better cook me or mama who does the better carbonara me me no I said me you pointed at
Me when I first started on the senior field I was 12 or 13 I was a little scrawny kid you know I had no meat on me nothing and I was just throwing myself off Tamia like the others like the adults except I was just a passenger and
Every every single time I was just there for the for fun nothing is expected out of you when you’re the underdog it’s like a superpower what I found going into competitions where no one knew my name no one knew what I look like well I’m going to have fun then if you don’t
Expect anything out of me I’m going to have fun and that’s how I perform at my best when I’m enjoying myself stress free pressure free just diving because I love it my performance is so much better the mentality under eyes is to be better and to improve every day it’s not
About the middle all the time it’s about all to be better and to improve to prep a difficult dive you have to break down the skills and the dry dive we focus a lot on strength and conditioning Fitness cardio we use simulations that replicate the pool dryon training is about the
Physicality the strength the speed all the articulation you need to make sure the DI is aware of what he’s doing in the air it’s a performing art it’s a performing sport people base you off of your performance at that competition they don’t understand the pain that you
Carry they don’t really care that on that day something’s happen yeah you had a bit of a time there yeah you had this little uh you know problem with you and yourself when you were 13 coming back from that competition you just done fourth place
And first thing you say to me oh Mom I don’t want to dive anymore and I was like what no can’t be possible well first off I didn’t want to start diving because my mom forced me to start diving so that’s probably the first time that I
Didn’t want to do diving but once once my career started I didn’t really want it to stop until it got too hard for my brain this is a time where I’m going through that adolescent period I don’t know what’s going on with my body I don’t know what’s happening I’m in that
Rebellious face I just want to stay at home and do nothing like my friends at school I’m having panic attacks at school because I’m worried about training panic attacks at training because I’m worried about training my mom was at every session and she’d threatened to take her shoes off and
Come up the board and I would jump off every single time I was like no no no I don’t want that around the time of Budapest I was struggling that period of time was incredibly difficult I just didn’t perform so as much as it was painful it
Was also the best kick in the butt I could ever have asked for sometimes you learn the most when you’re at Rock button than when you’re just doing the best all the time having that strong person behind you that won’t let you give up as much at the time I really
Didn’t like it’s something now that I value so Much my mom is my superhero we’ve endured a lot together my mom means everything to me it’s that kind of relationship that I’ll never take for granted because she’s taught me how to be a strong woman my family means so much to me because they really dropped everything for my Sport
AS athletes we have a privilege to represent our country and I’ve I’ve learned that priv pre and that gratitude through how highly she speaks of my Sport and how highly she speaks of me to me to other people it’s so nice to feel that loved
We Believe on you Andrea you could do it if somebody could do it it was you it’s every athletes dream to compete in the Olympics and it’s an even bigger dream to medal at one and so this is what I’ve been working for since Tokyo it all
Starts in training and it all starts with how hard am I working it all starts with how much effort and how much dedication am I putting into my training can hear my heart beating and I can hear my breath not only physically but mentally it’s so challenging to throw yourself
Off we do have successes but we do have really low moments and it’s about what confidence do you have in yourself she understands what it takes to win what he takes to get medal and she’s more determined than ever I love the fact that I travel the
World I love the fact that I’m not normal I love the fact I have a family outside of my family at Home most important thing at a competition isn’t the medal it’s the memories the moments that no one can take away and that you will bring for the rest of your Life
Sometimes, being the underdog has its advantages. Aged 19, diver Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix is already a Team GB Olympian with big hopes for Paris 2024 – however, it’s the journey, not just the destination, that she relishes.
This is her story.
