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| Edited By: Taus Rizvi |Source: DNA |Updated: Sep 25, 2019, 06:30 AM IST
Retired Australian ace swimmer and former Olympic champion Stephanie Rice was indulging in vada paav at a hotel in Mumbai. She was loving it, but when stressed to try it with red chilly, she refrained from doing so.
Rice, once a world record holder in 200m and 400m individual medleys at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, is excited to be in India. "It's my 14th visit," she told DNA on Tuesday. The 31-year-old Rice has tried her hand at hosting Olympic shows and kabaddi on sports channels. She did not understand kabaddi when she took up the challenge but later began to like it. "It adds variety to my life," she said.
She is keen to enter a new venture of helping India win medals in swimming at the Olympics with Stephanie Rice Swimming Academy.
Rice talks exclusively to DNA on her love for India, her plans for Indian swimmers and Bollywood.
I love India so much, spent so much time in Mumbai as well, having done all the work here relating to Olympics and kabaddi (as a presenter) last year. I really love Mumbai so much. I have had the privilege of going to quite a few different states now and have really enjoyed just understanding the diversity of every state, food in every area and also for me in particular getting to see some swimming programmes in Delhi, Odisha and Mumbai. I guess I have such better understanding of what's going on in the swimming culture here.
Personally, I love swimming. I love India because ever since I was swimming I had so much love from Indian media and fans, and that's what has allowed me to do the roles what I have done here. Ever since I have been in India for the past three years, I have the opportunity of understanding the strengths and the weaknesses of swimming culture here. And the best result so far of India is about 24th in the world when it comes to Olympics. Most of the current top athletes don't train in India, they train outside of it and then they come back to India and represent India at Asian Games or Olympics or whatever and that works if you have the opportunity to do that, the financial backing. That's not going to grow the whole sport, that sort of grooming will be for one particular athlete. So, I will be able to bring a top high-level coaching programme to India that would thrive in any market. I feel like in four years, we can have an Indian swimmer on the podium at the Olympic level or top three in the world which has never been done before. I feel really it's achievable goal and something I am excited about it.
I think it would be such an amazing legacy for me. I have had an amazing career personally in swimming and I have this wealth of expertise and people around me that got me to the top level. And, I feel like I want to put it to use in something bigger than just me and give back to the sport. I want to do that in India because I feel it has the most potential for success. Because, when you think of India, you don't think of swimming, you think of cricket or badminton. The sports you do well naturally and so in that instance, if you are a top-level swimming coach, you don't think I am going to come to India because you would go to the countries that are known for their swimming success. But in order to make a country successful in sport, you have to invest in the market, you have to give the time to grow. That's what I want to do. For me, I love doing things outside of my comfort zone. A new challenge, something that's never been done before.
We will be only looking to have one location and one pool because when it comes to high performance, you need everyone to be at one location, really specialising there. We haven't locked in on a location as yet. We are in talks at the moment with the number of locations that are interested in putting in our top-level facility, someone that believes in what we are doing and also has the access to right times to using the pool, space, things like that. We are really open to have that anywhere and then the support in terms of sponsorships, backing that is definitely a huge component of it. I want to really focus my energy on the mental side of the performance and then leave my swimming coaches to do the day-to-day swimming training. I need to be here for 3-4 months. Coming for one clinic or signing a few autographs doesn't do any thing. We are here to get results. So, I really want to be able to spend time working with the athletes to know me personally and contact me. We are out to work with them, really fine tune the mindset and how to handle the highest level of sport, have them really in the top level programme. I will be bringing with me my Olympic swimming coach from Australia who will be training some of the local coaches as well. The local coaches will be able to work under some of the best in the world. My ultimate goal is a 10-year programme because it is hard to do something really in one year.
It's the podium goal. Someone in 2028 podium will be amazing. But I do feel like 2024 will have people in the top eight. I feel we can get Indian swimmers in the finals. They haven't yet made the semifinals when it comes to the Olympics, and that's only Olympics we are talking about. We have Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, World Championships, things like that. So other opportunities are there for sure. But it will take some time.
In my opinion, India lack in coaching, high-performance element because the current best swimmer in India doesn't train in India. He trains in Thailand in a more high performance programme. Not to say the coaches are bad or anything like that at all, no disrespect. It's more that they haven't had the access to train under the best coaches in the world. Like the coaches in Australia have trained under Michael Phelps's coach or Ian Thorpe's coach. They have the access to training with them and learning what they do, how they coach, how they get the best out of the athlete. And because India haven't got an amazing swimmer yet, it's hard for them to learn what they do. What I want to do is bring my coaches, take them to Australia for a training camp and see what Olympic athletes are doing, how they are training. Because those are the ones making medals, making podiums, so you want to have the access to learn what the best do.
It has grown a lot since I have even been here. So, I have been in market for about three-and-a-half years and I have noticed the shift in mentality, healthy eating, exercising. I think they also focus on high performance. When the goal for India is to be known for sporting culture, you instantly also think of Olympics. And cricket is not an Olympic sport. You have got badminton, a little bit of wrestling thrown in there, hockey sometimes. Most of the sports have only one, two or three medal-winning chances. Whereas you look at swimming, there's a total of 24 medals to be won. So, if you have a great swimming team as a country, and if you are able to get a couple of medals in one sport, you are already in the top 20 in the world when it comes to Olympics success. If I was Indian sporting government, I would be focusing the funding, the energy on sports that have most gold medal chances. And, they are swimming and athletics.
In any sport, if you are the best at what you do, you have to be have that mindset, complete belief in your ability, you have to be super focussed and super determined. I think more than that, it's definitely about surrounding yourself with an amazing team, support network, coaches, physios, nutritionists, all of that stuff. I think internally, it is a lot about believing in yourself, doing something that's not done before. I think, when it comes to racing, especially in a sport like swimming where you have once chance to do it once every four years, you have got to believe in yourself because everybody else in the finals in Olympics is fit and strong, but only one person gets the chance to win.
If it was one specific thing that would be lacking, it would be easy to fix. Because you would bring in say a nutritionist and you would see a massive change. The way I see it, there are eight to 10 things that go into being a successful Olympian. Obviously, the physical coaching of swimming, the mental side of performance, you need diet, strength in the gym, flexibility, physios. There are a lot of components
I am an extremely-driven person in general. I think my drive that made me successful in swimming hasn't just been stopped. I had defused the energy in a lot of different things. I have this energy inside me that I want to create and I have to do stuff. What I love now most about today is having variety. When I was swimming, it was just one focus everyday. I love when get I to do a variety of things like the work I do in India like kabaddi, which I knew nothing about when I came here. I get to do stuff in Australia. I did a show called The Real Dirty Dancing, which was recreated in movie. I get to do stuff around mental high performance, building an academy. I get to do many different things. Everything I do has to have important meaning. I want to do stuff which feels good and means something to me. A lot of athletes out there create academies but they are not there.
As a spectator sport, swimming is one of the easiest to turn on the TV. You don't need to know any of the rules. Whoever is in front wins. It's not hard to understand. Any person can easily watch any race and understand winning and losing. Things that lack in swimming as a whole sport everywhere in the world is the spectator component. When you look at some of the biggest sports like cricket, rugby, Formula One, football, they play every week and you can get the opportunity as spectator to build momentum while swimming is really on focus once a year and that's during Olympics or World Championships.
You definitely want opportunities to race for racing experience. For, when I was training every year, I would do about 10 competitions a year. Some of them small, some of them international and some of them really big. So, we would always be training in America for a couple of weeks or we would be going to train in Thailand or different parts of Australia to get racing exposure. We would definitely want to have that experience with our academy.
Not necessarily regret, but I feel I could not get the best out of myself in the World Championships. My focus was always on Olympics. But at the end of the day, you cannot make changes to the past. I am so glad that I have my success at Olympics because it's that everyone remembers and cares about as swimmer. It's the pinnacle of sport, doesn't really bother me much not winning World Championships
(Laughs) Bollywood, actually I would love it. It would be so much fun. I don't follow it too closely. I follow a couple of actresses because I just find that world so interesting. Every time I come to India it looks incredible to me. The first time I came to India, there was more than Bollywood. I thought Bollywood was whole of India's movie scene and they were like, 'no that's just Bombay' and I was 'oh my god, how is it possible?' When I tell people back in Australia, they don't believe at all. I would love to do something like that. For sure, entertaining would be like adding variety. I would love to dance in Bollywood.
| Event | Time | Place |
|---|---|---|
| 200m IM | 2:08.45 | Gold |
| 400m IM | 4:29.45 | Gold |
| 4x200m Freestyle Relay | 7:44.31 | Gold |
Stephanie Rice has won two silver and three bronze in two World Championships. She has never won a gold in the competition
