Triple World Champ, Paralympic Gold Medalist, Inspiration! - Tully Kearney MBE

hey what's up people before we get started on season three I just needed to say thank you for the love and support you have shown over the past two years with the first two seasons it has been incredible seeing the love and response I get from you on the internet when I'm walking around the town all the local people that have helped me get my podcast to this first level I will never be able to say thank you enough for all of it but now we get to go on good stuff thank you for being patient with the new name and the new logo but refused to fail is officially here same quality podcast guests same incredible stories new name and a new logo that looks a bit nicer that is the only change so season three gets underway with this episode because I knew the second Ira finished recording it it was too good not to put at the front I wanted everybody to hear it as soon as possible today I am joined by reigning triple world champion European Champion paralympic gold medalist paralympian swimmer extraordinaire Tali Kearney MBE she has had some ups and downs in her career and she has done it all with a smile on her face and she's never let it defeat her and these these next couple hours are really going to show you how incredible this person truly is she is nothing short of extraordinary so I don't want to hold this off any longer refuse to fail season three episode one with Tully Kearney MBE is a goal let's play this brand new intro that I worked on [Music] I'm looking forward to this and I had to start off with a banger so I chose the biggest and best I could get I have got Tokyo 2020 gold and silver medalist reigning triple world champion European Champion times two she just is a proper inspiration 13 gold medal seven silver five bronze the list goes on and on and on Tully Kearney MBE welcome to the show how are you thank you uh yeah no I'm all right thanks how are you doesn't get much better than that I've cut red onions so looks like I've been crying for 20 minutes but we've been discussing that off camera and that's how the trick is I talk to all these amazing people is no I'm meal prepped I know I'm sat here chopping onions before we start podcast trying to get healthy and it's it's backfiring but enough about me we're here to talk about you what have you been up to this week how's life in the teleconi household yeah that's right this week was my first week back to training post concussions it's been pretty rough not the greatest week but hopefully we'll get there I don't know how did you get a concussion uh Kind of a Funny Story um I went out for dinner with a friend and we're both wheelchair users and like being in the City Center Manchester it's kind of crazy to pop so I will just take one car so he like came and picked me up when we parked in the city center and I've been out like in his car multiple times and I've always I use a paracist on my wheelchair so I was sat in the boot of his car to put the paraces on my chair and I've done it hundreds of times in his car and for some reason this one time he forgot I was there and he closed the boot up my head hahaha I'm sorry I really should laugh but when you started it's not how expensive end I thought there was going to be some traumatic later story in your friends just accidentally dropped on you yeah oh you he must have felt really guilty I'd feel I feel traumatized if Sully currently was in the book like I would I don't know what to do I definitely wouldn't be recording the podcast I'd be hiding from the public ask for sure yeah it has been uh very sorry it's been like phone to me every day to make sure I definitely won't be sitting in anyone's car boot anytime soon poor guy I can understand his worry I'd be sending a lot of I'm sorry texts foreign my lovely listeners need to learn a bit more about you so what we do for that is we have a little section called the quick fires and this is literally just a yes or no this so that really straightforward so for example the first one is always cup of tea or a cup of coffee okay t t the first one I think everybody else has spoke to it seems to be running on fumes you must have it together because everybody else is drinking coffee trying to stay awake so you must have you must have your stuff together I mean yeah I think it's one of the just kind of a different breed whatever we don't need coffee to get through you're sick of fluids you're like I spent my whole life in water I just want rid of it okay right a night out or a night in which one are you more likely to go for nine I love that uh question following that if you sit there and watch the Telly on a night you know you're a t are you a series or a movies kind of person yeah depends on what mood I'd probably say more likely series I love that I've been getting into the boys recently if you've not watched that you should get involved you've not watched it no oh especially incredibly violent but really really funny right if you had to get rid of one tomorrow so it could not exist in the world would you get rid of sport or dogs oh no oh that's a horrible question I've literally got like my dog's face before he died on my t-shirt like you can't ask me that oh no that's horrible you can't pick a spot you don't play it that'll be easy uh I don't want to get rid of dogs but I can't get rid of my sport we'll go we'll go with neither you'll have to keep both I'll let you I'll let you off because you've answered the you gave the concussion story so you get your one free back okay if you're in the car and you're trying to get to somewhere are you more like let's listen to the playlist or the radio I like that the first radio listener in a while I'm a big radio fan right socks and Sliders are they socially acceptable yes or no no not a fan right if we're trying to get something organized are you more likely to text the group or are you the one that gets the FaceTime on the go and says let's get this organized thanks love that sweet or Salted Popcorn in the movies solid Twitter or Instagram if you had to get rid of one tomorrow I'll get rid of Twitter lovely if you could be in one Universe would you rather be in the Star Wars universe or the Lord of the Rings universe but to be honest I've not watched either there's there's been a few so I can't spoil it because you're the first episode of the season but there's a few that haven't seen them either so some bonus content I'm gonna have to get the group together we're gonna have to have a watch along and we can review because I'm telling you you're missing out what's okay we'll try this one what's your go-to Disney movie uh 101 Dalmatians I guess it's great great show do you have a favorite quote that you like to live by this has kind of changed over the years um because I used to really like live I don't try hard today someone else will however that doesn't really work with my life anymore so uh I quite like like if you if you can see you can be it that's kind of the one that I'm quite good I like both of them you should you could keep both of them but I've got I like the new one if you see it you can be it that's very inspirational as well that's that was was that the model for the Paralympics a few years ago I can't remember well either way I like I think it's really good and I just think it is a great point I think there's a lot of situations where that is true right what is your go-to fast food if you're having just like a nice lazy day I don't want to cook what's your favorite go-to takeaway fast food place um probably say Indian there's like I'm I'm quite restricted because I can't eat onion garlic oh no so but there is there's one place um that we know like back in Birmingham that's local when they actually make me a curry without any garlic originally um so I was born in Nottingham and then we moved around a lot because my dad was in the Army but we settled in Birmingham when I was about seven all right my whole career was starting in Birmingham I'm sorry whole so I'm familiar with that Nick Lewis and I could appreciate the fact she's like you could Curry from there because it was a lot of good curry in that area yeah I love that well there you go that's quick fire true quick fires I don't know we just need to do the one which is one of the questions I gave you a bit of time for what is your favorite piece of memorabilia you've managed to collect on your sporting Journey so far so this was kind of a hard one because stuff I got from Tokyo is obviously quite meaningful but actually one of my favorite things was I went to the world school games in Sao Paulo in 2014 and we swapped kit so I actually have a Brazilian team like it's kind of like a tracksuit top like is it top and I actually that's probably my favorite because it's just really cool that's I like that because there are not things you can go out and buy either like football kits you can kind of go and buy a new one but the Brazilian swimming kit that's pretty unique yeah I love that it changes every year as well so every year the patterns and the brands sometimes are different so it's like it's quite unique to that one year that's cool I love I love it when people talk to the research swapping kids shopping kits must be the best part of being a professional athlete yeah do you do you know do that knows what do you like try like running around at like the in in the call room and you're running around like so everybody wants to walk here I need some memories you usually like at the end um but the future is like as the years have gone on we we get less and less kit we get less roast suits less caps so people are less like a more reluctant to want to change because if they rip a cap like so the biggest thing about making a big swim team is getting your name on your swimming hat and if you only get three of them and like they do rips so like you rip one and you've already given one or two away then like that's why people are like oh well I don't really want to give one because we only got two or three this year but it's harder now so what you're saying is we need to find a way to make sure that you guys get more kits so you can do a bit more collections of it yeah right so if there's one thing the higher apps take away from this we're needing at least seven or eight swim caps per per meat that's what I'm learning here yeah it's got the form of approval you're not gonna argue with them be here I'm not doing it right speaking of that I'm good I'm looking forward to this antenna then what's a piece of memorabilia you want to add to your collection foreign I think one thing that would be quite cool um is I know that some of the other some of us have had um they've had like Rings or necklaces made with like the Planet logo so I think after Paris that would be quite a cool thing to add I don't know if that counts as memorabilia yeah I think so you're getting made in a sport occasion okay yeah plus it'll be something you can wear all the time as well if it's a ring or a necklace it'll be something you'd have to take off all effects aren't we good yeah that's I love that a ringed commemorate Paris we'll go to their own necklace but we'll go with it there we are memory is quick first diamond dust is nothing too strange there nobody's going to call you out and say why are you getting rid of dogs you've kept both you've played the field very well but that's it so now we get to talking to the good bit we get to talk about you and your story coming up and now how does swimming find you so actually before we talk about that so please correct me if I'm wrong here I'm want to make sure I get this word at the right way because it's so important so that I don't like using the words that sometimes go a bit different so you were born with Cerebral Palsy I'm correct so can you just give a quick definition what cerebral palsy is from my listeners here that may not be aware of this condition so cerebral palsy is basically a brain injury from lack of oxygen that occurs shortly before during labor or shortly after within the first year after birth um obviously because it's a brain injury depending on where in the brain's damage how severe it is cerebral palsy is a massive Spectrum so there are different types of cerebral palsy and also everyone's affected completely differently so for me I have [ __ ] diplegia which basically means I have very tight muscles in my lower body and I have weakness on my left side so I've always struggled with like walking running jumping things that need you to be able to control your muscles basically okay okay so then that came through there so why are you you said you were born with that in the first couple of years so did you did that affect your affinity for sport did you find swimming quite early on or when was it you were first introduced to the prospect of swimming so I've got an older brother and I always wanted to keep up with him I was always that annoying little sister just following him everywhere and he did Athletics and football and like low who's always been really active but I just physically couldn't do it and he was part of the swimming club and I used to spend like most my evenings um on poolside just watching him and when we moved to Birmingham he joined Water Swim Club and the after about a year the coach approached me when I was around eight and said like do you want to join in and at first like my mum has always been very overprotective and very nervous about allowing me to do things and she was like oh I'm not really sure like and I think she didn't want me to try it and then feel defeated that I couldn't do it um but for me like she let me go and try and I just kind of fell in love with it like in the water I just I didn't feel disabled I can move around freely I didn't need help no one stared at me I wasn't like treated like disabled kid I just fit in with everyone else and it was really nice to be able to keep up like kids my own age and just be part of a group where everyone is treated the exact same and no one's like the disabled kid hmm oh that's really um so how did that change to keeping you like you said you then felt like part of the group was that just because the muscle sort of didn't play that much of a role as it did in an athletic like a track and field Athletics type thing or yeah I think like because it's not weight bearing it was much easier um and I think I've just obviously like my mum was a swim actress national champion and brush stroke and I think that's obviously how my brother was a swimmer and I think I just I was very lucky that I just have that natural ability to be able to hold my position in water and for me it kind of became my Escape that if I was frustrated about my disability or something it happened and I was like someone bullied me or you know was mean about my impairment that I'd get in the water and all my worries would just disappear I love that did you did you get like a nice little bit of satisfaction if you did have one of these unfortunate situations where another kids might give you a bit agree for you then just like okay three legs in the pool I'll smoke you and then like you know yeah take your insults and turn around and go yeah I actually like especially um like in school at PE a lot I actually hated it because I just couldn't do anything so the only thing I could do was swimming and that was the one thing that I could get in and just like just go so much quicker than everyone else and everyone was just shocked and I was like yep one thing that I loved I love I also think that would be the most badass response ever if somebody started giving you a bit of grief and you replied with Listen to Who the quicker racer is in the pool there I'd be like this This Woman's either gonna smoke me at swimming but she's gonna drone me so either way I'm I'm losing you but that's that's a really badass response and I love I love that attitude for me to have that from such a young age as well that's a really mature thing you've had to grow up with as well you mentioned I was gonna talk about this lyrics I did I didn't know your mom was a national swimmer actually but I think this fits it quite nicely and it's sort of like we're talking about the family the family Dynamic you have there now that you are this incredible Champion with more medals than I've possibly had hot dinners how does your mom ever still give you advice like is there still that debate everyone's like well I was national champion and you're like mum have you seen the mantle piece like does she ever try to give you like tips and tricks you know I think I've got this Mom I'm all right all the time oh maybe you should ask about this maybe you should do this and I'm like Mom I know what I'm doing it's all right mum I don't know if you saw my highlights on YouTube but there was it was like comfortable seconds between me and the next place I was I was watching your highlights when I was doing research for this obviously we would Mentor for the lessons the other week obviously Tully's injury caused a bit of a setbacks I'm I'm not gonna make anybody do my your migrating voice of the concussion so I'll give her a week to recover your highlights I can like listeners if you if you want to learn more about Italian go and watch our highlights she is aquatic at this point like you are lightning through the water it is terrifying I reckon you could probably swim faster than I could run like that's how that's how impressed I was watching this in the in a non-condescending way it was magnificent to watch so you talk about the family your brother obviously said you're following your brother around for that how did then the swimming come into totally currently the person we've said how it was a bit of a relief and it made you feel not like you were part of a different sort of categorization you were one of everybody else and stuff like that so then did that then become part of the swimming club and how did the swim club help you Branch out as well when did you start competing at swimming it was at a young age or was it just as you grew up yeah so in swimming I think the rules have changed a bit now uh but back then this obviously many years ago when you were eight you could do um like the arena leagues which is kind of it's kind of hard to explain but it's it's like a team competition should you go for the team and every race scores points for the team so it's like that it's not individual it's like for everyone and then if your team wins you can move on to the next round the next round until you get to the finals um so when you're when you were eight you could do that so like my first few races were just like little like tiny little 25 meter pools that were like four lanes with all these clubs um and and then when you're nine was when you could actually do an individual race so my first race was actually upon Sport and Sheffield which is like my favorite pool um I'd spent a few years of watching my brother race there right um and it was actually quite interesting because he was supposed to be racing with me but the week before he broke his ankle so like as a kid growing up up the street there used to be a cake shop so like when he was racing between his races I would walk with my dad up to the cake shop and get cakes while he was roasted I remember like this time being really annoyed because he got to go and get cakes for the cake shop when I had to race yeah I love that you're you're the only thing you're focused on is like the Jammy Dodger and everyone's like tell you you're really gonna swimming keep swimming and you're like I do I do want to go for a cake I think like at that age I wasn't really bothered about race and training whereas of like racing it to the people because I just didn't really care okay I understand that yeah it takes a while to find that competitive sort of reminds her to something especially because I don't know what it was like when you were growing up in terms of sports available so where I'm from it's very much the boys play rugby and the girls play hockey everything else is like a PE subject it's kind of a bit fun it's something you do at school that's not really competitiveness to it that ironically I think we've never had somebody from Scotland to play or we've never had somebody from our town represent Scotland at hockey or rugby so it shows how well we do in our Competitive Edge but that's a story for another day but so how did you when did that sort of competitiveness start to hit you as this swimming can take me somewhere was that was that when you started doing these individual races at nine at nine years old or did it become a bit older when you're I'm actually in a competition there no it actually took quite a long time because even like well to like when I was 11 12 I actually was pretty terrible like I wasn't good at swimming at all and I think I was just still trying to figure out like with cerebral palsy it's really hard to plan a movement so like you know like for example like you know that oh I've got to move my arm in this certain way to get something stroke but actually being able to plan it in your brain of how exactly it needs to move is really difficult and for me like if I can't see where my arms are I have no idea what they're doing so it's it took me quite a few years to like to learn certain things like tumble turns and I was talking to my mum about this the other day because I don't think it'd be allowed now but the only way that I learned to turn is that the coach was in the water with me and literally forced my head underwater and pulled my body into a turn position multiple multiple times until I actually until my body learned what it is to be in that position how to get into it okay and I don't think I'd have learned otherwise but yeah I don't think nowadays you'd be able to physically manhandle a kid to get into trouble you said that but at the same time it's like is is the way you could look like you look at this really good coaching of understanding your athlete of going I I know that she has cerebral palsy I know that this affects her I suppose the brain wave to the to the muscle because like you said you need to see your arms physically feel like you're in control of it but but then like you said yeah convincing somebody that you're doing what you're supposed to be doing when you jump into a pool with a nine-year-old and start dunking them is probably a tough sale yeah I mean let's if we ever struggle we'll just go through your middle history and then that might save the culture a bit of trouble it works that's I love I love hearing these stories and then especially when you talk about cerebral palsy and how it affects your arms so did that was that something you really had to then learn as like a muscle memory point because like you say it affects them I'm trying to make sure I do do your words justice of how to explain this so I'm not misrepresenting it but you have that thought of it's kind of so so a person like myself I just think I want to pick up for example this glass of water here I don't really have to think about it I just kind of do it do you have to do a sort of like forced effort for that as in I want to pick up that and I need to think about doing it yeah I do it's not as bad on my right side but especially my left side it's kind of like the messages from the brain get kind of mixed up they don't fully they get there but they get there a bit slower and it's not the full message so it's the movement isn't as good so it's a bit shaky or like not quite coordinated it's it's all it's I love hearing when people come through these sort of adversities and really hone their skill and then like I said you know but apparently there's at least 25 medals on the first 20 minutes of doing the research for you so I sort of kind of stopped after that I thought I'm going to run out of pages and like this is a thick notebook and then obviously like there's a lot of I ran out of pages to the nose but there we go um yes the swimming came through so let's talk about age 14 because that was your first International competition in 2011. that was Berlin I believe yeah so that was only about a year after getting classified for the first time so I went for classification at 13. because like At first we kind of knew of Paris sport and power swimming but I didn't know if I was eligible for it and I didn't know how to get into it um and then we learned that generally like each area has like a disability Squad so we West Midlands had one that met once a month so I started going to them and then I was able to get classified and yeah it was kind of crazy at my first competition after getting classified I was approached by um it was a British women coach at the time who's now actually our head coach I've known him all these years um and he kind of approached me and I got put on the talent program and then that I think this is the only time they've ever done that is that year they had an athlete on Pony potential so there's like three tiers um it's cool to think different now but back then it was um the bottom tier was talent and then it was pointing potential one podium um so I was put on the talent program and there was an athlete on the podium essential program and they decided to move mid-year like mid-season which has never heard of move him up to Podium so they moved me from Talent into his spot in ponium central um which meant that I was then selected for the German open in Berlin oh wow so these these three titles that you say they've no change no is that sort of does that dictate how much attention you sort of get as well in terms of where we want to send you and how we want to sort of Marshal you because I imagine a head coach or this approach swimming because you have there's no head coach has a lot of sort of people he needs to sort of kind of profile I suppose is probably the best way to say about that is like a power Academy now and it's generally the under 18s like the younger ones trying to get them into it and trying to concert for the ones at the minute in the power Academy they're not really focused on Paris they're focused on La so they're not focused on the next games they're the ones after because they're quite young and they need um they still need a lot of work and a lot of skills and learning how to be at international events and all the nutrition stuff and everything they need to do oh that's that's so interesting I love hearing about how I've been saying I love hearing about this I think that shows my excitement for this because I love it when I get a topic I love it when I get a topic of something I know relatively little about because one I get to ask really silly questions so swimming what is that and then but it's so interesting hearing about how all these behind the scenes things come about and like you say you get chucked in these programs so how did it feel when you got put onto a Podium potential because I assume when they how did they sort of not sell it to you but how did they explain it to you when they took human and said we've seen your classification we've seen how you swim we believe there's Talent here this is the pro this is the project we want to put you on and then moving you up out of that cocoa oh to be honest it's so long I can't remember but I think we got a phone call and then an email um but I was just really excited like getting to go to Berlin um I was just super excited like the first time away from my family a lot on my own getting to race in a foreign country and then I turned up at Berlin and surprise surprise my mum had flown without telling me she was in Berlin to watch me and I was like Mom this is like my first thing where I'm like on my own and you've turned up to Berlin I was one of the youngest there was a 13 year old and then maybe we just turned 14 like the week before and we were like the youngest on the team so I was like you know trying to act cool and like not be the the young kid that's got their mum with them was your mum so did your mom join I think your mom was just there as a spectator like she wasn't yeah like they're not allowed like they're not allowed on the same flights they're not allowed in the same Hotel so um they're not really allowed to come and see you so the way that the pool is the pool's really cool in Berlin it's actually one of my favorites um Sheffield's always gonna be my my absolute favorite uh yeah the Berlin's like a really nice pool and the way that like the upstairs is is that all the swimmers are on one side and all the spectator on one side in the stands but you can walk like across so I could just go over and see her but I didn't like so I could see it but I just you know chose to stay with the team very cool yeah very cool if you're young with your friends like you're you're on a cook you're on a holiday like a very serious one but you're on a holiday so I think like that was back then I didn't really realize how serious it was like I didn't think of it but I know over the years a lot of people have been like well you know this is your job you get paid for it um and that's quite a hard thing to concept especially at 14 but you know you pay to be an athlete like this professional suppose he's professional athlete but you're still a kid and um that was kind of difficult for me and at that point like obviously I loved it like getting the kit getting that was my first time getting like actual race suits because race too then they're more expensive now but even then I think they were 200 pounds like we were never gonna buy them because I didn't need them um yeah obviously when you race internationally you're expected so they're supplied for you so it was the first time getting like a fast game racing suits and like a hat with my name on all this like it's also it was really exciting but it hadn't really sunk in like how big this actually was you were you said that you were getting paid so was this I think you're on like a you're on the the GB paralympic sort of athlete program at this point yeah the one like the talent program like what I thought that was when I was on Podium potential actually so the they've got different tiers and I think the I don't know the power Academy is still the same but on before when it was Talent it was like 500 pounds a year so it was just to you know pay for like one or two costumes or a lot of bags and goggles and stuff like that and then when you're on poet so Podium goes from it's kind of changed over the years but I think at the minute there's a A plus down to city and then it should be I think D to like f on potentials basically when you're in that program there's not only that one program that like classifies you but it's also there's a classification on how much you actually earn so how much when you get depending on how quick you are so it's generally based off world rankings like it might be world run and world number one plus a certain percent will get you into whatever category but like for for a plus you have to be like the gold medalist That season so like if you like for example for me like when I went to Worlds and one that means you're on the highest level of funding um if you get a silver you might be on B if you get a bronze you might be on c um so it does change kind of every year sometimes but basically how well you perform and what you're what ranking in the world is depends on how much money you get funding Wise from Lottery fund oh okay so it's a it's a Performance Based aspect type thing yeah and then I use it and like you say when you're there at 14 although you were technically getting money it's not like you're doing like you're not getting a living wage type thing you're getting sort of like yeah you're getting you're getting like your expenses covered almost yeah it's almost enough to cover stuff that your parents would usually be [ __ ] helpful God bless the bank of mum and dad that's one that's one consistent thing I've noticed with every podcast Banker mum and dad has had to get used to buy some kit especially it's like like I know um for a long time my brother was quite envious and he still he still says that I'm the favorite Child like one being disabled and two being the younger one meant that there's nobody your brothers and my um but like I do need more support than him and because he went you know when he when we got to the age where we were at different clubs and he stopped playing water polo and we had to be at different pools like I was on the outskirts but he was like the other side of Birmingham and my mum was like I can't be in two places at once so he would have to get lifts with people or get the train or get the boss and he got really annoyed about that that you know he had to become really independent and do a lot of stuff on his own because my mum was with me but almost 24 hours a day like she would take me to morning training and we'd get back at like half seven she'd then go to work all day get home have a quick dinner and then go to the portal and we'd be back at like 10 p.m and then repeat it again yeah so then being a single parent like my brother didn't really get much attention so he definitely did hold it against me quite a lot and obviously it was a lot for him to to give up but again like my mum my mum I mean we did he got stuff he needed like for his sports that he did but I think because I needed a bit more and more attention and support I think it to him it seemed like I got a lot more attention and more items and more things yeah it's it must be tough as like a kid as well because like you don't you don't get the understanding you sort of get as you grow up type thing yeah yeah you just you want everything to be like a Level Playing Field so yeah for a guy blessing but yeah I could understand having to get the Boston outside of Birmingham and you're like oh just once I just like a lift and I could have an extra 20 minutes in bed or something yeah yeah he's my brother's very late that's why he didn't he didn't commit to swimming and water park like he's it was a very good summer and an excellent water player but he's just not like me like he um he really wants to achieve the results and he wants to play he just doesn't want to train he doesn't want to put in the effort and he's he admits to that that he's lazy he doesn't want to put in the effort and he was never going to make it because he just refused to try to work out I know I know how he feels so far there's many a day I was walking up on a Monday morning and thought I'll just stay in bed today so I I resent I relate to him probably more than I relate to you in terms of commitment and dedication so I'm on the brother's side here I'm not probably against the disabled crowd on you that one that one he's firmly in his own bracket there but other than that oh as this I'm having so much fun this is amazing so we're okay so we've now explained the whole process of the the podium Podium potential Talent the GB sort of ranking system getting classified how was it how was that process of getting classified though actually like how does that go about is it just somebody sort of watches you race or do you have to sort of like explain your disabilities at the time so it's quite a long process so you have to get like before you even apply you have to get medical evidence it's a lot yeah specialist Consultants physios like um and also have all the proof so like Emma if you've got several poles it's brain injuries MRI scans yeah um more recently there they've made me have a Modified Ashworth Scale test which is kind of like it tests the spasticity okay but um since I was around 13 14 in which we can come on to later I also have a different condition um dystonia and the Modified Ashworth Scale isn't accurate if you've got cerebral palsy and Estonia because this basically the spasticity is muscle tartness but there's Estonia can mass muscle tightness because it's a movement disorder so it can stop movement and cause contractors but it's not spasticity so when you do a modified scale test on someone that has dystonia and spices do it's really hard to tell if the lacking movement is from dystonia oh okay not the most accurate test but for some reason they still like it but so after you've got all your medical stuff you then get given a date if you're lucky um obviously like for when it comes up to Big meets for someone like me who's not on a fixed review because my destination is Progressive I don't get a fixed date I usually like every two to three years I have to be reviewed again to make sure I've not got worse um so for someone at my level I'm obviously prioritized so British women get a certain number of slots per competition and they obviously pick who's in who they want to be done for someone like an international level someone like myself will be done over someone that they're trying to get up into being an international swimmer so they'll orortize medalists over people that you know are just coming into it and yeah they just give you guys in the pool really don't they and that can delay that yeah yeah and they they can't risk like we're not classified in our classifications of review and it runs out we can't race so we have to be done that year and obviously you don't want to be done at a World Championships or european or a major mate because it's just a massive stress that's not ideal and um and things can go wrong like you just never know the classification so on the actual day it's a bench test so it depends what disability you've got so for someone with short stature or with an amputee they measure either your height or the um the side that your Elementary on okay and that will depend what classification you're in how how long the stump is and how much function you've got will depend on obviously what classification you're in but for someone with cerebral palsy it's uh in like coordination function test so active and passive movements like how well do your joints move and how well can you move them and after that so they score every joint um one to five five is complete normal movement and zeros no movement sorry yeah zero to five and so they score like every drawing and then you go in the water and they do a water test so usually it's at least 100 meters of each stroke um they get you to float to see if you can hold your body position still in the water on your front and your back sometimes they get you to do skull like if you can use your legs they get leg kick and drive are literally looking at all the skills and then they get you to do a bit quicker stuff to see what happens to your stroke when you're going at a quicker Pace to break down does it look better does it look worse um and then obviously like your dive starts and what you would usually do tumble turns like literally looking at every part of your stroke wow and then they come up with a score so there's you've scored on the bench test and you're scoring a water test and basically the number puts you into your category so like for physical impairment you've got S1 to S10 S1 being really severely disabled S10 being very mild so if you're an S10 and you'd have a very mold impairment you'd be a very slight disadvantage to enable body swimmer so um you might be a empathy or you might be missing your hand live or have a club foot something looks like quite minor okay so that's like the close of where if there was somebody here to sort of not maybe see it right away if that makes sense yeah that's probably where they'd more likely be in the Paralympics type thing or at a meeting in the S10 range yeah yeah um and obviously the lower you down the more repaired so every single category like number bracket so depending on how many numbers that you've scored overall all depend on what category you're putting and then they also watch your race so usually there's three different categories so s is for freestyle and like the backstroke can fly into the fact SB is a brush stroke and SM is for medley so when you do all The Strokes together and so they if you're having all The Strokes which majority of people do in racing you then have to be watched you have to do a medley event a brushstroke event and a freestyle event um and then obviously they'll watch your race check that nothing's different or nothing's changed or they don't want to review you um and then it will be either confirmed or you'll be confirmed but put on review for however many years so then they give you the clarification of that sounds like a an excruciating process that as well yeah once I think you said they checked the joint how far do they just Do shoulders and hips if they go as far as like elbows wrists yeah fingers rest knees ankles toes like everything I find that it's weird it's weird the mental images that you you you think Up when somebody explains these things to you because I don't I've just got you like the floor like you said you're floating in the post right and one guy's just there just holding your hands to sort of bending your fingers around them it's a very long-winded process it usually takes a few hours and they're always a few hours apart and to end up spending the whole day at the pool oh terrible did you try to get yourself in firstly like I know at least if I'm first you don't get to pick I'd be I'd be going into it I was like I'll take the 9am so I'll get there for 9 A.M just so I know I'm not going to be nice I've got another thing hard rocks we need more sun caps until he needs to go first on classification day because she was very there at a reasonable time she's got things to do okay right we'll go back we've we've done the clarification we know there this put you into correct before it was S4 sb5 and sm5 So currently um an S5 sb4 uh sm5 but it has changed so when when I first got classified I was actually an S9 is this a um Berlin then you would resonate yeah and then over the years my disabilities gotten worse with the dystonia um so I've actually dropped so now yeah now I'm in this part of but I have decided because I'm literally just off a body and um I have contractors on my shoulders so and I'm weak on my left side and struggle with my left hand wrist so I'm literally just off of body my upper body doesn't function fully and breast Strokes are leg base stroke so if you can imagine someone that's got like not full movements of their arms trying to do breaststroke and try not to dress it doesn't ruin very well that's quite a quite a commitment you've really put yourself to that you're yeah back into what I was always like well everyone has all the events so I'm never going to race breaststroke I'm never going to race fly or I am but I should like I want to be like everyone else like I don't want to take the risk of going to a meet and I'm saying oh well you haven't got an M or an SB classification so we're not going to let you race which wouldn't happen but I was just worried about like oh yeah what will happen if I get to Tokyo and they don't let me race and I only swim freestyle and I've started doing backstroke but for that you only need an S classification but I have decided now that my classification review this year I'm only going to have an S classification because last time the trials for um Tokyo in 21 it was horrendous like I had other sp4s in the same race as me and as an S before it's 100 meters there's an sp3 it's 50. so it's 100 meters and I got to 20 meters and I was almost at the water turn and everyone else has already finished the 100 meters hello it was it was very bad that's is it's crazy how that can be such like a discrepancy in the competition of that even because so to me looking in as who's traditionally looked at more of like able-bodied sports than the Paralympics I've not watched as much as I should as possible it's like we you've just explained that to me what looks like a really vigorous breakdown of making sure everybody's in the same level of competition but then for you to say yeah there's still a disparity if these people are already touching the hundreds and you're trying to get to the 20 it shows how there isn't there isn't probably one method that suits everything is you're always going to have a higher and a lower class there's always going to be someone who's the most impaired and the least impaired in every single classification um but in swimming it is better than some sports like in athletics that I started doing a few years ago um for cross-training I didn't realize that you're only race against people you're impairment so wheelchair races for example cerebral palsy there's only two categories a t-34 and a t-33 so you either have um lower limb impairments like basically you're impaired from the waist down and you're in the same category so whether that's mild and you can walk or severe and you can't walk you're in the same category you're a t-34 if you've got upper body and arm impairment you're a 33 but again no matter how severe or mold your upper body impairment is you're still in the t-33 so it's and they're they're not even really included in anything anymore so a t-33 generally has to race against the c34 less than 30 people so compared to like other sports Athletics where there's like two categories for each person's cerebral palsy it's definitely better but I found it harder over the years in swimming because we're all mixed and no matter what your disability is it's done on your functional ability so when I was an S9 I raced against amputes and in 2015 um I obviously was still quite young at that point and I'd massively improved on my butterfly and that was that's always been my favorite stroke which I'm kind of good I can't swim anymore because I've I'm now one arm and no legs and it doesn't work very well and it's probably one my shoulders so Dodge he's from trying to swim on you're trying to do butterfly with one arm is the only thing preparing it forward yeah it's not it doesn't turn out very well I'll let you so on this season I've got a guy who's actually from the same school as me Gregor Swinney he represented Scotland at the Commonwealth Games in the fly the 50 meter fly and he he gave me I've actually already recorded his episode so spoiler for listeners in the next couple weeks that's coming up but he explains how the butterfly works and then knowing what I know about that and using I try to do it with only one arm I think that is nigh on Impossible yeah even with like like with both arms without legs it's really difficult because you need the movement of the hips to get the undulations to help yourself forward and and not just be really flat on the water so yeah one arm is like impossible but um like I know someone's with uh like we have a swim right around in the Manchester who has a hemiplegia cerebral palsy so she's affected on one side so she does swim with one arm and fly and on freestyle but she kicks her but Flex so it's a bit different yeah um I suppose it's like it's like it's taking away the power sort of really isn't it because the arms sort of kind of steered and sort of direct and the legs and like you say the hips and the legs are where the power really comes from and that's true yeah so back then I improved massively on my flight and I think about a month before at the World Championships I brought the European record and I was the first person in Europe to go into 110 which I was like so happy about and um so I got to Worlds and in the fly I beat Sarai escort who's a Spanish summer who was expected there's always one expected to win um and she wasn't very happy about it obviously and afterwards you know after that I don't know many Elite athletes they're happy about losing to be fair sorry the issue like I think it's slightly different now but back then there was a big mix in the S9 category and the sa s9s10 when you had someone with more of an invisible disability like cerebral palsy Ms like a neurological condition versus an amputee they were kind of at war with us because they were like well we can see our disability we can't see yours um even though obviously like I still used a wheelchair at that point it was kind of obvious but it's less obvious in water if that made sense but um than an amputee and we were at the after party and she we were all pretty drunk at this point but she came up to me and literally started screaming me saying I wasn't disabled and I was a cheater and it's not fair and like shouldn't be an S9 and there's a lot of like yeah there's there's definitely a big feud between the amputees and the non-amputees that have to race against each other I I like if you you see if you used to think there's one place where that doesn't happen if somebody's like you're not really disabled like you you wouldn't think that the Paralympics of the world champions would be where this takes place honestly I think it's the worst for it especially like especially the people that have more invisible disabilities or more mild impairments and they're voting against someone who's missing a limb which is obviously really obvious it's yeah it can be a nightmare and then you feel like you constantly have to like justify your disability and your classification that's that's wild so how will if how have you been that was because that wasn't that wasn't that Berlin we were talking about Berlin where was the river started um so that was 2015 the world championships in Glasgow that's explains how you end up drunk then if you were a subject to Glasgow but that's a difference that's I I I never had any idea something like that would have that's that's thrown me for six there that's how do you how do you handle that situation because you in 2015 how old would you have been there because it's really about the same age about 18. yeah so you can seek Is Us quite a big conversation for somebody to sort of spring upon you after a few fruit shoots because to be honest like how do you how did you deal with that situation well I was quite drunk so I literally kind of just sat there and be like outside no 50 meters in the pool when it takes always like one of these like these movies where it's like we'll have the we'll have this we'll have the real race in the choir I mean we're opposite alike so I want to put it faster to be like get in the lake um it was we were like in a like an after party that the event organizers like put on for us um and the issue was that all of the other British numbers are part of the under 18s that weren't at the after party because obviously they weren't allowed to drink um had gone out to a club but I drank too much and I was like I don't feel like going to a club because when I drink I literally lose like pretty much all movement of my body like even my arms so it's really hard to push my chair so I'm just like I'm not going to go to a club when I can barely move um yeah so I stayed back and all my teammates were at club and she literally came up to me so I was just there like I don't know what to do like I don't know anyone like so I was just kind of looking around like because they were like media people in there like some of the journalists and I was kind of looking around like do I recognize anyone can anyone help me um and then some of the Irish team came up to me and like rescued me into like walked me back to the hotel because I was just sat there like staring at what she was like shouting at me and I was like I don't want to move in case she like hits me but I also don't want to just sit here just sit here and take it that's oh my God yeah that's that's I'm sorry that was very sort of loser as far as I'm concerned yeah oh yeah that's not sportsmanship after no okay don't be like that like listen to something like that that's oh well I was going to talk about glasgows and that seems like a good time well quickly we'll quickly run back through Berlin no no I want to talk about I'll edit this to this swing drone next thing if not I'll just leave it in because it shows how conversations normally go because I go off on tangent so it's nice to see that somebody else does it as well and I love that so we'll talk about we'll talk about Berlin then we'll go into Glasgow quite quickly and yeah you basically went to Berlin on this new accordion potential bracket that you've been put in First International competition mum was screaming at the High Heavens and The Spectators but that's just what a loving mum does everyone hold that again so Mrs Kearney you've done a great job you don't don't they tell they give you grief for it she might know a bit more about swimming than you but that's a different story for a different day uh seven medals in age groups how was it when you kept winning these medals because obviously like had you built up the international competition in your mind and then you just kept winning medals and you're like this is quite easy really to be honest I think I had no idea what I was getting myself into but I just wasn't I just remember like being overwhelmed like the biggest pool I've ever been to and Berlin's quite cool so on you can either so the portal is really weird but when you're on the road all you can see is a massive field of grass and then there's a random lift it's literally the pool is an underground bunker that's pretty cool it's like so when everyone's like where's the pool where's the pool and it's literally underground um so like you get lift down and you can there's two levels so I think before we were at the top level and you go on and it takes you on to like The Spectator level um which is like really weird and then on The Spectator level is that there's actually another Pool so there's two pools kind of next which are the 50 meter pools but they're on different levels one's higher than the other one like the competition pulls lower and the training reports higher up which is kind of a pain when you've got loads of wheelchair users in the same race and there's one little lift that fits one chair at a time kind of difficult for everyone to move around um but these people that have hosted like a para event and they just say all of you guys in your Wheelchairs and just one lift and I know there's like one core like event coordinator just with their head in their hands just be like oh we [ __ ] it we've absolutely [ __ ] yeah they're like hugging you in the courtroom and you have like a certain you have to be there like just normally about 15 minutes before and they're calling you and they're like oh no she's still in the lift it was just like ridiculous but they are General if you're literally stuck in a lift or stuck in a queue waiting for it if they are generally unless it's like a parliament games they are generally a bit lenient because you can't exactly help that yeah um you just have to like make sure you leave like 20 minutes to get down on a list but um yeah it was just like I didn't I don't know how many Spectators that pull holes but it was just massive and then like at the ceiling like over the 50-minute pool there's the flag of every single country so it was just like a really cool atmosphere we were sat in the stands which I think that was the first time I'd been sat on the stands because at like low level meet you always sat poolside but like at Big meets they've got all the cameras and stuff and you can't be on poolside so you know that was like a really cool thing and obviously being part of team and like being with the older ones like learning from them and like kind of copying what they do like see how they recover between races and I was just kind of like overwhelmed and trying to take it all in to be honest I mean so it sounds like you did all right and whoever you copied clearly knew what to do because you I haven't done years you had seven medals at age grades then you also picked up two silver and one of your first goals that opened at that event yeah oh it's good because you confirm that yeah that means I did my job right I remember we got nine yeah because it was really nice like at the end of the meet I remember like the the burning opens lovely because even if you like come 30th you get certificate so like even in some of the races I did where I didn't middle um you get certificate for every single one and the ones that like I think within top ten you would get a medal anyway so um like we had like a little presentation presentation back in the hotel before we went home and like they got the older like experienced athletes to present them to us so it was like a really nice experience into the team oh that's great I love it when they do stuff like that I think like team bonded and especially the age group when there's like a lot of passing because a lot of people come in and come out so it's nice that they have the older people to sort of like we're going off the list now but so yeah this is your this is your sort of mantle to take on and they always like it camps are not lower like UK competitions we were always if they were like younger ones in the team we were always with the younger ones um but bigger meat they always um put us in a hotel room with an older experienced athlete so that they could kind of guide us of how you're supposed to do things and how everything works and you know like so we could learn from them I love that they that there's I know there's a thing they do at Edinburgh uni in the P Department like the PE education that do that they call it they call it parents and parents children so it's quite nice here's the older heads and they sort of look after you yeah oh that's that's amazing I love that your first adult level come for open level I probably should say um no oh we'll talk about that so we talk about we spoke about the funding that got you on to world-class development funding athletes so how did that then change your life how was that different to the accordion potential athlete so that that's what it was the same thing yes development is now what's known as Podium potential okay right okay okay let's get that question a good answer and hey so sorry to interrupt the podcast this is something I wanted to tell you about and it's something I wanted to explain before I just go around throwing it everywhere because this is something that was quite difficult for me to decide to do it took a lot of deliberation and a lot of discussion with friends and family I have now created an option where you can tip the podcast or you can reward the podcast if you feel the podcast deserves it there is an option down below where I found I went on the internet I found this website that wants to reward content 2013 that was your first adult open level competition out with Montreal she did yeah my brother did as well actually um so when I was younger like before we moved to Birmingham we actually lived in Alberta in medicine um in Canada where my dad was posted there so like I love it I think it's good well as soon as my mum heard it was like it was in Canada she was like oh we're definitely going and um it was just that was such a surreal experience but it was a really good love learning curve so I went there like a really picky eater um I was at that point um I was at boarding school and our coach was a little bit obsessed about girls going to board School get fat and um how did he introduce that so he would like come and watch our meals all the time so a lot of us run away and I was really underweight at that point so like I couldn't afford to not eat and be fussy and like lose weight so I went there and because back then it was really weird like I wouldn't eat sandwiches I don't know why but like the lunch unless it was a Subway like it was I was just really weird like really picky I've always been picky about like processed meat and like you know like slabs you know like that's not good to be there yeah not one it's like the only option so like the lunch meal every day because I think we were there about 10 days before it started like for the to get used to like time difference and everything and get over jet lag and and like get a feel for the pool and it was very different this competition so the lunch options every day because we were I think we used a few hotels but most of the countries were in our hotel so there was they just did a massive buffet for all the countries and every lunch was a deconstructed sandwich she literally had to pick your bread pretty meat and then there was they wouldn't give was fruit like I kept asking for bananas and they said no because we've not got enough for everyone um so the veg was raw broccoli in raw cauliflower which at that age I was like I'm not eating that so I literally don't know if something happens though like it got to the point that by the competitions that are like within like just over a week I'd lost like seven kilos and I was just really weak so then um I swam One race really well but I just didn't have any energy so my mum had to keep sneaking in some ways yeah yeah it was it was crazy um and then like if there was food that I didn't like but I wasn't allowed to ask for anything else so I just wasn't really eating but obviously that was a lesson today that if you want to race well you've got to eat um but that Paul was really cool because it was that was the last time that we were actually allowed to race Outdoors but the the rules had changed that we weren't allowed to be technically in an outdoor pool so the two pools were kind of next to each other like an L shape so the competition pool was at the back long ways and the other one was kind of width ways next to it and um the composition pool they covered in a tent so like the top of it was covered on the side of it kind of had like gaps and they had all these like big like metal stand like scaffold stamps put up but it meant that when you were swimming every time you breathed you got blinded by the sun because like Elvis it was really hot and all the sun was like coming through the sides because there was nothing at the sides like no tense at the start it's just at the top it was just like a metal structure and then there were thunderstorms so we couldn't warm up and swim down because the warm swim Apple had no coverage and the indoor one had metal so we were all just kind of huddled in the in the small changing Village that was actually like made out of bricks but while the thunderstorms went fast because all of our team areas were tent metal tents with like white teepees on it's like and that's not what you want to stand under in a thunderstorm no and obviously like being in a wheelchair I was like I definitely don't want to be set out as well it was an interesting experience it was honestly one of the coolest World Champs I've ever been to though the fact that it was outside it was in like a really cool country like really nice and hot we got a great tan especially like training in an outdoor pool it was yeah it was intro I probably wouldn't want to race the world Champs in an outdoor pool cover by 10 again that's because like you said that's no longer a load is it yeah like all official meats are in indoor pools and yes I know the everybody guys like their short course Champs they're allowed to be outdoors but in like the long course it has to be indoors what's the reason behind that is it just the we've just decided that or I think it's the unfair advantage of the wind the sun like especially Backstreet you've got nothing to follow like the amount of instances where people swim into Lane ropes get tangled in them like like it's not fun yeah I'm sold indoor indoor pools it is well okay so you gave us a beautiful bit of insight there as to the fact that uh the lovely Spanish lady decided to scream in your face after you claimed one of the medals at Glasgow but what you didn't mention is you got four medals at Glasgow and this was when you really started to become from my perspective okay you really start to become a Force in the pool in your subcategories at your Strokes how was Glasgow did you have a real because by this point like you said you were 18 now so had that competition mindset start to become a bit more prevalent in your brain now you're like oh this is this is go time now this isn't hey I'm quite good at this and this is a lot of fun not to be honest at that point no I was still doubting myself quite a lot and I hadn't raced internationally in 2014 because unfortunately I picked up a sickness bug at trials um and it was kind of infuriating thing so with commonwealths the trials the way they did it is they had the everybody trials in Glasgow and then a week later like there was a weak Gap and then ours but at the last few days of the old body trials they had because obviously in the Commonwealth there's a couple of power events um they had the trials for Commonwealth the Paris swimmers so I just won the 200 I am and I would have had to do like I think something like a six second PB over 200 meters to qualify so I knew I wasn't going to but it was like a chance to kind of pre-race before racing but also just to see what would happen um so I wasn't expecting to qualify um but I swam and I actually did really well I did a full second PB but obviously still didn't qualify but I wasn't I wasn't upset because I wasn't expecting to and I was still young at that age and my I just didn't really I knew it wasn't going to happen so I wasn't that bothered um unfortunately that week Gap and got really ill and even though I swam at the same portal because it was a different competition they wouldn't accept it as a medical appeal um because I did try and swim through it but I sound really bad so I basically didn't get to swim internationally that year so the next year I was like pretty nervous um I didn't actually qualify for 2015 was always for a relay um so I was feeling pretty like oh I don't know if I should be here like oh like I don't know what's going to happen obviously I'd swam really well the month before at the pool in Glasgow the Scottish championships red broke the record on the Fly the European record and I'd recently moved to Manchester for the national performance center and I was working under Graham Smith and um that was kind of for me the start of a great relationship with him and he's honestly one of the best coach I had and he came up to me and he could tell that I was feeling deflated and he just said like because some of the athletes I had so many individual races I had five individuals and two relays and obviously for all of them you've got heat and a finals and some of them are on the same day so it's a lot of races to fit into 10 days and um I also had a shoulder injury so it was some of the athletes that were for the Relay obviously like we always want to in the relays and we generally always do win the higher classification relays 34 points um and some of the athletes were saying well maybe you should pull out of this race because it's on the same day as the relay and we want you to win the relay and I obviously was not having anything I was like hang on you can't tell me that I have to withdraw out of my individuals because you're not going to do that um so I was like it's a bit contradictory but like obviously I went to my coach and he was like he said to me Graham knows me better than I myself and he was always giving me advice I always knew what I needed um and he was the first coach to actually just knew what to say and he came up to me and was like I don't want to put pressure on you but if you swim well when you do everything like as I said as planned You're Gonna Come away as the highest medal learning for GB and I looked at him and I was like your Mentor I was like that's not gonna happen and it happened and like I swam really well like his pep talks really helps I kind of started to ignore everyone else and was like you know what I'm just gonna go and enjoy it and yeah I came away with four Golds of silver nebrons which is kind of mental and and gb's highest medal learner and broke the European record in the 100 fly again and I love that you stood up again quietly and they're like I brought that again so yeah so did you break your own world record you broke your own European record at that point yeah and it was only a month after I first broke it so like that I think I think maybe that was my I know I think I I think that was maybe my second European record I think I already had it in the 400 freestyle I brought the I am 200 am record as well and for me that I was chasing the world records of the S9 category so fast because years ago there was an amputee swimmer who swam um as an S9 and she was just rapid so no one like even now a lot of the world of records no one was nearer so I was just trying to like get closer and closer and closer to a world record because I was still miles off them even though I was the quickest in the world at that time by far um but yeah that was kind of that was my the first time where I was like you know what I am actually pretty good at this that was the first time that I had confidence in myself that actually maybe this is what I'm supposed to do maybe I can get to panamic games like maybe Rio's you know gonna be the break point for me the the point where I can actually start to make a name for myself and and show what I can actually do because I think that was one thing that was disappointing there are competitions there's not always that many people that come in at Glasgow I was obviously really excited it was UK based and but we only had a 14 members team so GB we took 14 athletes and that was it um because we the national performance director at the time decided even though obviously being in Glasgow is much cheaper he didn't want to take athlete's experience he only took athletes that were going to win medals so there was only 14 of us which meant that there was only 14 British families in the stands so that the stands were pretty empty and it was pretty disheartening oh yeah when that's going on did you I know like you said you're very you're very busy in the pool you've got to cram in all these what best part of what was that six seven medals in ten days you won four worlds two silver one bronze yeah seven yeah math math isn't much strong point uh like you said when there's when there's only 14 of you does that put like a real emphasis on like the forgiveness and the team of it like do you find you really come together because you knew there was so little to be there that honestly that was the best team I've ever been on because there are only fevers it was such tight knit we were so close and also like even though they were only 14 every single final they're at least five of them stand cheering for you that's great and like we've always had that that kind of role that if you're not swimming the next day you're in the standard cheering for everyone else and if you finish competing you're there every single night so like that it's just it makes such a big difference especially like in Glasgow the athletes there was a temporary stand put on poolside because behind the pool there's a massive Dead Space which is great because it's where you can do a lot of your prep stuff where they can make the core rooms so they can literally use scaffolding to make whatever so they made stands that the athletes were sat on and underneath was the courtroom um but it meant that they were literally on poolside so you could hear them shouting at you they were literally like a few meters behind you behind the block that's great I love that that was honestly and then when you got out the pool you had to walk past them to get to the media so like you got to see them like as you came out so it was really nice I love it I love it when teams go out because what is what I traditionally and I think a lot of people might associate as maybe an individual sport on a team sport of swimming because what people obviously say excluding the the medleys when you've got groups of people diving in over each other yeah we just see the one person I think the best example for my listeners might be when a lot of people saw Michael Phelps they didn't think Michael Phelps of Team USA you kind of just knew Michael Phelps as Michael Phelps are having to represent the USA yeah but like there is a big team camaraderie to it and like you say you're training at Sheffield pool you're part of the Warsaw Swim Club you are part of the Manchester City Swim Club you're not Manchester City Football team the city of Manchester football football club yeah they're part of a team you're always part of a team and it there is that togetherness and there is that one for everyone around you to do well which I think is great and then obviously a few Spanish people go and ruin a few things every now and again but they're they're by the bay but um you've got reclassified for classmate did you know yeah yeah so how did how did that come about was this when you went from the S9 to the S5 um no so this was just because as at this point did I know I think no I didn't know I had dystonia but at this point my dystonia was getting slightly worse so I was diagnosed at 16 with dystonia um noticed that it has some symptoms that weren't typical of cerebral palsy um and we just didn't really know what it was and unfortunately the stone is not very well known so it took about three years to actually get diagnosed with it and basically it's a neurological movement disorder it can be similar to cerebral palsy but again there's hundreds of different types um the type that I have is generalized dystonia so I add the mixture of fixed contractors and like uncontrollable muscle movements so if you the kind of the easiest way I can explain it now is for me like if I'm trying to for example if I'm trying to use my quad so I want to try and keep my quad my hamstrings are extremely overactive and part of that is from the cerebral palsy um but apart from the dystonia so usually like um hamstrings and quads and bicep tricep if you try if you contract one the other one relaxes I can't contract the other one so when I'm trying to move a muscle both but they're basically fighting against each other they both switch on the same time which makes it really hard for me to move um so that's kind of the easiest way to explain to Stone is you imagine every time you try and move if you've got muscles fighting against each other so which obviously restricts movement restricts quality of movement um which causes you know like spasms uh shaky movements and contractors where you just can't move so that's it's obviously since it comes to terms but the reason that I got reclassified is because my stone had started to affect me to the point that I couldn't now get on the Block to that support and you can't when you're classified you can't just add stuff it has to be assessed so I had to go through the classification system again to get reassessed because I needed that support to get on the Block okay so that support has been physically being lifted like onto the block or just like to help them stay sorry I used to have someone um stood so I was stood side onto the block and then there was someone's at the other side with their hands out and I would literally put all my body weight onto them all right okay throw myself on them while I was stepping up myself and then step away okay and then as you find out what dystonia you had the story and as it got classifieds that then led to them sort of not stepping away as you were going to go with this sort of just like a an extra sort of basically a an armrest type thing or like somebody there yeah it's basically just to help you like get up the step because blocks are pretty hot off the floor I don't actually know how hard I've never measured it but it's it's a pretty high step yeah when you've got a lower limb impairment it's pretty difficult to get the force and the balance because the Block's landed it's not flat so obviously it's starting to get you in that optimal race position but if you've got limited movement in you know knees ankles hips and you're trying to stand on a obviously first time you're standing side on and you lean into one side and you haven't got I've I've never had a very strong core it's like trying to balance as well not only just stepping up but then trying to balance with all your set off and bend down without falling in like it's definitely beneficial to have someone to hold on to yeah I agreement um I find it really interesting because I actually know are you familiar with the James Sutliff yeah yeah I I know him through a mental health script about a lot where I think he's one of the most inspirational people I've ever spoke to in my life that he's he's given me a quick explanation on the story before and how it affected him and it's I find it really strange when I hear your situation with Estonia because like you said yours was a sort of gradual thing and like it took three years to become enough that you sort of assessed and going oh I have this one here but his happened overnight he woke up one day with we didn't wake up with the story of it it like sort of took a hold just overnight which is amazing I I had certain things like my first symptoms which is actually quite typical of um generalized Estonia so a lot of a lot of people that develop it in younger like kind of teenage years it's quite common to get into teenage years and usually the first symptom is what's happened to me is my left foot turned in and it wouldn't go out and we knew that that wasn't cerebral palsy because it can happen with cerebral palsy but it happens over time for muscle shortening it doesn't just suddenly happen yeah um and it won't straighten and when you see you say turn in does it actually pointers towards the other foot or was it turned in as in like ruled or no like pointed into all right okay and it wouldn't go back um obviously I've got other symptoms that aren't as severe as that but yeah not everyone with sounds completely different some people wake up and it's just there some people it's like over years and for me with my type um unfortunately what's quite common is that you rapidly progress for five years so over a five-year period I kept getting worse and worse and worse and then I slowly started to stabilize so by the time I was around 20-ish is when I started to finally settle okay all right that's him so how does how does this because obviously what we what people like myself would probably see from you is you obviously have these disabilities you know this is around 2016 term you now have the story and you know and you've always had your cerebral palsy unfortunately you've been dealt with stuff and but you're you're showing great adversity and you're showing that it's not a limitation because you're you're taking medals on for fun at the competitions and you're still active on social media you're still doing all these things you're okay I have to do things differently to able-bodied people but I'm still doing them there's no there's nothing stopping me here uh how does this affect personal life like for example are you do you require I'm trying to trying to really work this in a way that shows the respect it demands if I say anything the second time please like don't take it offensively I'm not trying to cause offensive do you require additional care in certain aspects of your life still even though you have all these people would consider athletic achievements and you have these minor like you say the the great example is like people are saying your physical disabilities aren't as visual as uh physical amputees or things like that or short stature so to start with no um up until I think it was about 2017 where it was like the end of 2016 start 2017 where it got to the point where it was really bad um and that's actually at that point I had to stop swimming I had to withdraw from Rio a week before supposed to fly out I lost my funding I lost my place at the national Center and I was in concert I had constant nerve pain um from shoulder issues I couldn't lift either arm of a shoulder height I had very little use of my legs my core was really weak I basically had lost a lot of my function and I had just been caused by a compound of the dystonia and the yeah just a massive version of Sonia um we had a coach she wasn't very nice um treated us extremely badly who eventually was fired for uh basically a lot of us reported him for basically abuse and he was fired for that um from that I have PTSD so like all of this stressful stuff like with Estonia stress can make it a lot worse and Trigger it to get worse a lot quicker um I'd had a few Falls and I fell onto my shoulder and again trauma like some people developed the Stony from having a spine injury I've been at the car crash like sometimes trauma can cause it to react and for me um the stress and then falling onto my shoulder and getting a soft tissue injury is what caused the Sony to move to my shoulders um so I then had to basically relearn I wasn't even thinking about sport at that point I had to relearn how to move like how to get dressed how to basically function how to get myself to UNI like how to be able to sit for a lecture without crying in pain um it was rough like it was a really rough time it was really hard to deal with um going from a part-time we'll change it to a full-time wheelchair user not even be able to walk around and Tesco Express anymore like that that was kind of the most annoying thing is those little things that I could still do that was easy like I could run into Tesco Express and get a lot of bread but now I have to get my chair out and it takes so much longer it takes so much more effort um and it was that was kind of the biggest thing at that point I wasn't really thinking oh I'm not going to swim again I was more of like what am I going to do with my life like I kind of fully identified as an athlete and I was like well who am I now I can't swim um but I did have carers before but I didn't need them for as many things so like if I decided to walk around a shop I had to get someone to hold her like I was on crutches couldn't walk without crutches so I was had to get someone to obviously like push the shopping um and I was quite stubborn at that point I didn't want to use my chair every time I went to supermarket and I obviously needed to unless I was really tired and I had like help for folding washing and just general stuff but I could still cook myself quite easily like there were things that I didn't need help with um so it's only really like once or twice a week for a couple of hours and then it came to the point where I needed help pretty much every day to do a lot of stuff and um but things you wouldn't think about like even where I live now or the bin storage is outside and there's a a lock pad so like for me having to press buttons and then turn sync really quickly is really difficult because it's the not only you've got a plan how are you going to do it I can't go from pressing a button to turning the little turny thing quick enough for the doors and the facts as well it was obviously really high up and the bins are really high because they're like the industrial ones um so even things like that are like really challenging that I'd have never thought about when I could walk and I think other people wouldn't necessarily think of um but yeah so I kind of just really like I was lucky that I still had uni that had already started uni Manchester I kind of threw myself into that had to move out of the swimming flat because I was in a British swimming flat uh moving tools which was a horrendous experience um and it's just like so loud that and when you when you struggle to sleep anyway from Pain and then you've got students up all hours of the night yeah just don't sleep your pocket just doesn't help um and then I think as well like that was kind of the most eye-opening thing for me is that I was in denial a lot that I was struggling with depression and I just didn't want to accept it and then when I moved into halls there were seven of us in Halls and five out of seven of us were on antidepressants and that was like made me realize well actually this is quite a normal thing for people my age and most people haven't really been through all this stuff so um that kind of made me feel a bit better about it however having five people antidepressants probably wasn't the best planning of putting them all in the same flat because they would just sit there drinking alcohol which wasn't exactly the best thing to do so yeah I don't if you're if you're struggling about half don't just sit and drink alcohol literally just makes things worse does not help um I I agree with that statement so um yeah soon like soon pulled myself out of that and I just don't drink anymore because I just well now I just don't I don't really care for anymore but I kind of like realized quickly that I need to stop because it's not it's not helping like there's no reason I'm doing it I'm just doing it just to kill time basically um and um yeah so after about a year my mum was like well my mum had started and Masters Swim Club in Birmingham and um I was still like pretty much heading home every weekend because my carers were in like midweek so I would generally drive home to Birmingham every weekend just so my mum could look after me basically um and the one of my old swimming coaches had made a master Squad and a lot of the swimmers in it were parents kids I used to swim with and like my mum had started swimming with them and she was like well why didn't you come along and at that point I was kind of like well I'd rather never try to swim again and like not know rather than get in and realize I can't swim because I was like I'd just be devastated all over again never can't swim but somehow she just knew that I figure out a way but she didn't think I'd ever get back into swimming again but she just wanted me to know like you know if I went to holiday and I wanted to like float in the pool or go in the beach like on in the sea on the beach she wanted me to know that I could do it yeah and she didn't want me to like Miss out and feel that I couldn't and you know even like if you go for a like family swimming you're just floating around you just want me to know that I could and um it comes it comes back to that you said there's nothing it's like you don't feel like you're in that different category like even if you're just in the war and you still feel like you're there I think at this point as well it was the I didn't know how people were going to react I didn't know how to react to people that knew me before I didn't know how they were going to happen to me I just didn't really know what to do I didn't know whether I need to explain myself I didn't know whether I don't say anything like do I just not look at them do I avoid them do I never speak to anyone again that I knew before it was kind of like I just overthought everything and I was just like I don't know what to do um but I was really lucky that I eventually my mum eventually convinced me to go and I started in the Learned swim Lane so we had a coaching that was like literally figuring out what I could do what I couldn't do um and getting me back into it and within a year I'd gone up so it was a four lane portal I'd started learn to swim and within a year I was in the quickest Lane beating everyone how was that um that's that's an incredible story in itself just even even if you completely like just take that one aspect of I went from learn swim Lanes the fastest in a year again that's incredible on its own but how is those learn to swim lesson days when you're thinking I've got medals in this and I'm having to literally teach myself how to do the basics of this again how was that emotionally yeah I I was embarrassed I absolutely hated it like everyone knew me as a world champion they expected me to go to Rio and come at home with at least three gold medals and I didn't go I felt like a failure I felt like I let one down and I was also really embarrassed like the fact that I know people were obviously worried about me and like worried about what happened and stuff but and people don't mean to stare but it's also like everywhere you go where people know you they're like oh God what's happened to you and it's just like do I really have to explain it again like it was just and I suppose you have to do it like you don't just like you can't just do it once you have to every time you see somebody you have to almost relive it which is tough I think because I knew these people one way it was harder because they knew what was like before but in the other way it was easier because I felt like I could trust them and like within a couple of sessions I did feel much better but I just kind of thought like um I wasn't really anything about race International but I was just kind of thinking like this was the one thing that I thought I was gonna do forever like when I retire I was always going to keep swimming because it's always been my thing and I used to spend 28 to 30 hours a week training so even when I was getting back in I was doing like maximum an hour a week and I still had all these hours where I was just like I don't know what to do with myself um and obviously like I put loads of weight on because when you when you're training like 70k a week you can eat whatever you want well obviously it's so much like you literally like I think I was having like five meals a day at one point on a loads of snacks because I needed it because I was training a ridiculous amount and when you stop all exercise and then also you can't walk anymore or you're in a wheelchair like full time you just don't want any calories because the swimming it's it's the one to one rest for work ratio isn't it because there's no impact so yeah you've chosen it at kilometers yeah so I used to do like nine nine two hour sessions a week in the pool sometimes ten and then like a good few hours is like two two hours twice a week in the gym sometimes three so it was like it was a lot of work and um yeah so going from that to starting again but so I did after I kind of got to the point where I could swim and I could fit into kind of a club environment I decided because I was still at Manchester met they honored my sports scholarship so they pay for your city Manchester some fees so it meant obviously that's good of them to honor that though I think yes yeah so they pay for your fees and your training sessions so I literally all I had to pay for was my um ASA swim membership so that I could actually be like a registered member of the club and um obviously it was a massive weight lifted off I didn't have to pay for snc I got one-on-one snc and at first I was nervous starting with a new coach hadn't worked with swimmers hadn't worked with uh disabled people honestly one of the best snc coaches I've ever had it was but he reached out to people who worked with para athletes he reached out um to like butcher in like because they had an mmu sport had a connection with British bar swimming obviously being in Manchester and um like did research online and was just really open to asking me and there was another athlete Hannah dance who actually got me into Athletics um who's a paracyclist went to Rio no no that was uh that was another athlete but Hannah did actually get me into a frame running but um she she's a lovely girl honestly really really kind and he was just amazing with us like he sat down like we went through what we kind of can't do and just kind of boat we all learned together and he was just honestly amazing and I got physio supports and stuff that I wouldn't have been out before because I wasn't on funding anymore I just got um and that made such a big difference and I started training with city of Manchester with Matt Walker who actually was a teammate of mine years ago um he has a toxic CP so it's kind of like a shaky type of CP um and he was an S7 uh it's from a world Prime European Champion so obviously a great personal privacy coach and it took him a while because he'd known me as an S9 swimmer it did take quite a long time for him to realize my limitations like my new limitations and yeah that I because he was trying to get me to do leg kick and I literally would just be laying there and I now have no use of my legs in the pool so like unless my legs are touching something like the wall I can't feel them I don't know where they are and I can't move them so I'm quite lucky that I still get a bit of push off of the wall after a tumble turn on my theater touch the wall but part for that I can't use them I don't know where they are so like he was trying to get me to do leg kick and I was literally just floating there for like five minutes not moving and I looked around and I was like Matt can I stop now I'm like I'm not gonna move and eventually you realize that yeah actually this isn't doing anything he must have felt quite guilty when he was he was like yeah I'm about to go that can't feel her feet okay yeah and then once you realize like and because I still struggled a lot with nerve pain and shoulder pain there were sometimes I was just in too much pain and I just needed a break so um we started doing like a mushroom float so basically you grab your arms tuck up your knees put your head under like took your head under like you're a little mushroom and you just float and it used to pitch for the life of gods because I can hold my breath for quite a long time and he used to like sometimes he tap me on the head like he's still breathing um you know you know it's a long time if your coach has to pull your head out and go you are still alive it was just like a really good reset like I was in loads of painting so I just literally go into my little mushroom flow in my own little world underwater which is obviously always been my happy place and it would just kind of reset and if it didn't work I'd get out if it did work then I could carry on and then if I struggled again and just do it again for a few minutes and then I'd carry on again and it just worked really well um and then I went ended up going to trial so that was when I was reclassified again to an S5 and that was kind of this is where you're still up to this day and you're still there yeah so that kind of shot me because I knew that I was a lot more disabled than I was but actually having it written down in paper and going like it's kind of unheard of to drop four classifications in swimming or in any sport and to go from a nine to a five unfortunately there are people that cheat in someone not just I think in para para sport it's not as much drug cheats it's classification it's intentional misrepresentation unfortunately a big issue so when someone like me drops um that's a case like drops from an S9 to an S5 straight away there's a lot of attention yeah yeah there's athletes that are new for years that ignored me because they thought I was staying like some of them ignore me for years until they realized um so I lost a lot of friendships I honestly didn't I didn't really know how to approach it and how to approach people and I didn't feel like I should have to justify the fact that I've got a progressive conditions there's a magazine an American Magazine absolutely hate I think it's terrible called Swim swam online and they write articles about all like swimmers able bodies and para in a way and they have a comment section that's on land so they write it in a way so like they do it in a way that's going to make you react so they don't write all the facts they do it in a way that makes people angry so they're gonna write so it wasn't just me that got classified that time there were other athletes so it wasn't just aimed at me but there were so many comments saying oh she's cheating oh like oh how can she be an S5 she just have muscle wastage well if you knew what the stone it was that my muscles were always switched on you would know why I don't have loads of muscle wastage but if you knew that I had a progressive condition you would know that I am actually more disabled now like if you watch the live stream of me swimming you would see how much I struggle and they were saying things like oh she's going to break all the world records straight away and all this stuff it took me three years to break the world records like it wasn't straight away yeah um and it was just that thing that I felt like everyone was staring at me thinking that was a cheat and I'm not g like I wasn't cheating but it's so hard when it happens so frequently it's so hard to prove that you're not a cheat because people you are um but I ended up getting my classified and then at that meet I surprised everyone and I qualified for Europeans in 2018 and that was kind of like oh okay this is um weird I didn't really know how I thought about it I didn't really want to be around Britain at that point because like the coach had been sacked a lot of the staff had changed but I was still worried that it was going to be I'm still Associated yeah you still had that association with it yeah and obviously with the PTSD again I was in denial about it at that time and I was like oh I'm fine like um because to start with I would Panic every time I drove towards Manchester every time I got into Manchester I'd panic and then it got to the point where I kind of got numb to it and I wasn't happy about being a Manchester but I could drive into Manchester about any symptoms um and then the first time I went to the pool I had a panic attack but then it got to the point where it was fine but it was city of Manchester we swam upstairs in the main Liverpool British underground so it's completely enclosed like you can't see it and um when I made the Europeans team I had to go train downstairs for a week it was like kind of like we had like a mini holding Camp thing to get everyone that was going to be on Europeans to get together and that was like I really struggled like going downstairs again obviously the same but it looked exactly the same but there were some people similar a lot of the same people mostly were new but I just couldn't cope with it like it was really difficult to cope with and that was kind of the first time I realized and actually accepted that I had PTSD um and yeah that was really difficult so I went to Europeans unfortunately I had to get reclassified again because dropping so many classifications meant that they wanted to make sure that I wasn't a g so I was really classified at especially I assume all the noise doesn't help at that time as well because once you get reclassified and then everybody else starts going they're cheating I suppose they almost have to do it again to sort of prove themselves I was really nervous about going to Europeans and seeing people at Hansen since 2015 and I'm thinking that I'm a cheap like I was like I don't know how to react like what if someone else has a go at me like I was just like I don't know what's gonna happen like what if people call me cheat like what if like I don't know I was just it was going around in my head like I don't know what to expect I don't know what to do um and unfortunately the classifiers that I got Europeans didn't know what the Sony was didn't know how to test for it I didn't know how basically for me the more I try and move the more the Sonic I get so the more I think about movement the harder it is for me to move and the worst my movement is so when I'm swimming really slowly I'm less dystonic than when I'm swimming at heart speeds so in the water test if you get me to only swim at low speeds I don't look that dystonic if you get me to swim at race Pace I'm way worse my control's a lot worse but at that point I hadn't really clicked in my mind that I should ask them to do quicker stuff so we did threshold which is like 50 beats below Max okay but threshold isn't really enough to show the full extent of my Estonia when I'm racing because obviously this is all about racing not about training because classification and um then because we had so many S6 swimmers there's only three that can swim at the time for one country so I was put up to a six and it was really annoying I was put one Mark into an S6 category and they they've done things like they'd they said I had movement in my left ankle which I've got proof that I have no movement for my medical evidence so we were able to appeal on that grounds um but we didn't actually end up having to appeal because when they watched me race they picked it up straight away and brought me back into reclassification yeah the issue was that my main race was on day one the 200 freestyle and because to you have to be watched in competition and they have to see you in a freestyle event but there were four other s6s and they were all quicker than me so they weren't going to GB weren't going to pull out under the rest fix so that I could swim to try and get reclassified back down to an S5 yeah so I literally had to wait until day five to race they saw me um picked me up straight away and then I went um that like afternoon they put me into another test another water test and they literally made me swim about 2 000 meters of Max swim like exhausted me just to see what happens when I swim at Max for a long time and obviously European Champs right now so you're trying to save as much energy as possible um this is day five and my 53 the S5 53 star was a final only so I did all this stuff they put me back down to an S5 and the same day within a few hours I had to then raise the 53 stop final and obviously I was emotionally drowning I was exhausted I was feeling pretty defeated um by being put up 26 and um I raced and it wasn't a great time for me I came to Third so the next day I got in and it was 100 free star os5 and my first 50 in mind this is defeat not to hand so it's defeat should be slower it was two and a half seconds quicker than what I did the day before and it would have won Gold by over a second but it was like I was so emotionally drained and stressed indeed um so it wasn't a great experience for me but I was like you know what at least the the thing that amazes me and I don't know if you pick it up and I I think the listeners probably pick up because they they're a lot more like me than you in the fact that we're not superhuman uh we you were like I'm disappointed I got third and a final that's a medal and you're like ah but I knew that I could win that was the thing like when you know that you're quick enough to win and something goes wrong but you're always going to beat yourself up for it and always going to be like oh I should have won that that is that is that mentality that I think really separates people from the elite because like you like this is 20 this is 2018. in 2016 you've committed to never swimming again and like you said you've just you've just accepted it and moved into halls and you're like okay I'm now you're gonna be totally currently without swimming in that in two years you've gone actually the fact that I am an incredible person and I love swimming I want to be the best swimmer I want people to know me as the best swimmer and you're back on a European Championship audience within two years I think that's phenomenal that was really like the first time I was like you know what maybe I could go like because I kind of given up with the fact that I was going to go to practice that the one thing I always wanted was be able to call myself paralympian so I missed out on London 2012 because I just played my shoulder at trials I missed that I'm really excited to withdraw so I was like you know I was I didn't want to get my hopes up because I didn't want a similar thing to happen but I was like you know what maybe I could like maybe I can get my titles back and you know maybe I can keep getting quicker and try and be the best in the world again like even though I'm never gonna be able to do five individual swims again and I was only doing freestyle events um so I had a maximum of three medals which Unfortunately they keep taking the 53 style out of the Paralympics for an S5 which is infuriating to me because an S5 is one of the most disabled out of all of the swimmers and you leave a 200 freestyle in but you take away a 50 freestyle the one event that's the easiest for anyone to swim and that every single classification has and you take it out of an S5 twice and it's quite weird as well because it's kind of I suppose that's kind of like your version of the hundred meters like in athletics which is the big one everybody wants to watch especially in the regular Olympics yeah that's that's the one everybody sort of Tunes in for that's the one where people who don't watch Athletics all the time pretend they know what they're talking about and they're like this is the this is the year Usain Bolt's gonna lose because I've read these three articles that have absolutely not to do with it but yeah it's tough when they take that out yeah it's for me it's the most exciting race because there's enough of us with three Heats at Worlds but at the pound picks we have to swim up as an S6 so it's inferiorating um but they take loads of the S3 and S4 events out too because they say there's not enough of them but there are there are enough of those for an S550 especially with S3 and S4 some are swimming up so that they can actually race it um which so if your event isn't included you can swim up say you're an S3 flyer but they they don't do that you could go okay I will compete in S4 yeah so Ellie chalice as an S3 for summer and in Tokyo she was in my S500 freestyle because there wasn't an S3 or an S4 race so she swam the Heat and as an S3 but obviously in an S5 race so she's a massive disadvantage but it meant that she got that fun swim that she wanted for heat so sometimes it's too Advantage so depending on programs my plan for uh Paris if it fits is to try and stream the 53 as an S6 just so that I've got you know like a fun event because I love to win the 50 and also like the relays for the lower classifications the 20 point relay is 50 meters so that's um you know something that I like doing and that was kind of the biggest things in Tokyo and one of the biggest things I've learned is from being an S9 to an S5 there's a lot less opportunities for for a more disabled athlete for a high support needs athlete we're not actually I didn't realize being an S9 I was kind of oblivious to the fact that the lower classifications lower than an S6 has never been included in the Commonwealth um there's things like you know when when there's small camps and competitions where there's maybe only two or three members of staff from the governing body going they can't really take us because we need support on the plane we need support to get food to some some people need support to get dressed many sports get race suits on get in the water get out of the water like there's not enough staff when they're taking a small group to support people like me so we do miss out um because I I I'm thinking this from what might be a very naive perspective but surely there would be I know it's difficult because see when you've got real you can't really take a volunteer out of their life that much but you'd think there would be these people that are willing to like for example like mine if somebody was like you can come along to GB and all you do is make sure these people get from A to B like you are literally just their Pair of Hands they don't have to use their hands like I would I would sign up for that yeah yeah we do have some stuff like that but they've generally like PhD students or Master students that are working with them but extremely select everyone like the soft tissue therapists nutritionists Sports Science they all kind of have to step in and help us so they they have multiple roles it may meet but um they're still especially with racing suits for females it's got a bit of female member males and there's a lot more females that need help than males but there's more male members of staff I think at the minute than there are females and we've gone through a merge so British shimming is now one team we're not power swimming diving walk Polo and swimming separate we're all one um including artistic swimming so we've got a lot of Staff members that have to work between all of the disciplines so sometimes we're racing at very similar times we're at the same time in different countries or at different places so we only have six members of staff that work personally the rest have to switch between all the sports it's really hard to balance it and to get all the support you need so it kind of made me realize as well like someone like me is it a disadvantage because I can't like some of the camps being a center athlete when there's Podium potential camps we can go on them if we self-travel I can't self-travel so then I have to see if I can travel with the potent Central Group which isn't always possible and it's not usually like if there's a competition we go from Manchester because the performance center isn't Manchester when it's the component potential it goes in London so then I've got to go make my own way to London so it's just like travel yeah it's just difficult um and the biggest thing for me is there's so many kids out there not just in swimming Athletics like other sports like the framing I do for cross-training that I've realized that there's so many kids that because there's not many of us more severely disabled athletes or people like me with some Progressive conditions that get back into it and continue they're not really shown what they can do but for example I know a family in Birmingham that I've got two disabled sons and they're Sons if they watch the TV one of them yeah like he loves wheelchair basketball and he plays wheelchair basketball but the other one like he wouldn't be looking at TV and saying oh they look like me maybe I could do that sport but if disabled kids that have got more severe impairments are looking at the TV watching the Paralympics watching Europeans watching whatever and they're like well they they look like me they're in wheelchairs but they're not like me like I'm more disabled than they are what are they going to think they're going to think well I can't swim like whatever it is if they don't know that it actually exists and that people that are that are as disabled as they are that should do it and that was like the biggest thing for me in Tokyo was the first time we ever had enough low cost almost to do with 20 point relay I mean yeah we came last in the heat which is what we can't expect or was it the finals yeah we came last in the finals we made the finals came last but that was we didn't care about yeah the aim wasn't to win that race yeah no it was about getting the public and we had a really good interview after we had uh Will Perry who's a dwarf Essex myself who's off the S5 with cerebral Pals in Estonia and then we had Lyndon Longhorn and Ellie chalice who both had meningitis and they're both um Linden's a triple amputee and Ellie who's an S4 L is an S3 and she's a quadruple empty from meningitis and I think that was a really powerful message to show other people at home and like little kids that might be watching or even adults or teenagers that want to get into swimming for fun even if you've got a severe impairment if you want to swim it's there for you and I think that's a really powerful message and it was one of my biggest frustrations that I've noticed being now being more disabled is that it's so much when you've got a more like a left like not a severe impairment like you're an amputee or have very mild cerebral palsy it's so much easier to get into Sport and you don't necessarily endure the expensive equipment or you don't need as much what support or you know as much adaptation to fit into an air Wally club for someone like a high level disability you don't fit into a club like and the same speed as like seven and eight year olds um because I don't have use of my legs or my body fully so it's difficult and it's difficult to fit in and find where you fit and you know find the equipment like the Athletics the equipment is so expensive and kids grow out of it so quickly um but I just thought that was really important that people see us because like that quote earlier if you can't see it there's how do you know one beers yeah I think I think you've put that really beautiful answer that's actually going to be quite emotional how you've worded that and you've you've given such a compelling argument for it as well and what I think was really prevalent there when you celebrate this when you spoke about your team interview after the the relay it was a or the medley sorry the middle really you and you said that you had all these people these different disabilities as part of one team and what you did there is you actually show that although these kids might end up feeling alone like you said they have this disability and nine times out of ten there's probably only one disabled kids per probably two or three classes in a school but you're showing that what you you guys do come together and you do have these people that are like you and you have these friends that might not be right next to you or have the same conditions as you which is it's beautiful I think you've I I completely agree with you I think there should be the Paralympics as a celebration of what all these incredible superhumans do and like you said you should be you should be showing the extremes of that you should be showing these people like these quadruple amputee is swimming in the elite competitions you know this is incredible like somebody that's been told they can't move their legs they can't move their arm their their shoulders like you say you're dealing with pain every day you're you're bringing home medals for fun and it's it's really inspirational it is it's so impressive and I want to talk to you so the reason I changed the name of this podcast to refuse to fail from over in 80 minutes which is what it was and what you've seen at this time of recording on the Instagram which is probably why you're confused by says refuse to fail off on the top but it was um the the quote I have so I've started asking people of course because the quote I have and I think I may have made up but I've probably heard it somewhere so I don't claim it as my own it is everybody wants to succeed nowadays the 160 isn't enough you have to refuse to fail and I think you'll refuse to fail moment was when you got back in that pool did you say that was you refused to be a woman yeah I love that I think it's really good but now we're going to talk about a really happy point or what I think would be a happy point for you 2019 so you know back in the pool you've done the European Champs 2019 you became a triple world champion yeah yeah that is that is the coolest sentence I think I've ever said to anybody in my life that is unbelievable how was that year for you because at this point are you at Loughborough no um you're not even a student athlete of the locker program yet you're still Manchester at this point yeah so I'm still doing my undergrad degree I actually graduated in 2019 um I'm thinking about what I was doing as an undergrad and I was not a triple world champion that was actually quite a tricky season for me because immediately after Europeans at the end of September I had bilateral shoulder surgery um of course you did because why makes it any more difficult than it needs to be which was obviously like a difficult decision but I knew that if I wanted to get to Tokyo that was the only way I was going to get there because my shoulders weren't good like they needed fixing um and unfortunately I fixed the joint issues kind of a common thing with me is you fix something and you find something else wrong so I've still got ongoing issues with luckily it's only my right shoulder now but my tendons from like obviously all of us from all the years the repetitive overhead movements moving through injuries the fact that the last five years I've been a full-time wheelchair user and like before that I used to put all my weight onto crutches like when I used a walker and wheelchairs my arms never get arrested my shoulders never get rest so like from all this overuse I've got quite a lot of damage too quite a few of my like three out of four of my protective of 10 times so my shoulders aren't great but um the good thing was that having the surgery actually massively reduced the nerve pain it almost completely got rid of it um to the point where I didn't need nerve blocks anymore because I was having nerve blocks to help me get through so that I could actually function as a human being and sit in lectures and train but every time you have a nerve block it damages some of that connection so you can't actually the brain can't connect to the muscle as well so every time you have it you're basically getting rid of part of your muscle function which obviously isn't great I was having it every three months for a few years so like every single time um you're having a a permanent impact on the function of your muscle um which obviously for someone who uses their arms all the time and needs them isn't great so like having the surgery was amazing it fixed that issue however I think everyone kind of underestimated how long it takes to recover the surgeon was like oh wait you can get back in the water after a month and do a leg kick and I was like well I can't kick so you know right um I think after like two months I was doing like standing up in the water like leaning against the wall and doing arm movements like rehab stuff at the Physio and that was great um so at that point I decided that I needed to move back down to the center which was obviously a tough a tough decision so that's when I started with graham Smith again um that was a really Dawn thing and obviously a lot with the PTSD and dealing with everything that was a really hard decision but I knew that I couldn't get the support I needed because at that point there was a physio um I'd obviously known for many years and he was there every single day every single session so you like if you turned up and you weren't ready to swim you could see the Physio and then just come back to the evening session just swap sessions so it's kind of what I needed and I needed like I was doing rehab every single day with him so it was It was kind of I just needed just needed to do it which obviously I was going to so I was really happy where it was obviously Manchester and mmu the gym but It's just sometimes you've just got to do stuff just for the better of obviously your career um really like it took me a long time to get back into it like with cerebral palsy like I was always told when I was younger as soon as you stopped using my thoughts you're gonna lose them and it's always taken me so much longer than anyone else to build muscle I think that's quite typical for cerebral palsy um but yeah the fact that I couldn't move because I had both shoulders done at once so that I could recover and be alright of Tokyo and have a full training season like I literally couldn't move at all for a month but because I need my arms to even get out of bed and like sit up so I'd lost so much strength and the nerve pain actually so the joint issue was causing nerve pain so my dystonia was reacting and it was actually causing a lot of tone so I had really tight muscles but it was from my dystonia so as soon as you got rid of the surgery got rid of the pain I was then really weak because what I was using was my dystonia to move kind of like I don't know if anyone's in like kids with cerebral palsy can have a surgery called SDR selective dorsal resotomy where they literally cut the sensory nerves and it gets rid of the most as spasticity however you'll see that it takes them one to two years to recover because they use that spasticity the tightness to actually walk and move so when you get rid of that they have no strength underneath because there's so many muscles that they've never been able to use that didn't work so it was kind of a similar thing that I had the surgery and I don't regret it it was great but I then didn't have any strength all the strength that I was using to move and swim was gone um so it took me about eight months to get anywhere near the as strong as I needed to be and it's still an issue of struggle now has been strong enough not to get injured um it's an ongoing battle which is quite a few rain but it really the surgery really made quality of life much better so I wouldn't change it for anything even though it's been a struggle um so I didn't really that's an interesting one because as you we're not telling you hear any of the person yeah the the athlete I think you've made the right choice there because you're looking after yourself definitely pre-rio all I cared about was telekinetic athletes yeah like with everything that went on my number one priority now is me as a person like I'm not good I'm not willing to do anything that's going to risk permanent damage to my body because I need my body after sport I'm not going to swim forever and I've realized that swimming isn't everything like I love swimming and it's sink I want to do for a good few more years to come but I'm not gonna do it a detriment to my health because it's not worth it I learned that the hard way um and as well I haven't got that much function left to lose like I don't want to be more disabled than what I am like I want to be able to function as a human being and have a nine to five job and you know be able to do stuff I want to do and enjoy life as an adult um so that was kind of where my mind that it has really changed like everything that's happened has really changed my mindset and something that like I say a lot to Young athletes is that it's really difficult when you've got coaches doctors you're governing body like you've got everyone that effectively is in charge of your funding and your payment and like your level in sport and selecting you for things telling you to just get another stem injection and race through and do this and do that and it's it's really difficult to say no to that um and also to realize at a young age how much damage that can potentially cause but it's really important for athletes to actually have a say and and for doctors to actually realize how much damage that can cause because a 15 16 17 18 year old isn't going to think oh you know I've severely damaged my hip but I'm going to swim through it not thinking about oh am I gonna actually be able to walk when I'm older like is this going to cause me like arthritis or chronic pain every day like they're not going to think that way um so I think it's really important that the government body is actually think about that but also that the young athletes grow up knowing that they can say no they don't have to just agree to swim through injuries and agree to address to say it's their body they have to think about what's right for that and what's right for the rest of their life not just their career and and really make an informed decision about what am I going to do am I going to risk it or am I going to be sensible and give my body the rest it needs I agree and I think you feel that perfectly as well that that's also on the coaches as much as it is on our coaches and managers and teams organized as much as the athlete because sometimes a coach's job is to protect an athlete from himself because an athlete will be I think we'll think I need to do this because like you say like funding comes into part of it you're like oh I stopped getting the money if I stop racing but especially that when you train when you train at a performance center where your coach is the governing body coach the GB coach that is the issue as well because they want you to win medals and keep winning medals so they keep their jobs and we keep the funding yeah so sometimes it's definitely a lot better than it used to be but previously we were seen as a number and a way to keep whereas the new coach of Manchester now is amazing and his one his first priority is mental health second process physical health third priorities training and that is the way that coaches need to be and I love the fact that they've brought him in he's honestly the best fit the best person they could have bought in is um to replace um like for a coach that we needed and um and I think a lot I'm hoping that obviously him being the coach of the center the other coaches that have got power athletes around the country that come and train at Manchester for days to use the equipment and the services we have at the center will actually see oh yeah this is the way it should be with my athletes and it's a really good role model for that because it doesn't in in most spots it doesn't happen there's so many coaches that don't prioritize their athletes well-being and it's so important it's the most important thing because not only the fact obviously they're emotional physical social mental well-being should be the most important thing anyway if they're not happy and they're not healthy they're not going to swim anyway are they or compete well in whatever sport they do we need to be looking at like that and we don't I think it's definitely getting better and it's way different than it was 10 years ago when I was like growing up and starting in the sport but it's definitely something we need to work at um I could not agree more than yeah I think once again you do exactly the right words to say in the situation because you've experienced it you've lived it you've analyzed it and you've seen it get better and you see the steps it has to go together like even better so that is truly remarkable like so tell me more about the difficulty of that year in 2019 because as I said when I said I made it so ridiculously simple of you want a lot more metal to be here for world champion but you said it was there but how was those those events at the World Championships because I'm going to talk about Madeira as well in 2022 just last year which was another ridiculous tally which we'll get onto but 2019 just like briefly like just sort of bullet point 2019 where you want it how you want it and then the emotion that came through each one so I was nervous about my fitness I hadn't I've been in pool for 12 weeks um we've gone on a training camp just before in like there's like a holding camp in Italy and I did like one stand-up swim and it was terrible when it was loads of pain and like the code my my coach looked at me and was like oh God but Graham had so much confidence in me that he knew what I could do better than anyone and I now know that British swimming actually tried to pull me from the world's team at that point and he said no he fought for me and was like no she's farting like she'll do it because he knows that I'm kind of weird I am a natural racer like I get behind the blocks and it's taken me years to get to the point because I used to be terrible when I used to get too anxious and stressed and then I would get my stone would flare up and I get too stiff to swim um and then my stroke would be terrible wanted to swim really slowly but I'm just like I can't it's hard to explain I get behind the block and it's like a switch flips and I'm just there like I'm in race mode and I have to be in a very very bad way to not be able to race well like even like Tokyo had a really serious injury and I still swam well um so it's quite for me it's kind of a mental battle it's like I know I'm not fully fit especially for the longer distances it's more the mental Battle of I'm in race mode but I can't go flat out because I'll die because my fitness isn't good so that was kind of the biggest challenge for me is like don't go crazy especially on the 200 because you will die and people will catch up and beat you and you probably won't finish the race so um that was kind of the biggest thing but we kind of tried something so after the surgery because I couldn't swim much I finally gave in to my mate Hannah dartons um and she's been bugging me for years to try frame running which is it's Athletics and it's like a three-wheel frame if you imagine a trike um the front two was at the back quite a wide frame the it's the one with the really long wheel at the front isn't it yeah yeah it's on like an almost Hot Wheel it's like a 700c bike wheels they run off at least the size I need because I'm quite tall um and basically it's got a seat like a bike seat but instead of pedals there's nothing there and you'll Lean Forward on a chest plate so the frame's taken all your body weight and it was made for people to severe um too severely impaired basically people cerebral palsy that were too severely impaired to do wheelchair racing there was a wheelchair racing invented it who was paralyzed but her friends had cerebral palsy but they were too disabled to do water Races they did throwing but they wanted to do something physically active so she basically invented this and it's honestly an incredible sport I love um and it's so good to get like kids that can't walk you put them on a frame and they can walk around the garden but they can run like it's just incredible gives them that freedom to move at their own pace and not be an electric wheelchair all day um but basically I started she took me down to the track where her frame was kept introduced me to stop at audio Racing Club and she let me borrow her frame for eight months until I got Martin built um and I just fell in love with it like because I've never been good I've never been able to use my legs and stuff I've never been no I've never been able to run play football stuff like that um so I was actually able to run but for the first time in my life at the age of what like 19. I was able or 2019 20 I was like actually able to run which was kind of insane to me um and I just love it like in the water I'm just armed so it was a way to use my legs it because it's so much harder for me to move my legs my heart rate is way higher so I can get the cardiovascular benefits without having to do as much um and it was kind of a test of like obviously I need to swim but I can't swim very much I can't do much intensity because of my shoulder so how much can we play around with on track and how much cross training can we do and honestly it obviously worked perfectly because I went to Worlds really nervous not knowing where my fitness was at because I wasn't able to swim quick and test it in the pool because my shoulder wasn't ready until literally like the days before racing um so I got there and I think the 53 start was first and I knew it was going to be a tight race the Sprints are always really tight races and the heapsody I was like okay this is actually but 50 is quite easy so it's not an easy event but in terms of endurance you don't need that much endurance to do a Sprint 50 like a lot of people when they're retired from swimming can still do a very quick 50. because it's realistically 30 seconds or under I feel like it's it's a short race yes there's more muscle memory and power than it is yeah um but I got into the fun or IP beat again I won and I was like okay this is really cool it was like this is like the quickest quickest anyone had ever gotten um like for years quickest in Europe but also the quickest anyone as an S5 had done in absolutely years because again the world records were very quick but they hadn't no one had touched them in some of them even 20 years like no one had been anyone here them um I can't remember what was next it was either 200 or 100 but then I'll win another one and then I was like oh okay actually my fitness isn't too bad like this is actually pretty cool maybe Graham was right that maybe he was right that I could win all these um and then it was kind of like oh god I've got one left and I was like well I don't want to put too much pressure myself because I don't want to like you know get too stressed and anxious or not not win but also how cool would it be to win all three of my race because I only had three races how cool would it be to win or three of them um and then obviously it happens so I think that was the biggest thing for me is like oh well actually this is probably a way for cross-training actually works really well like I haven't swung very much at all but I've raced really well my fitness is really good and that's kind of like where I started to work at British swimming at first they weren't really that happy and weren't convinced and I had to buy a Garmin and wear a heart rate monitor every single session and then compare it to my swim heart rate data to prove that it actually has a cardiovascular benefit because I didn't believe it um but now they accept it as part of my training so it will be a hard thing but no it's it's become an integral part like a really important part especially pre-tokyo and Madeira in 21. um it's yeah it is literally the only way that I can be fit enough and especially like in blocks like normally winter training I train more on land like on the track than I do at the pool that's I love that one do you think so so when that that comes across to me in that brain do you think the the cross training would have been beneficial throughout do you think you really have to get that that nailed down of the swim first because obviously when you're out the pool you're not practicing the stroke and obviously you have to learn that muscle memory so would you obviously the cross training is clearly beneficial because I'm not going to argue with three World Championships um but do you think you could have had that same success doing that throughout or do you think you needed to have that Fearless women focus and then like would you would you recommend it as a more transitional thing to bring in as you grow with a sport I think it's better for like when I was younger I could easily cope with 20 hours a week in the pool but that was fine um I think it's more for you know athletes that are older lower classifications like the men that struggle to physically cope with the demand and you know because I think the issue when I was first classified as an S5 coaches were like well I know this but I'm from Germany and she does like 17K a week and you're only doing five and I'm like well yeah but she's got a spine injury it's different you know like her the part of the body that does works works normally like she can recover quicker um so it was kind of like trying to not be compared to other people that can be obviously everyone's different but especially for me and I think the years I think the reason it works is because I've got muscle memories from all the years like I started training I was eight um and I started ramping Up the Volume when I was 13. so I had like a good five six year blog of a crazy amount of meters um and I think that's given me a good Baseline because I can get fit really quickly um so I think if someone was coming into Sport and trying to cross track and I don't know how effective it would be but if someone like look at Adam Petey like with his broken ankle broken foot like it's proved like lockdown if you look at the athletes that actually did training during lockdown that did running cycling whatever I've got pools in the back Garden they competed way better at the Olympics Paralympics than the athletes did nothing like it does have an effect it definitely has an effect um and it made our transition when we're allowed back into training much smoother and easier so I think like you know if there's a time where you can't swim you've got an injury you decide to have surgery you've broken your foot or you know like me you've got dodgy shoulders because you've trained all these years and you're trying to protect your shoulders or like you know like sometimes swimmers can be like backs knees next if you've got an injury or like something that's prone to injury I think it's a really good thing to look into looking into cross-training and especially if your sport is causing you pain but there's got to be another way around it that's kind of for me like there's always another way um frame running for me has has been the other way and obviously cross-train is not going to work for everyone but if you've got an athlete that can't physically put in the hours that's needed to be as fit as they need to be then why not look at something else once again um you've smashed it you're doing that and now we're going to talk to we're going to talk about what I consider to be the haha I told you saw a moment for you which is everything's sort of called like come together we've had such adversity you've had initial success that you've had to work on you've been rewarded with that then like I said we had 2016 which was a horrible year for anybody to go through then you've had London European championships we get to Madeira and I'm just going to read this out for the listeners here so you competing at medira this is another world Champs you've we're doing three individual events of one mixed event your worst finish in the in the whole thing was second that was your worst finish in all of the races you did that weekend or that week how you broke three World Records and one of them like you said was 22 years old so that is ludicrous how how does it feel when I read that back to you crazy a lot unbelievable do you know how I know that you mean that because you have answered everything with so much detail in it and you just it's crazy uh there's only one word for it it's unheard of you don't really hear of an athlete go into a major chance I'm breaking a wood record all three of their individual races you don't hear people go in and you very rarely hear people doing and doing it in one never mind three yeah so that's how was that those that collection of days for you and then does it feel how did how did it feel break in the first world record and then how did it feel when you brought the third one after you just it was a weird mate for me because after Tokyo with the restructuring my coach Graham Smith was made redundant and I always I relied on him like I said earlier he knew what to say to me I relied on that too much and it was really difficult so that was like my first International not having him there and I kind of didn't really know what to do with myself like I was really struggling and I felt like I kind of felt like no one had my back like I really had to fight with myself um because originally I was supposed to be more relays and then because of my shoulder injury they withdrew me because again I had another injury unfortunately Like That season um I swung really well at the German open in Berlin and that was my first time and like since I first raced there 11 years before that I went back and so that was like an incredible experience so I'm really well broke a world record in the 53 and that was my first time in years racing without a physio support but without actually a physio soft tissue therapist being there so that was like a really big achievement for me unfortunately getting back we didn't have consistent coaches like one of my coaches made redundant we had um three coaches rotating trainers so there was a lack of communication and I wasn't rested after racing which for me is a massive thing to protect my shoulder so I ended up with quite a bad injury um and had to swim through it because again every day like every other day or every day sometimes it was a different coach so there wasn't that much that communication there wasn't the consistency of them seeing how much I was struggling um and because of the injury I was left behind from a training camp so we were supposed to go on a training camp for two weeks to Lanzarote and I'd already in February because I didn't go to trials I'd already spent a week at life for uni to try and I was scoping it out for next season for what like this was supposed to be the September just gone and um so the head coach was like why don't you just go to love for two weeks and I was like you know what okay like I got him really well with a coach there um one of the athletes there James Hollis like I met him in like 2011 so I'm doing really well and I was like you know what yeah I'll just go back to Loughborough you know that's fine go for two weeks yeah like obviously this engineer is pretty bad out of stero injection had to wait a week for it to settle before I could actually swim um and this coach was just he just reminds me so much of Graham like Gareth was amazing the Loughborough coach at the time like just got me like hadn't worked with that many power athletes before um had one S5 summer that he coached towards Tokyo um and that was kind of obviously James a higher classification athlete but not really had that much experience but he was willing to learn willing to listen and he actually let me have control and save my training which is what I was used to and obviously someone at my level I know what works and what doesn't obviously I want a coach's input and I need a coach's input but I also like to have my own input into my training and I wasn't getting that um and that's a big thing for me and basically after the two weeks I realized I've so much Karma I had away more energy because the PTSD and that's kind of what made me realize how much I still struggled in Manchester I never met a different environment my life is easier I could just feel better I could sleep better like it's just kind of crazy um and I just got on so well that I was like you know what I'm not going back so I just like I was really nervous had a zoom call and was like I don't want to come back to Manchester So the plan originally was for me to go back to Manchester and then after worlds I was supposed to spend a month in Loughborough as a trial and then if I like it move in September but I ended up staying there for 12 weeks instead um if it's the benefit for you it makes sense yeah obviously like going into Worlds um I Gareth was really good I bugged him like I messaged him and phoned him a lot while I was there just for a bit of like moral support but it was my first time since 2015 not having my coach at the meet and like when you're a sense your coaches at every single camera competition you go to so suddenly not having them there is really really difficult so that was kind of my biggest thing is like oh I've got no one here like I feel alone and obviously I wasn't like the other British women staff there like Gareth was there on the other end of the phone but I was just really nervous and I knew my fitness was really good because I'd done so much track work um and I've been working really well with a grouping like being a Loughborough like there's a group in Coventry wheelchair races so I was training with them and like I knew my fitness was as good as it had been in like probably better than it ever been to be honest like at least for the last six seven years um so I knew going in I had good chance of swimming well I it for me it was more I had to control emotions like I had to try and figure out how to cope without having that one person without having Graham there getting me in the right headspace so that was difficult and also knowing that I needed to protect my shoulder my shoulder wasn't in a great space and it was my first time of having to swim Heat Smart like purposely swimming slower in the heads and not caring if you get Lane four so obviously like the quicker because it's spearheaded the quickest goes in line four but like the biggest thing it was drilled intimate you don't need to be in lane four you only need to be like within the top four lanes if you're in if you're in the internet and it's a bit harder if you're in the top four lanes it doesn't matter so it was purposely swimming slightly in the heat to save my shoulder because swimming's slow it doesn't hurt my shoulder that much and then by the time I get into the final being all right because that was kind of the issue in Tokyo as I went flat out in the Heat and I was in so much pain that it wouldn't settle between Heats and finals and then because I was racing day one day two I was just in pain constantly the whole time it didn't settle so swimming slow Heats and fast finals actually work really well but it's so difficult when you've got like for me being a natural racer it's so difficult in front of you yeah yeah like letting people pass you and letting people turn quicker than you and it's just oh I hate it I hate it so much which I think is a good trick to have um are you like talking to yourself in the pool for like these small sections that are you like is crucifying this phone as well and like I don't swim down because I can't with warm-up racing and then you've got the finals as well it's too many meters for my shoulder to cope with especially when I've got a race multiple days in a row over a 10-day meet um so I can't swim down so then we tried something else so the new thing was having a really really slight scolding hot shower for 15 minutes and then having soft tissue to get rid of any of the remaining lactic there's like a flush um and that actually worked really well so like it was kind of weird it was kind of trying different things um and working with different people and but so again like it was it was a good learning experience for me like even at this age I'm still learning even at my experience um but yeah I was just I was so happy and like it was really that was really the eye opener to me that if I'm happy how look how much quicker I can swim and that's kind of when I knew that Loughborough was the right fit and that at some point I need to make a decision to actually move yeah all right I mean I I think this has been arguably I've been very lucky so I'm I'm not contractors or anything so I get to pick and choose who I speak to I get to pick and choose how long I take between episodes to bring them out this has been arguably one of the most inspirational informative I think just all around like it's it's dumbfounding to me all these things are going like you're talking about you're having these PTSD you're talking about these mental blocks that you're having as well as the physical disabilities that people see and don't see and people acknowledge but they don't really understand and when it all came to this head at Madeira and you got these World Records you got these goals you got everything it must be it must just be so rewarding and obviously you're not finished yet like you said your goal still to be paralympic I think like for me every time like win the gold in Tokyo was kind of like for me it was like well this is a great way to say thank you to everyone's helped me along the journey um and then again like breaking three world records in the Dira what better way is it to thank left for uni for taking me in and working with 12 weeks then breaking through odd records and for me unfortunately um Gareth moved on and he's now a lecturer but honestly he was such a good coach I was absolutely gutted but the fact that my last race like with him well I actually I raced in British summer championships and I did break World Records there I went even quicker however there weren't any drug testers there so they weren't the characters European records but they're not count as World Records um but you know obviously I broke them at World it just gives you a chance to break them again it was kind of like I mean Gareth doesn't care about his career he doesn't care about like himself looking good all he cares about is his athletes which is obviously what a good coach does but you know like what a great thing for him to have like the main thing I thought about was oh this is amazing for Gareth because he's got this he's going to have this on like his CV he ever tries to work at a swimming club again all right I love that I love I love that that's your thought going over there I think that I think that says a lot about you as a person as well and it says a lot about the bond you've grown with yeah because I think another thing that's present throughout this whole conversation we've been talking for 220 minutes and it's it's showing that you've been thankful for Gareth at every stage he's been in your journey and like he says I might be a lecturer but I imagine you'll still get a few phone calls every now and again when you're just in the word of advice yeah the other week um our race like just for Christmas our race at Colby and their long course meet and um I I've started I want to try and do the backstroke because I want more metal opportunities and more races because I used to all like the fifth the 100th Spirit used to my fun event I was always terrible at Sprint so I was a 400 freestyle and 200 medley swimmer basically um and 100 flight eventually um but I was always terrible at 100 free and the 100 free was the event I always entered I never meddled I sometimes didn't even find or when it was a fun event and I miss having that fun event so I was like oh I'll try it like I'll try and get back into backstroke again because I was doing it in 2018 but with the shoulder surgery and everything we we like to protect my shoulder we were just focused on freestyle and then I had some in so many years I didn't have a time so I couldn't race it um in like major meets because I don't have time in the rankings because I haven't raced it since mid-2080 so I raced it hoping like I kind of had in mind what time it wanted to go like I wanted to go under a minute um and preferably like I wanted to go like around 50 seconds I was like I'm pretty sure I can go between like 48 and 52 seconds and try and build up to get closer to like 46 45-ish by Paris um you know have it as a potential bronze medal event try and see if I can push for another medal not expecting a silver or a gold but you know if I could get bronze that's another metal like how cool is that and I raised it uh I went 42 seconds and I'm now ranked number two in the world by a good second from me in the third and number one it was point six of a second ahead of me and she's actually um a Turkish drummer who I'm really good friends with but one good thing is she's actually so nice to me and she sent me a message congratulating me which obviously doesn't always happen when you like to stop beating your friends um she doesn't usually some freestyle because she's an arm amputee so she's just legs um pretty much the opposite of each other but um I'm amputees where their just legs don't really usually do Sprint events because they've got a more advantage over the long distances with the turns in the kick off the balls um but she is a back stroker so she doesn't really do freestyle so I don't get to race against them much I'm like oh I guess a race against today now I'm like I'm like oh no she's gonna hate me but actually she's so nice but it's just I messaged Gareth like I just sent him a screenshot of that and a screenshot of the world rankings and put oops this was supposed to be a fun event I wish I could do things and get to second in the world and respond with oops so that is the perfect place to end the main body of this podcast because it sounds like I'm gonna get an excuse to bring you back on in a year or two time and discuss it all again because like I said I've had the most fun Sally this has been like I said truly inspirational eye-opening whatever you want to call it it's nine almost half an eight on a Sunday night and I'm ready to just go and run through a brick wall because you have inspired me endlessly so there's only two two segments with column segments left to get through before I can let you enjoy your Sunday evening the first one is when you looked a bit worried when I told you that we were first gonna do this this is called under the team bus very similar to quickfire all those minutes ago except this time instead of saying what your answer is you pick the person in the the teams that you've had over the years who most fits this description okay so nice easy one to start who's the most determined who has like wire Focus they could be three lens behind somebody instead I'm gonna win this race so Andy Mullen he's retired for now but um he's actually when I was struggling he's the one that helped me focus and realize how to get into race mode because I'd never seen anyone like him before like it doesn't matter what's going on his race mode is just insane I love that who's the biggest practical joker Tom Hamer he is sometimes it goes so far that's infuriating but it is generally pretty funny who's the most naturally gifted swimmer you've ever had in a group like who just cuts through water like a neck you know what we've gotten use from a poppy Medical on S14 she's incredible but absolutely incredible and she's still really young um and I don't know exactly how old she's under 18 so that's cool um she started training as a Manchester and she's already beaten the like the old girls but already starting to get up there she's going to be absolutely rapping like one to watch in a few years but Katie Ledecky standards have just yeah incredible I love that I love that so much who's the most clumsy who just always forgets things or drops the phone or oh my God she is like there was one that we have these tiny little Polar heart rate monitor sensors that are like the size of like slightly smaller 10p and dropped it down the you know sometimes pulls where the water goes over there she dropped it down the drain like that was great and it was never to be seen again foreign athletes but I have to say Andy again Andy would depart it all night go home get changed and like not even sleep and just go straight to training and then sleep after Michael Jordan meant that who has the best fashion sets who turns up with some pretty cool gear to be honest most of us just turned up in sloppy clothes like gym kid we don't really bother we don't really pay that much uh Zach Washington young it's still like tracksuits but he always comes in like fancy matching tracksuits so I'd probably say a bit more coordination yeah okay well let's make my next question who's got the worst questions so you can just answer all of you if you all just Chuck on whatever's first on the top of fire especially in the mornings it'd be all of us because we just check on joggers or like use gym kits if somebody tells me to be a pool for 5am I'm not really worried about what I'm wearing who's the most gullible like who just believes anything you tell them this is a tie between Leo O'Connell Ellie chalice foreign things you didn't talk about yourself who is the best dancer who just looks most comfortable on the Dance Floor I don't think I've seen any of them dance no no oh they all you didn't go to the club in Glasgow no okay well miss I was gonna ask you who the worst dancers it'd probably be Ellie Simmons or like and it's obviously spiritually but um La used to they used to do all these little like dance videos with Claire Cashmore and Charlotte Henshaw which but they buy food onto different sports um but they used to do loads of little dance videos like years ago like tick tock at least it was cool it was it was basically like Tick Tock existed I don't know what it was but it was like like literally like a tick tock I love that oh fine or whatever it was called yeah it was probably fine coming out uh who is the future coach like who just like they love to help and share wisdom and oh you're always free to say yourself if you do have that one thing you think one thing like I actually um I'm now an assistant coach for athletics but I can't think of anything worse of spending more time with my life at a poolside I don't want to be a coach no thanks uh I never really there's there's not really anyone at the minute I think so we're also focusing on careers there's not really any one I know of any minute there's actually that focused on coaching so I think there's one for the future focus on the hero now I was gonna ah that one's I will miss that one out that one's a bit more no yeah you know who's hard as Nails who just looks like they'd win in a fight if they ever gotten one uh of course I reached them yeah you asked that quickly he's pretty tall like big lad yeah yeah anybody that's six foot three I'm not I'm not fine I don't know who had a bad lockdown haircut like who came back in their mum has clearly tried to help them with the shears or something uh yeah it was hard to tell really like because I assume they're all wearing caps yeah the price that Ollie Holland it's probably like query he started training as a Manchester a bit and his hair he just let his hair grow so long it was just a bit bit did he go for the mullet did he know or did he just oh it was awesome but definitely the thing who is the biggest natural athlete you had like in the pool like somebody that's just you know they're just like an engine like you're doing you didn't condition it and they just don't stop Bethany first really she just goes for close for hours yeah I'm jealous there's some athletes that just really moan and more like fake leg almost break-ins they can like take a break and stuff she's never done that just straight on it does exactly what needs to be done I'm still jealous of her aptitude who has the best Tunes like when you're on the team box going to the meet who's who's playing the tunes so it was it's probably not really now now there's a lot of Crystal Tunes but it was only before we returned Ollie Holland are the best Tunes but it was it was a lot of beaver so it was some sometimes questionable but now it's like people like to play like heavy metal and Country and I'm just like no I think I'm bored with country I don't know if I need heavy metal yeah I'll send you about six songs it'll change your mind like Luke Combs called beer never broke my heart that will that will get you there like that especially that if you're ever going through a breakup you play that song you're like what is it was it people say that oh you're in like hot girl there or whatever it's called that's where you are by the end of it my heart last one who hugs the mirror the most after the meat like who knows they've got their big BBC interview coming up and they're taking like making sure every hair is okay in the mirror making sure there's a few of them okay uh I don't think Tom's about Tom used to be really bad Tom Hank but he's not as bad is that question young uh Ellie chalice uh just Applegate honestly there's loads like pretty much all the girls and like half the girls on the team and a few of them that is the end of under the team bus you you've absolutely smashed it you gave some great answers there no before I let you get on your way the final segment is all we have to get through now but this one's nice and easy I'll give you time for this one before you came on you've just won so at this point you're 800th School medal you're 900 School medal you've broken your own world record for the 400th time and you did this with blindfolds on just a bit of a challenge but you've now gone to celebrate you have to pick three songs to get the rest of the team ready for the night out and feeling groovy what three songs are you picking and why well to be honest I wouldn't care as much about the rest of the team they're more like what I want to like after you know like celebration songs yeah we're quite yeah quite right that's that's how it should be so one is I'm obsessed I'm not flying busted but I like like a celebration song is this is like happiness happiness is like one of their newest songs and that's like I think that just you know it has to be um another one is reach the Stars escort so my friend friends went into Athletics but she developed Estonia so she has both shoulders fused so both of us used to sing and dance to this and neither of us can reach a short Hearts we used to a little like a little dancer but like reach because like we can't reach them ahead and like it was kind of hilarious it was just like that's always my go-to like celebrations it's just we envision like um all of us this does say like they and our friends they they can't listen to that song without just bursting out laughing because they were a little dance because they can't reach so that that has to be like a celebration song otherwise we've got happiness before I reached the Stars by S Club [Music] um I don't probably get high hopes from a panic at the Disco yeah great song I love that song I like happy positivity yeah yeah I'd be ready for a NATO after that you smashed it especially S Club yeah right before uh before we get on your way totally working my wonderful lovely listeners follow you to keep up with your story as it unfolds uh so either on Twitter or Instagram is at totally underscore Kearney and Twitter is just at telekony amazing and all those links will be in the description of this YouTube video of this audio platform Spotify Apple you name it now all that we need to do is you love the listeners share it tell your friends this is a brand new Rebrand so I need to get myself out there get people to recognize the name allows me to get brilliant guess on like tally here I've had the most wonderful time like I said share tell your mom tell your dog tell your dad tell your brother tell anybody so sometimes you walk past in the street go I had a great podcast with Tyler currently MBE last night you should listen to it too thank you guys so much this is going to be another series 10 episodes weekly starting from today 10 weeks wonderful variety of yes everyone I gave you the sneak peek at Gregor Sweeney's gonna be on here soon so you're gonna have to listen to that if you want to hear about how the butterfly should be done without somebody that fuses both their shoulders and decides they're still going to try it I am so thankful for you all Tully Kearney MBE this has been truly inspirational thank you guys so much for listening goodbye