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