Rebecca Adlington: 'It's bizarre stepping into a world where I'm just a girl'

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/aug/24/rebecca-adlington-interview-olympic-gold-beijing

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Not long ago, Rebecca Adlington was swimming in her local pool. She was wearing her hat and goggles and when she came to the end of her session, an elderly man stopped her.

"He went: 'Ooh, you're good. You should join a club,'" says Adlington, laughing. "And I was like, 'Thanks'." She clicks her fingers and wiggles her shoulders. "Yeah," she says, in a diva‑ish parody of self-approbation. "Still got it!"

One has to assume the man in question didn't recognise Adlington as Britain's most decorated female swimmer – a woman who, at the age of 19, stormed the Beijing 2008 Olympics, winning two gold medals, in the 400- and 800-metre freestyles, and breaking a world record in the process. In her post-race interviews, Adlington seemed as stunned as the rest of us – at once both charming and guileless; relatable and real. People loved her. The term "national treasure" was used.

On her return from China, a crowd of 15,000 well-wishers turned out to welcome her back to her home town of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. The mayor presented her with a £460 pair of Jimmy Choo shoes.

Four years later, at London 2012, Adlington won two bronzes in the same events. On the podium, receiving her medal for the 800 metres, she burst into tears when the crowd chanted her name. In February 2013, she announced her retirement from professional swimming at the age of 23. By then, she was famous – a regular presence on the annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year shortlists and recognised on the street by passersby who would call out "Hiya Becky" as if they knew her.

She was young, blond and in the public eye. It was, then, perhaps inevitable that she would end up eating witchetty grubs in the Australian jungle as one of the contestants in ITV's reality show I'm a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! in November 2013.

These days, at the grand old age of 25, Adlington's transition to modern stardom seems almost complete – she is getting married this month to fellow swimmer Harry Needs, and has sold the rights to her wedding to Hello! magazine. An email from her publicist warns me that any detailed questions about the nuptials are strictly off-limits so as not to infringe the exclusivity deal.

When Adlington arrives for our interview, she is accompanied by her agent, an obliging Australian called Rob who is sporting a red polo shirt emblazoned with the logo of "Becky Adlington Swim Stars" – an initiative she set up last year to teach more children to swim. They are mid-conversation and the topic under discussion is clearly The Wedding That Shall Not Be Discussed and the danger of a guest snatching a photograph and jeopardising the Hello! deal.

"So they won't be able to get a photo?" Adlington asks Rob loudly as they walk through the doors of a Best Western hotel near Wilmslow in Cheshire. Rob murmurs something inaudible.

"One of my uncles is a bouncer," continues Adlington, her voice rising above the lounge music being piped into the lobby. "He has got no problems asking someone to leave."

She takes a seat on a faux-leather banquette in the restaurant area. Her long blond hair is straightened and she is wearing a blue top, a statement necklace and her wrist is circled with brightly coloured loom band bracelets. She is less friendly than I had imagined. Maybe because I got so used to seeing her emote on national television, I assumed she would be just as open in person. But today she seems guarded, even a touch frosty.

We start by talking about Becky Adlington Swim Stars – or "Bass", as she refers to it (which leaves open the prospect of an open-water version called "Sea Bass" at some point in the future). Adlington set up the scheme shortly after her retirement, spurred on by the realisation that "a million kids leave primary school not being able to swim, which is shocking… We ask people, 'Do you want to learn the Becky way?'" she says, without blinking. Occasionally, speaking to Adlington can feel a bit like talking to a motivational guru. She started seeing a sports psychologist after Beijing and her conversation is peppered with expressions like "focusing on the now".

"The Becky way" turns out to be a matter of training teachers properly, ensuring there is a maximum of six pupils to every class and rewarding children who tidy away the equipment after lessons.

"Because sport has given me so much more than just the ability to swim," says Adlington, sipping on sparkling water. "It's also about teaching teamwork, friendship and kindness."

But didn't she once admit that she was "selfish" in the pool and that was what made her a successful competitor?

"I think everyone has that. It's the whole Beyoncé thing, where she says she becomes Sasha Fierce on stage. It's not a split personality or anything like that," Adlington adds, hastily. "It's just a different attitude. In the pool, I would think: 'I've got a job to do. I can't let anyone get in my way.' Swimming isn't a team sport. Only you can touch that block, only you can get the time… I kind of knew it was my responsibility… You just have to be selfish, but then outside the pool, I'm not at all. When I was in the pool and I wanted to do well, it was 'Get out of my way'. When I was out of the pool, it was 'Hiya! How are you?'"

Adlington, the youngest of three girls, started learning to swim at the age of three. On holiday, she always wanted to copy what her older sisters were doing, and would hurl herself into the pool without so much as a second thought.

"I had no fear, and my mum said: 'We have to put her into lessons, because this is a bit dangerous.'"

To begin with, she was taught at her local pool in Mansfield, Sherwood Baths – "it's been renamed the Rebecca Adlington Swimming Centre," she says.

So does she get in for free now? She looks at me blankly.

"I don't live in Mansfield anymore."

Adlington was always a strong swimmer, but it wasn't until 2005 that she really began to focus on the sport. Her middle sister, Laura, contracted encephalitis – an inflammation of the brain – at the age of 17 and almost died. Laura was put in an induced coma and spent seven days in intensive care, followed by six weeks in hospital.

"Swimming became my escape," says Adlington and, immediately, the guardedness drops. At once, it feels as if she is talking from the heart, rather than a sports psychology manual. "It was where I got to go to be a normal 16-year-old rather than being in hospital all the time. People just treated me exactly the same, which I loved. Probably it resulted in why I worked so hard and why it became a safe place for me."

Laura is now fully recovered, married with a young son. And Rebecca, of course, went on to become an Olympic gold medallist at the age of 19. How did she cope with the sudden fame?

"I think it was the hardest thing," she says. "I didn't expect to get a gold, so I didn't even have an agent or a manager and I came home into this whirlwind of everyone wanting to take a photo and people looking at you in the street… It's quite a weird thing. I think you deal with it as you go along. I think you just get on with it, surrounding yourself with people that matter, who love you that you can turn to."

When she came away from the 2012 London Olympics with two bronze medals (beaten into submission in the 800m by the 15-year-old American wunderkind Katie Ledecky) there was – unfairly – a sense of national disappointment that Britain's golden girl hadn't quite delivered.

"I really hate the way people said: 'Oh, it's such a shame you only got that bronze medal.' What? I won a bronze medal! That's what annoys me. As an athlete, I didn't lose. I didn't come last. I was third in the world at something. That's an achievement."

But the aftermath was difficult. There was an uneasy transition from professional athlete to life as a semi-celebrity. Comments were made about the way she looked. She was trolled on Twitter. The comedian Frankie Boyle taunted her for having "a dolphin's face" and said that she resembled "someone looking at themselves in the back of a spoon". When she went on I'm a Celebrity, Adlington was shown having a tearful meltdown about her body insecurities after comparing herself unfavourably with her fellow contestant, Amy Willerton, a model and former Miss Universe contestant. Adlington's plight provoked a public outcry and a debate in the House of Lords.

Today, she says the conversation with Willerton "was so edited" and that she bears Boyle no malice: "I just think that's comedians. I can't say, hand on heart, I haven't laughed at something they've said about someone else. It was funny at the end of the day."

She remains on Twitter because she likes interacting with people but she won't read gossipy articles about herself and "I do not ever read the [online] comments. Do not scroll down… They're just always all horrible."

Still, she is rumoured to have undergone a nose-job, which suggests that the attention paid to her physical appearance must, on some level, have been hard to take.

"It was pretty incredible," Adlington concedes. "As an athlete, you always look on your body as your power. I never looked at it thinking: 'Am I feminine? Am I girly? Do I have the right clothes?' Poolside, instead of thinking, 'Hasn't she got a nice bum or boobs?', we'd be thinking, 'Oh my God, she is in shape. She looks like she's going to tear it up.'

"It's then bizarre stepping outside that world into a world where I'm just a girl and I don't have to look at whether I'm strong anymore… [After retiring] I had the muscle and I kept eating even though I wasn't training. So I had 90% muscle, then put 50% fat on and my muscle definition was slowly going… I'd say it took about a year for it to settle down and for my appetite to go down. I was starving! I used to eat six Weetabix for breakfast and four sandwiches for lunch."

These days, she only swims for pleasure ("it's my de-stress time") and is "really into nutrition". She delivers a mini-monologue on the power of eating avocados and home-made granola, washed down with coconut water. Her fiance, who is three years younger than her and with whom she lives in Manchester, is a personal trainer and keeps her on the straight and narrow.

"He'll say: 'Do you really need to eat that whole chocolate bar?'"

That sounds irritating, I say.

"No, it's helpful. He'll say: 'Just have four squares.' And in the gym, it means I have my own personal trainer on hand." She pauses. "If I didn't, I'd find the gym so boring I'd want to kill myself."

We both laugh. It feels like this is the real Adlington – funny, plain-spoken and honest. She says she doesn't think of herself as a celebrity but rather as "famous for doing something". She sold her wedding to Hello! because "it's nice that I can say, 'These are the pictures', and share them with people." She recently joined the commentary team for the Commonwealth Games, which she enjoyed. She says she remains "100% real".

And yet there is part of her that clearly likes being in the limelight – hence the red carpet appearances, the glossy magazine deals and the reality television (originally, she wanted to be on Strictly Come Dancing but the producers turned her down).

All of this means we think we know her. But of course we don't, not really. And at the age of 25, having spent the best part of two decades as a competitive swimmer, perhaps Rebecca Adlington is only just working out who she really wants to be as well.