A Steph up to life after sport

How do you replace the roar of the crowd? The thrill of the chase? The rush of victory? How does one come back to civilian mode after working with such single-minded intensity and focus for sporting excellence their entire life?

As an athlete, especially the ones in individual sports, it’s not easy to walk away from the only thing they have ever known, and find a place in society. A sort of re-learning process to attune yourself to the world. It took her a couple of years, but Australian Olympic swimmer Stephanie Rice has unearthed the secret to life after sport. And for that, she had to first find the right questions that needed answering.

“The biggest hurdle in overcoming life after sport is (finding) who is Stephanie Rice as a person? You have only ever known Stephanie Rice as a swimmer. So to not be an athlete and to not compete, you just have this big identity struggle of who am I? That’s a very big self-discovery and transition that you have to go through,” remarks Rice.

“Because you have trained your mind to focus on this one thing. We haven’t really trained the other side of that to just be able to say, ‘OK, now I’m going to focus on this and feel good about it.’ What is hard now is figuring out how do I get that again through a different vehicle. I found that it took me two years just to figure out what I am passionate about outside of swimming.”

With three olympic gold medals, and world records on all, at 19 in Beijing, the gorgeous Australian has touched the pinnacle of her sport. A single-minded pursuit of glory that started as a child, culminated at the age of 25. A career that ends at an age where the rest of world are just kicking off theirs. “I didn’t start swimming and next day, I was going to be in the Olympics. There are a lot of things that need to happen before that. So you do that very young and you are very ahead of your peers. And when you finish at 24-25, all your peers are now in front because of University, job, they may have bought a home and you are starting again. But in actual fact, you have had this whole life. That was hard, yes,” the 28-year-old recalls.

The Australian has found the balance now. She has her yoga, kids’ swimwear company, books on holistic health and motivational speaking, all in her repertoire. All driven by her passion and desire to inspire and be a role model. The very same reasons why she picked up competitive swimming. And just as she was during her time in the pool, Rice is eager to push the boundaries and reach uncharted territories. “I would love to do a Bollywood movie,” she stresses with a beaming smile, adding, “I don’t know Hindi. I tried for a couple of months, but... all I can say is namaste. I am huge fan of Bollywood. For me it’s about the positivity that comes from the movie, not much about the story. That dancing and all, I love that.”