“A lot of the time, when I swim, I close my eyes because it is definitely lonely,” Ellie Simmonds says as she considers the emotional, physical and psychological demands she endures in the pool year after year. Simmonds has won eight medals, and five of them are gold, at three Paralympic Games but she should be praised most for her honesty in addressing the brutal rituals of swimming and the sometimes damaging environment of elite sport.
She should be commended for the fact that, in a Paralympic and Olympic year, she stands up for herself and her teammates in an often isolating atmosphere that has pushed her to the brink of retirement and which, even now in this interview, can make her eyes fill with tears.
Simmonds was born with achondroplasia, a genetic disorder that means she is only four feet tall, but her presence is striking as soon as we meet in north London. “Swimming takes so much out of you,” she says. “I’m up at half four in the morning and I try to be in bed by half nine. Those are not social hours and trying to be a normal 25‑year‑old is really tough. Your friends and family know you’re a professional swimmer, but they don’t always understand the demands. It’s not just about the two-hour sessions in the pool. It’s also about what you eat, your sleep, rest, recovery, physio. All of it is time-consuming.
“I’m currently training nine times a week in the water and that’s excluding the gym work and yoga. On a typical Monday I swim from six until 8am. I go from there to the gym and do a session from nine until half 10. I get home about 11ish. Take a nap and have lunch. Swim from half three to half five. I get home at half six. Have dinner. Monday to Fridays I’m practically an athlete every hour of the day. I try and socialise a little on the weekends. Of course each training session in the pool changes. This morning it was threshold tests so it’s about working for a long time at high intensity. Last night was sprint-based.”
The 2020 Paralympic Games begin in Tokyo on 25 August and so, less than eight months from competition, Simmonds summarises her typical day in cheerful detail. She is happy to work hard in pursuit of a sixth gold medal – but it is far more difficult when the training environment is sour. Simmonds stresses how content she is now, reunited with her old coach Billy Pye. But four years ago, before and then during the Rio Games, Simmonds hit her lowest point.
“I didn’t enjoy Rio. My teammates were great but some of the staff made it a really negative place. It’s hard when you go to an environment and you don’t want to be there. That’s why I had a year out afterwards because I needed to get away from swimming.”
Simmonds had already come close to quitting. “I spoke to my parents and my agent a year before Rio. I was like: ‘I don’t want to do this. I want to get away.’ They said: ‘Just grit your teeth for a year. Then you can have your break. And if you want to retire, you can retire then.’ I was in tears. I just hated it.”
It says a lot about Simmonds that she still won gold and bronze in 2016. “That was just grim determination,” she says. “And the Paralympics is something else. Performing in front of a big crowd gives you that extra oomph.”
Does the adversity preceding Rio make her gold medal in the 200m individual medley feel more special? Simmonds shakes her head. “I don’t really remember much. I don’t watch my Rio races back. I’ll look at my London 2012 races a lot. But not Rio.”
Why did those Paralympics hurt her so much? “It was the staff,” she says. “There were some not very nice people in the [coaching] team.”
Simmonds is so upset she begins to cry. We stop the interview and, while we talk off the record, I understand how corrosive the atmosphere must have been. It is also understandable that Simmonds does not want to divulge details now, as her focus must be on Tokyo, but it is clear she will eventually speak on the record so no future Paralympic coaches will cause such distress to their athletes.
After Simmonds composes herself, I ask if, as one of the senior figures in the last Paralympic cycle, she had been able to challenge her former coaches? “It’s hard. When you’re in a team you’ve got hierarchies – staff who put you down – and it is hard to have a voice. I’m lucky my teammates were so supportive. We were all in it together and we supported each other.”
It sounds as if the Paralympians were bullied before 2016? “Oh, for sure. We were professional athletes. The youngest in our group was 17.”
The atmosphere surrounding the GB Paralympic swimmers now seems positive and healthy and Simmonds lights up when talking about Pye as her coach again. She has also joined Team Speedo, alongside British swimmers including Siobhan-Marie O’Connor, Duncan Scott, Ollie Hynd and Freya Anderson, in an arrangement where there are training and sponsorship advantages.
“We’ve got really good athletes both on the Paralympic and the Olympic side. I’ve worn Speedo since I was a kid and when they asked me to join I was delighted. From Monday to Wednesday I train with [Team Speedo] in Camden. Thursday, Friday, Saturday I’m at the aquatic centre with Billy. I get the best of both worlds.”
Pye has transformed Simmonds’ mood. “One-to-one training with Billy is really good because he knows me so well. He coached me [to four gold medals] in Beijing and London and, like Billy says, a happy swimmer is a fast swimmer. It sounds deep but we’ve only got one life, and you’ve got to enjoy what you do. That’s really important – especially in swimming as it’s so demanding. If you don’t want to do it, what’s the point? I love what I do now and I’ve got a great team around me. I’m lucky I’ve been able to take control, as an older athlete, and pick who I work with.
“Billy was a miner before he was a coach. He’s the happiest guy ever. He’s never grumpy because when he wakes up he doesn’t think coaching is his job. He loves it. Having that kind of person around makes you happy. I radiate that. If someone’s positive, it gets me happy and positive and I perform so much better.”
When she had such a tough time in 2015 and 2016, while Pye was working in China, did they speak often? “I did and he was always there for me. It was hard him being in China and hard for me to fully open up. I also think when you’re in the moment you try to toughen up. All of us [swimmers] were putting our shields up and not expressing how bad it actually was. When you’re in it, you just think it’s normal.”
Happiness is the new normal for Simmonds and on Monday she flew with the GB squad to Japan for three weeks. “We’re going to the same place where our holding camp will be before the Tokyo Games. It’s a chance to get used to the environment and the start of a really busy period as I’m racing in Italy in February. In March, there is a training camp in Lanzarote. April is trials for Tokyo. In May I’ve got the Europeans in Madeira.”
Simmonds made her winning Paralympic debut at the age of 13 in Beijing. She has been swimming at this elite level ever since – apart from when she took a year-long break in 2017. She spent most of her time away travelling in South Africa, Australia, America and China. “I had been so used to my life being only about swimming. I was so ready to be free from that routine, and figure out what I wanted to do. Lots of people know me as Ellie Simmonds the swimmer. I was ready then, at 21, to figure out what else I was in life.
“It was about my whole identity and it changed me hugely. Travelling gives you confidence and opens you up to the real world. When I was younger I would want the next designer bag. But when you travel and meet other people – especially some countries where they don’t have as much as you – it really makes you think. You don’t need the next iPhone.
“Going into Rio, swimming for me had been life or death. If I didn’t swim well it was like the end of the world. The year off gave me perspective that swimming is just something I should love. If it doesn’t go right, it’s not the end of the world. When I came back I remember sitting with my agent and my parents and thinking: ‘Shall I retire? Or carry on?’ But I thought: ‘Let’s give it one more shot.’”
Simmonds would like to become a teacher one day, after travelling much more, but will she retire after Tokyo? “I was thinking of retiring today actually,” she says with a smile. “But it changes all the time. Last week, when I was with the British team, I thought: ‘I love this. Why not do another four years after Tokyo? But then there are times when your friends are doing things and I’m like: ‘I want to get away but I can’t because of training.’”
She is such a fierce competitor that Simmonds will be fully concentrated in the buildup to Tokyo. “For sure. It’s all about the mind and believing in yourself. I just want to go to Tokyo now. I’ve got to nail it in the trials because going to a fourth Games will be special. Then I’ll re-evaluate and set new goals for Tokyo.
“People say: ‘Oh, you’ve got more experience.’ But it’s much harder now because you can overthink things. You can feel the pressure more. When you’re 13 or 17 you just go out there and race. But I want to truly focus on swimming, free from stress outside the pool. I am in a good position again. When training’s going really well, or I know I can achieve something, my self-belief is so high. And, when I believe I can do it, I know I’m unstoppable.”