Diving headfirst back into life
Shaye Boddington was 17 when she gave up diving because she couldn’t stand the way she looked in her togs.
More than 14 years later, the Aucklander has overcome bulimia and stepped back on to the platform.
She will be one of four divers representing New Zealand at the Fina World Championships in Budapest in Hungary this month.
Her ultimate goal is to compete in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
She was just 10 when she became bulimic, and suffered from the disorder until the age of 20. Now fully recovered, she is back chasing her dreams.
She claimed the top spot in the Women’s Fina Open 1m Springboard at the eighth Singapore National Diving Championships in June.
Boddington has been training six times a week at West Wave Pool and Leisure Centre in Henderson for the past eight months, with coaches Cordelia Norris and former British Olympic dive team coach Steve Gladding.
“I really just gave it another go out of curiosity. I didn’t have any record of that time.”
She ended up back at the pool because she went to there to get photos of herself to show her daughter, Boddington said.
The 31-year-old will be competing in the synchronised diving category with young Olympian Elizabeth Cui.
Looking back to when she quit diving, Boddington said it was difficult to get better from her disorder while diving. “Every day when I put on those togs I didn’t feel good. I had very low self-esteem.
“It took everything for me to get well.
“It was like an addiction, full of bad habits. I had to develop a lot of strategies and work on self-love.”