Mears’ quest for gold driven by drama and heartache
Defending champion tells Sam Dean how a brush with death gave him the hunger to carry on diving
Chris Mears is not afraid to keep things simple. Ask him, for example, how preoccupied he is with the prospect of adding a second Commonwealth gold to his sizeable collection of medals, and you will receive a straightforward reply. “I haven’t really given it a second thought,” he says. “I’m a diver, and I like diving.”
The answer is indicative of how relaxed Mears is ahead of his Commonwealth title defence, but it is not entirely true. At least, it was not true for much of the past two years. Yes, Mears is a diver. But he has not always liked diving.
“If I was to write down on a piece of paper who I am as a person, the first thing I would put down would be positive mental drive,” he says. “I lost that for a year or so.”
For a time, Mears was unhappy and lacked motivation. Having so memorably won an Olympic gold medal in Rio, alongside his partner Jack Laugher, he then began to question whether he had peaked too soon. At the age of 23, he had reached the summit of his sport and fulfilled his greatest ambition. He had scaled such heights that he worried not just that the only way was down, but that there was also a long, long way for him to fall.
“A lot of people will refer to that feeling as the post-Olympic blues,” he says. “It took me quite a long time to come around. Most of it revolves around the fact that I had already achieved the highest accolade possible, so what am I doing now? What am I aiming for? Is that the best I am ever going to feel in my life? That’s where my head was at.”
It was a difficult time, and it presented a new obstacle for a man who has had no shortage of challenges to overcome. His mother died of cancer when he was three, while nine years have passed since he was given a five per cent chance of survival after rupturing his spleen in Sydney. That was followed by a seven-hour seizure, which resulted in a three-day coma. “Everything I have dealt with has built my character,” he says. “Losing my mother, even though I was so young and unable to process it, that gives me a lot of strength, knowing that she is watching over me. I feel protected.
“The stuff that went down in Australia, that turned me from a little boy with a bit of talent into a hardworking individual that will stop at nothing to get what I need and what I want. It really gave me my mental focus. Without these things, I would not be sitting here now.”
The knowledge that he has been through worse, and emerged stronger each time, has allowed Mears to rediscover his passion for diving after it deserted him following the Rio Games. “I have my focus back,” he told Telegraph Sport before flying to the Gold Coast, where on Friday he and Laugher defend their title in the synchronised 3m springboard.
“The underlying thing that has helped me, and what I really learnt from that Australian experience, is that it does not get worse than that. It’s all up from there. All these experiences I have been through, they have helped me grow as a person. They have only made me more determined to be successful at what I do.”
Mears now aims to use his experiences to aid others who are struggling with their mental health, and recently took part in a campaign in which he encouraged people to leap from a 10m diving board.
“It gives me a lot of power to think that I was able to help someone,” he says. The feeling is that there will be more of that to come in the future, but there is also likely to be plenty more of Mears in the public eye. Already he produces music – pop and hip-hop – and he has plans to release his own material once his diving career is finished. “I am building in the background,” he says. “Hopefully you will soon get to hear some stuff.”
Not that he intends to become a recluse, but any attempt to shrink from the limelight will be made much harder by the legions of adoring fans who eagerly await his latest photoshoot or Instagram post. Such is Mears’s heart-throb status, the website that sold his calendar crashed twice when it was made available for purchase. “That’s cool, yeah,” he says with a laugh. “Although I would never ever consider myself a model.
“I am very comfortable with all of that. I stand in front of a lot of people and perform dives, and obviously my work attire is Speedos. I guess it goes hand in hand. The only time I ever felt awkward was the first competition I ever did, when I was around eight years old. Because I have done it since I was so young, I just feel completely at home.”
He will look at home in the Gold Coast, too, now that the burden on his mind has been eased. Out there, he hopes to return to his comfort zone and, to put it simply, enjoy his diving again.
‘It gives me a lot of strength knowing that my mother is watching over me’
Chris is an ambassador for Chase Your Dream, No Matter What, Bridgestone’s Worldwide Olympic partnership campaign in the UK. To find out more visit nomatterwhat.uk.com