Grace keen to use past experiences as a springboard
GRACE REID has admitted her expectations will be much higher if she can qualify for a second Olympic Games in Tokyo.
The 24-year-old is aiming to follow up eighth place in Rio in 2016 by winning a first Olympic diving medal next summer in the 3metre springboard.
She told Metro: ‘It’s different this time. It was a dream come true in Rio but that wasn’t enough for me and you change your expectation the second time around.
‘This time I’m asking myself, “What is it you want to do?” and there is another element of pressure that wasn’t there before, but it is exciting.’
Reid also competes in the 10m mixed synchro with double Olympic medallist Tom Daley, as well as with Kat Torrance in the mixed synchro, but that event will not be part of the programme in Japan.
The Scot moved to London in 2017 to train alongside the likes of Daley but relocated to Edinburgh during lockdown after being unable to work in the pool. Reid added: ‘There were definitely ups and downs – days I didn’t feel motivated to train.
‘But I look back on it as a time to reset and digest and not go 100 miles-an-hour. I
came off social media and had a digital detox. My old school let me borrow crash mats to do somersaults and handstands on.’
National Lottery-funded Reid, one of more than 1,100 elite athletes on UK Sport’s world-class programme, describes her partnership with Daley as fun and that he ‘jokes about being the oldest on the team at 26’.
‘We have a laugh. We put on dance music and joke around,’ she said.
‘He put diving on the map and I still meet kids who say, “One day I want to be like Tom Daley”.’