‘Washing machine’ has Chris spinning
CHRIS MEARS said his life was changed on Wednesday night — by a washing machine. The 23-year-old and his synchronised partner Jack Laugher have nicknamed a fiendishly difficult history-making dive they performed after the household appliance.
It was the first time a synchro pair had tried a forward two-and-a-half somersault with three twists and against the odds they executed it perfectly, going on to win Great Britain’s first ever diving gold.
Mears predicted it would be lifetransforming for both.
‘It was always going to be a risk for us putting the washingmachine dive in because it was such a high degree of difficulty,’ said Mears. ‘None of the other pairs tried it apart from the Russians and they really didn’t have a good day at the office, probably because it wasn’t as successful for them.
‘But for us to go in there so cool-headed and get that down was just a relief and once we’d done that we knew we would have a medal round our necks but we didn’t know it would be gold.’
Mears lives with Laugher in an apartment near where they train at the City of Leeds Diving Club and will wait until his best friend has finished competing in the three-metre individual event before properly celebrating. But he thinks their rivals made the mistake of underestimating them. ‘A lot of people don’t take Jack and me seriously because we joke so much but this proves that close friendships and hard work pay off. ‘There will be differences to our lives because it is a life-changing experience. I’m going to be a much more confident individual in whatever I go into after my diving career now because nobody can take away the fact I’m an Olympic champion.’ Few have had to battle as ferociously as Mears just to make it to Rio, let alone win an Olympic title. In 2009 he contracted EpsteinBarr virus, which led to the removal of his spleen and he was given only a five per cent chance of survival. He pulled through, but after being discharged had a seven-hour seizure, which resulted in a threeday coma and a month-long stay in
14 NATIONS have won an Olympic diving gold medal. Britain have one gold, two silvers and five bronzes.
hospital. He has also suffered the trauma of his birth mother dying from cancer and last year the loss of his grandmother.
‘My mum died when I was two years old and I think that’s probably where I’ve gained a lot of my fighting spirit from,’ he said. ‘Even though I was too young to remember, it’s something I still carry with me very closely. I always keep my chin up and that experience has made me stronger, not weaker.
‘My friends used to call me the unluckiest guy in the world and I’ve been very unfortunate with illness throughout my life but everything fitted into place perfectly in the final and maybe it was all building up to that moment.’
When Mears released a calendar featuring topless pictures of
himself last year his website crashed three times. He bears obvious similarity in looks to his friend Tom Daley and is also a gay icon who was voted No 21 on Attitude Magazine’s Hot 100 list, though he is straight himself. His popularity and marketability are certain to increase. ‘My UK fanbase is 70 per cent gay and the rest are teenage girls,’ he said.
‘I’m a bit of a thing in Mexico, too, but my fanbase there is 60 per cent girls and 40 per cent guys. I think guys love the Speedos. They absolutely love Tom and him coming out as gay brought a lot of that attention to it.’
After the Olympics have finished, Mears, whose passion away from diving is producing electronic music, will spend two months in Los Angeles working on a new album. He will meet up with his friend Nicole Scherzinger, the popstar with whom he shares an agent.
‘I will be seeing Nicole out there and a bunch of other producers and writers and trying to get all my stuff finalised,’ he said.
‘I’m going to be writing and producing music and doing lots of DJ sets. After that it will be back to the pool to see where I am physically. It’s all very exciting.’