Reid ready to take plunge again after heartbreak of Olympics
Scot defending title after rekindling love for diving
The photos will always be there. Dotted around her parents’ house in edinburgh. Available on her phone via a Google search. Grace Reid has the memories, too, even if they now seem a long time ago.
She was just 14 when Delhi hosted the Commonwealth Games. A baby-faced assassin-inthe-making stepped gently into the spotlight and the Scottish public embraced her.
A dozen years on, all grown-up and a veteran of the big stage, Reid is once again ready to take the plunge into the diving pool for a fourth time at this event and defend her one-metre springboard title.
The clock is ticking now on a career that has brought one of Sportsmail’s Ones To Watch from Glasgow 2014 two world championship medals and a pair of european titles, plus two trips to the Olympics and the dreams they fulfil. But Birmingham can be a place for happy memories, too. The Commonwealths is where her leap into international competition truly began.
‘It’s just such a special occasion, every four years, to represent Scotland,’ said Reid. ‘When you don’t have it for a couple of years, you forget. And then once you’re part of Team Scotland again, you’re like: “Oh, this is why it’s so special”. And there really is nothing like it.
‘But it’s been different this time. I missed the big team day a few weeks ago. So it didn’t really feel real to me. But now I’m in the prep camp with the whole aquatics team, it is starting to feel much more real.’
Reid remains an exile further south in London. A tale of two cities, with regular flits home to invest in completing her degree at the University of edinburgh.
her set-up at Stratford’s Aquatic Centre has undergone considerable upheaval since a Tokyo Olympics where she finished an underwhelming 19th in the 3m springboard and sixth in the synchro.
head coach Jane Figueiredo has taken a lead from her other star pupil Tom Daley and disappeared on an extended sabbatical.
There was the shock last October when David Jenkins, one of her key lieutenants, died suddenly at the age of 31.
Alex Rochas has stepped up to lead the group. It has offered a fresh voice in the post-Games reset.
Yet there was, Reid reveals, a few months last autumn where she asked herself the question of whether she still wanted to carry on diving when the fun had fizzled out and left her flat.
‘Tokyo, obviously, was really disappointing,’ she admitted. ‘And I think it took some time to figure out whether I wanted to come back to the sport. That was quite a long process, figuring out if I wanted to move forward.
‘And it started off really with them asking if I wanted to come and join the team, just to do fitness stuff, not diving-based work. And I said: “Ok, maybe I’ll try that”. And I gradually found I was enjoying diving again. But it was a very slow burn back to it.’
But here she goes again, targeting the Paris 2024 Olympics when it will surely be time to try for the biggest splash of her life and then file the snapshots away.
Already, there’s been returns on her renewed investment with a bronze from June’s world championships in the mixed 3m synchro in the company of her childhood chum at edinburgh’s Commonwealth Pool, James heatly.
It all feels, Reid says, like she’s flying upwards once again. ‘even before that, things I was doing were quite positive. At the Scottish champs in December, I got the consideration mark for the Commonwealths straight out the gate. And then I won nationals in January. each competition I had, I was finding that consistency again. And then worlds being such an important event and on a big stage again, to have that result off the back of having a really good run up to it, was really positive.’
Another gold at the Commonwealths would lift her mood still. her Australian rivals have been training on her home turf in edinburgh but it is Canada’s Mia Vallee who poses the meanest threat. Reid knows eyes are on her to step up and perform. Success here could be the springboard to a late chase for further medals but she plans to stop for a moment and take in the view.
‘The biggest thing for me this year was to enjoy my sport and to feel that I was progressing again,’ she said. ‘And that’s sort of where I’m at, at the moment. I’m just enjoying being in that space and the results are taking care of themselves as they have done previously.
‘It would be lovely if I would replicate things and retain the title. But actually, a year ago, I just wasn’t sure I wanted to be in the sport anymore. And if I look at where I am now, that in itself is a huge achievement.’