Melissa Wu: on Family, her Coach and the Olympics

Melissa Wu will create history by becoming Australia’s most capped diver when she competes at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Wu, who won the silver medal at the Beijing Games and bronze at Tokyo opened up in a revealing interview for the New South Wales Institute of Sport what this Games means to her, the struggles she has overcome and what she hopes her legacy will be.

NSWIS: What does it mean to be selected for this, your fifth Olympics?

Melisa Wu (MW): It’s very special for me. Every Olympic cycle it gets a lot tougher. You get a bit older and its another [thought of] how many more years can you put your body through diving where we hit the water at 60km/h … it can be brutal on your body. In the lead up to this Olympics I’ve had a few injuries; it wasn’t the best prep and I knew it would be very tough to get selected for this team. I changed my training to be able to get there. So, even before [I landed in Paris] being able to say I made the team is very special.

NSWIS: You grew up in a family of high achievers, how much of an advantage do you think that gave you over children who didn’t have that?

MW: It’s a big advantage because family is everything. It started with my grandparents coming to Australia from China and they had to work very hard. They set the standards and my parents, my entire family, and, not so much in the sporting arena, but in terms of careers doctors, lawyers . . .  professionals –   have had that desire to live up to the family expectations. It’s helpful because we’re all high achievers, so everyone understands the ups and downs and that you’re working hard to achieve something big. But it was expected you be the best; you do the best. For me when you set a goal, you find a way to do it. So, I believe it is good to grow up like that. Even if it’s seen as a ‘tough’ environment, the support of my family has been an advantage. It made me what I am today and gave me those skills of resilience, that grit and determination.

NSWIS: You mentioned the impact diving has on the body, but can you delve on the mental side? I read that early in your career you had a great fear of letting people down and that may have affected your performance?

MW: I’ve had to put a lot of work into the mental side of diving. Time and time again I would really struggle under that pressure. Over the years I had to work on the mental side, I started having to live as a person. Because I’d dived at a high level from a young age my whole identity was wrapped up in results, so I had to go from that person and get a bit of self-value back and look at other areas of my life. I think the key was when I moved from Brisbane to Sydney to train with Chava and be part of NSWIS, that was when I got a bit of life balance and that  was a big step in me overcoming a lot of those things. It’s like physical training, you turn up to do the work and it’s the same with the mental side – I did journalling, affirmations, all sorts of things over the years, and working with psychologists.

NSWIS: Can you describe the impact your coach Chava Sobrino – who’ll be attending his 10^th Olympics – has had on you?

MW: Oh, a huge impact. I moved to NSWIS when I was 17, and at the time I wanted to quit diving. I struggled a lot with my mental health up in Brisbane in terms of that training environment. It was that time in my life when I had the opportunity to move here, I took it to get away from everything. I thought I could be me for a bit and figure out who I was. I was lucky to come here to an amazing program and dive under Chava, who has been like a second father to me, and he teaches me a lot because he’s so wise and I look up to him – and the entire coaching team as well. We work very well and that is one of the biggest benefits of our program, we have the coaches and they all work together so well.

NSWIS: You won the silver medal at Beijing, but it took three more Olympic cycles before you stood on the podium again. Where does your Tokyo bronze medal rank?

MW: One of the biggest things about that medal was the team around me and helped me get there. It wasn’t just my coaches, it was S&C, psychology, nutrition. Going in I didn’t want to leave any stone unturned. I just wanted to do everything I could going in. For a long time . . . I don’t know . . . from a young age I tried to do everything myself, but overtime I realised I needed to change my mind set to really lea into the people around me, who were there to help me. Being able to do that and finding a space where I felt better prepared by the people who helped me, going in, I wanted to do it for them. That medal was special because I thought it was for them, not just for me. But then, at the backend of my career, having any number of people telling me I wasn’t going to make it or whether I should just retire because its better to go out on a high than to lose. I struggled a lot with that stuff when I was younger – I used to take it to heart – but throughout my career, something I’ve learnt about myself, is I love proving people wrong. It fuels me.  When people say I can’t do it, I do everything I can to prove them wrong.

NSWIS: What’s been your toughest sporting challenge?

MW: The toughest thing in my life was my sister passing away, that will be forever one of the toughest things I’ll have to go through. When you get this far down the road in your career, it’s not necessarily one big thing it’s just a series of challenges. One days it’s your back, the next the knee. It’s always something else and dealing with stuff outside of your sports career. At this point of my career, you deal with challenges that happen more frequently. There’s always that question ‘is it worth it?’ It’s just generally that and being able to change my mindset around that – and dealing with that – is the hardest thing.

NSWIS: What is your advice to young divers?

MW: Always love what you do and enjoy what you do, because if you do that you’ll be able to work hard and ride the ups and downs that are necessary to get where you want to go. But you have to be passionate about what you do so you’re prepared to put in whatever it takes to fulfil those goals and nighttime dreams.

NSWIS: What would you like for people to take from your story?

MW: I hope I inspire and motivate others. There’s always challenges, but without challenges you don’t necessarily go on to do the things you do. Sometimes your greatest setback can inspire the best things that happen to us when you think ‘I don’t know how I’ll get through this’ because it lets people think ‘if she can get through it, maybe I can.’ That would be the greatest thing I want to do.

Daniel Lane, NSWIS