Quote

I started swimming when I was four because my brother wanted to join a swim team, and I wanted to do what he did. They said I had to be six, but if I could swim a lap, then I could participate. So I swam a lap, and the rest is history.

I grew up in Florida, so you start swimming at the age of 1, really. By 10, I was competitive swimming, and by 12, I had aspirations to be the best in the world.

Swimming is great because there are levels of goals. First, when I was four, it was making it to the other end and overcoming the fear of standing up in front of everybody at a swim meet because I was such a shy kid.

Born on an island, I could swim before I could walk, thrown many times into swimming pools and warm transparent Caribbean waters: sink or swim, that was my first lesson. While I'm not a natural athlete, I'm still a strong swimmer and feel a great affinity with the sea.

I didn't learn to swim until I was 21 or something because I grew up in the mountains in Wyoming and all the water is glacier runoff and cold.

I just always really wanted to swim. It was always a family thing: dad obviously swam, and my sister did, too. And mum used to come along to meets. They had to drag me out of the pool - so there was never any pressure on me to swim. It was just something I loved doing.

I was an avid swimmer and was state champ at age 12.

Somehow I kept my head above water. I relied on the discipline, character, and strength that I had started to develop as that little girl in her first swimming pool.

I swam at school a lot. Long-distance swimming in pools, and diving, then when we moved to Hastings when I was 13 I used to swim in the sea all the time; I loved it out of season and when it was rough.