Ellie Simmonds: 'I can finally enjoy the Paralympics without any pressure!'
Ellie Simmonds is heading to her fifth Paralympic Games - but this time she won’t even be dipping a toe into the pool.
On September 2 2021, shortly after missing out on a medal at the Tokyo Paralympics, Ellie announced that she was retiring from professional swimming. But that’s not the end of her involvement with the sport, and this year the 29-year-old will be front and centre of Channel 4’s coverage of the Paris Paralympics.
She tells Women’s Health that she is excited about her first Games on the other side of the camera, and that while she does have some nerves, it’s nothing compared to having to vie for a medal.
‘As an athlete, I know the pressure of how big the Olympics and Paralympics are, and how it all comes down to one race which happens every four years,’ she explains.
‘Now I've got the easy job, because I can just talk about all the athletes who I love so much, and the sport that I used to love doing. I know I'll have some nerves because I always want to do the best that I can. But in a way it's quite nice because I'm not having to perform in a high-pressure sporting environment like before.’
Ellie is one of Team GB’s most decorated swimmers, and during her Paralympic career, she won five gold, one silver and two bronze medals. She also holds three world records across 200m, 800m and 400m swimming distances.
She was just 13, and the youngest person on the British Paralympic team when she won two gold medals at the Beijing Games in 2008. When she hung up her swimming cap at the age of 26, Ellie had an opportunity to explore other experiences which were previously off the table due to the gruelling training schedules required to be a champion athlete.
‘People are always taken aback by me retiring so young, but I started swimming so young, and I was doing the sport from such a young age. I was very, very lucky - due to hard work and talent and all that - that I achieved at such a young age as well. I knew that I was gonna retire after Tokyo,’ she explains.
‘But now I'm getting all these amazing opportunities, which I never would have thought I would have gotten. To be as busy as I am now is just wonderful. Without the support of my friends, family, my agent, and my team around me, I wouldn't have done all that I did.
‘But I was so young that in a way I missed that “growing up stage”, because I was having to focus, I was achieving, I was traveling all the time, there was a lot of pressure on me.
‘Now it's quite nice to have a bit more freedom to be able to do what I want. I love swimming, and I loved that being my career, and that was my choice at the time. But now it’s my choice to do other things, and that includes TV work.’
Ellie still swims regularly, and explains that she exercises to for mental health benefits as much as for physical conditioning and strength.
‘I try and swim once a week, and I go to the gym every morning to workout or take a reformer Pilates class. I realised how important exercise is for me, mentally. It helps me feel good about myself, it helps me get away from the stress of the world and push my body in different ways.’
With an increasingly busy schedule, Ellie has become an advocate of living a balanced life, which is what led her to work with supplements and vitamins brand Bioglan. Her daily routine includes taking the Biotic Balance Range which is formulated with high quality live cultures to help support a healthy gut, and Active Curcumin Tablets, which help support immune function, connective tissues and bone health.
She says, ‘Since retiring, it's been so important to me to establish a sense of balance. When I was a swimmer, I was an athlete, I knew my routine. Whereas now in this next chapter of life, where I'm working in TV, I'm working on documentaries, it's all go, go go, and it's a bit harder to find that balance.’
Ellie went vegetarian in 2017, during a gap year where she travelled the world and volunteered with different sea charities. During this time, she saw first hand the effects of overfishing on marine ecosystems, and decided then and there she would be ditching meat and fish for good.
Today, she loves cooking up dishes with chickpeas and tofu, and is a proud member of the air fryer cult, using hers to whip up roasted vegetables which she’ll serve with a sticky sweet and sour sauce.
However, when WH asked her for some of her favourite memories from the Olympics athletes’ village, she shared an undeniably carnivorous one.
‘I have so many amazing memories. Literally, every moment during the Paralympics is pressured, and you’re nervous, but I love that about sport because the high that you get after [competing] is such a good feeling.
‘There's so many fun things - from being with my teammates, to dressing up, to doing karaoke to being with the team in the village, and eating all the nice food.’
But it’s not gourmet meals all the time, and until they ended their 41-year sponsorship agreement with the IOC, there was a McDonald’s on site at every athletes’ village, dishing out free food to the athletes and their entourages. Ellie reminisces about a true beige feast after the Rio Paralympics had come to a close.
‘I wasn't vegetarian at the time so I had chicken nuggets, McChicken sandwich, fries, a milkshake, a McFlurry, a cookie… everything. I'd been so good with my health and my diet the whole year leading into the Games, so I decided to just splurge and go all in.’
Ellie Simmonds has partnered with supplement brand Bioglan for their third series of ‘In Bioglan Balance’ to show how she finds balance in her busy life. To watch the series, visit @bioglansupplements on Instagram.
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