Matthew Mitcham: On retirement, Olympic glory, homosexuality and cabaret

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Matthew Mitcham talks about his Olympic diving gold medal win in Beijing, retirement, homosexuality and life outside the pool.

I've tried to make this call so many times before and it just never stuck. I was totally committed to retiring after the Commonwealth Games in 2014 and then I ended up doing a lot better than expected with my partner and I entertained the thought of sticking it out for another two years.

"It was hard to find new goals that I was passionate enough about when there was so much stuff going on outside the pool that I was really passionate about as well."

I think the perfectionist in me and the elite athlete in me goes 'I wish I had done that better or that better.' I have done it better than that since then and that was some of the goals that I had since that Olympic gold medal. It's got to be the highlight of my whole life and as many times as I've seen that footage, it's still special.

"I really desperately wanted to be the best in the world and that happened in 2010. I was ranked number one in the world and then I think the only thing that was missing from that trophy cabinet was the Commonwealth Games gold medal. Those were really powerful goals that I really were working were hard towards."

The older you get you don't tend to recover from injuries, you just accumulate them and I was doing pretty well physically. But again, there wasn't enough of an incentive for me in diving to push through all the way to Rio when I've been given so many wonderful opportunities outside of diving, outside the pool that I'm really passionate about.

A lot of it was a very powerful emotional motivation. I think I remember feeling as a child just not feeling like I was good enough and when I started to show some promise in sport I really latched on to that as my ticket to being special, so I think a lot of self-esteem and a lot of personal validation came with being successful at sport so I really threw myself into it.

There were several esteem issues there. I just have a genetic predisposition to depressive disorders which I have learnt about over the last five or six years and come to understand that.

"I also have come to understand that that itself would have been a tool that I used in order to push myself in sport so that I could get that validation from external sources. Now I kind of know how to feel better about myself and esteem myself from within, rather than relying on all of these external sources of self-esteem."

I feel pretty special. I'm very, very grateful for all of my experiences in diving with all of its ups and downs and highs and lows and wins and bombs, all of it, that's what makes an experience really three dimensional - the good stuff as well as the bad. Even with any of the lows that I had, I still reflect on my diving career with extreme wonder and gratitude and nostalgia.

I've had lots of messages like that which is really humbling. Not just from younger people but also older people ... who have been keeping a deep dark secret for their entire lives, and just me being able to be who I was and compete at an Olympics as an out-and-proud athlete really inspired them to really be their authentic self.

I'm writing two new shows. One cabaret should be ready later this year and the other one is a longer term project that's more like a musical theatre or a play-type project and that will be for next year or the year after.

"Media and entertainment is firmly where my heart's been at least for a year or so and so now I have the opportunity to really dive into this new career."

Topics: diving, olympics-summer, sport, australia