I'm Melissa,
and I'm an Olympic diver from Australia.
And I've been diving on the international stage
for 16 years.
I started diving at the age of 10.
When I was younger, my parents,
they were a little bit reluctant at first,
but once I started then they knew
that I really cared about the sport
and that I wanted to train hard,
and that I'd finally found the right thing for me.
From the first session of diving,
I felt like I was flying.
I absolutely loved it. It was like an addiction.
I just wanted to keep learning more and more.
Making my first Commonwealth Games at 13,
that was a pretty big moment for me
because it was my first international competition
and that moment where I realized
I could make the Olympics.
As a young athlete, I actually had a lot more success
in my synchro events than my individual events.
Being young and lacking a bit of confidence and self-belief,
I always felt better when I was standing next to somebody.
I competed at my first Olympics in Beijing
when I was 16 years old.
Going into that Olympics,
I actually felt quite a bit of pressure to perform.
I just said to myself,
just do it exactly how you do it in training.
And after we hit the water,
I knew that I'd done a good one.
The smile on my synchro partner's face
meant that she had also done a good one.
And then we saw the scoreboard
and realized that we'd won silver
and that was a pretty big moment for us.
Winning an Olympic medal puts you on such a massive high.
And when all that stops and you go back to normal life
that is a really difficult place to be.
This is also especially challenging as a teenager.
I found it hard to relate to people my age at school,
and also to the people in my squad
because they were so much older.
That was a really tough time for me,
that I ended up then actually having depression and anxiety,
and struggling, I think, with that self-belief
and that confidence in myself.
And as an athlete performing at the highest level,
that is a key ingredient.
You need to believe in yourself.
I ended up in, I guess that bit of a rut for a long time
where I just was grinding away, grinding away.
And just, I kept having disappointing competitions
and felt like I was sort of always picking myself back up.
I got to the point where I was just really sick of doing that
and I knew I needed to change something.
Around 2014, I started working with my sports side.
I worked really hard to get better
at my individual competitions.
And I knew that that came down 100% to mindset.
I knew that I didn't have
the belief and the confidence to back myself.
So, it took me a long time to figure that out
and work with the right person to help bring that out of me.
And when I felt better in myself
the more I started to see my diving results improve as well.
Because not only was I getting healthier and happier myself,
but it was having that direct effect on my diving as well.
Leading into Tokyo, it was quite challenging.
I wanted to give it everything
and I basically threw everything I had into it.
When I was younger and I would dive,
and I would get up on the platform
and my heart would be racing.
And no matter what I did,
I knew that I needed to calm myself
and I didn't know how to do that.
Every time I took off in this state
of having my heart racing and not being in control.
And going into dives now,
I definitely feel much more in control.
And doesn't mean I don't get nervous.
I still get really nervous,
but I just know how to deal with that better now.
And I just focused on each dive as it came.
When I got to the end, and winning that bronze medal,
that was an incredible feeling.
And when I saw that result on the scoreboard,
I was just, it was an amazing feeling.
I would tell my 16, 17 year old self
that everything will be okay.
Keep going, keep working hard, and focus on what you want.
Take the opportunities that come your way
and everything will pan out the way you want it to.