Troy Dumais: USA Olympic Diver Profile

You’d never guess Troy Dumais possesses an exceptional portfolio of diving titles, medals and awards upon talking to him. Although Troy has represented the USA in three Olympics, is a world cup and world championship winner with no less than 33 national titles, he is almost unnervingly down to earth. The 2012 London Olympics could very well be Troy’s last chance to get an Olympic medal. When asked about competing Troy said: “Give me a medal or don’t give me a medal, I’m gonna work just as hard.” It appears he’s not just in it for the glory.

Surrounding Troy in the background of the new aquatics centre in Stratford, London, are echoes of perfect splashes from divers hitting the water at up to a terrifying 40mph. He is wearing a zipped up, shiny blue divers tracksuit, is well tanned and has pleading sharp blue eyes. As he talks he looks straight at you in an intensive pursuit of your full attention.

He’s also been to London many times in his sporting career; however, this is the first time the 32 year old has got to enjoy London. Also, you’d assume one of the world’s best divers visiting London experiences the top calibre hotels, restaurants and entertainment, but Troy said “I learnt the DLR and the Jubilee line!” genuinely seeming impressed and finding his new public transport skills entertaining. He then more soberly explains; “Enjoying London seemed like everything. I got to ride the London eye; even though it was raining it was a great experience.” He flashes a pristine white smile. Good to know not even traditional English weather can’t dampen this athlete’s grin.

Like all world renowned athletes, preparation is a vital aspect. All athletes are different, but Troy doesn’t have a premeditated list of lucky tasks to perform before a big competition, but simply: “I like to talk to people I care about, play around and get ready to rumble and listen to music.” Sounds simplistic enough, but Troy then explains there’s a bit more to listening to your favourite tune in between nerve-wracking dives in front of millions of spectators: “It blocks your thought process; instead of listening to you think, you’re listening to something else. One of your senses is being blocked so instead of hearing the score or people clap, you are staying inside yourself.” The art of staying ‘inside yourself’ seems to be a very important aspect of diving, as Troy describes the best tactic for performing well and diving immaculately after 30 years of training is to “just shut your mind and do them, just do them, don’t even focus.” So for any would be Olympic divers, all you have to do is train meticulously for 30 years and just shut your brain off in the middle of a gut wrenchingly important, career changing competition, in front of a massive judging crowd – whilst in speedos. Easy right?! But of course in Troy’s own words “the road of Troy Damais has not been easy, “it has so many drops, loop de loops, corkscrews - its highs and lows. I try to enjoy the highs and learn from the lows, it’s a continuing process.” This autobiographical confession comes after revealing when Troy first set his eyes on the high board – he was told he couldn’t dive. Due to insurance restrictions on a swimmer of Troy’s ability then, when Troy first approached the diving board, he was faced with a mental brick wall to climb: “they wanted me to learn how to swim, and do so many laps in the deep end and then so many in the shallow end, that was protocol - but it bought me down.” Luckily Troy took this experience and used it as motivation to learn to swim so no one could pester him away from the diving board.

Troy’s resilience in overcoming obstacles is from “being around my family, it has taught me how to keep pushing through.” A father that was a French Canadian ice hockey and tennis sporting star, Troy describes his childhood as “unique” and that his dad “didn’t want us to choose a sport, we just grew up doing whatever sports we wanted.”

The successful diver from the sporting background is, however, now thinking of leaving diving! But only when he can’t physically dive anymore, saying “until that day I’m gonna give it my all.” So we’ll have to wait and see what Troy does next.

Already volunteering back home in America, maybe Troy will go into metaphorically passing the Olympic torch as a teacher, describing his “greatest gift” as “the ability to help others” then elaborating: “I wanna see everyone do their best, when I see someone smile doing what they wanna do and they are happy, it makes me happy.” Troy’s main philosophy for aspiring athletes is to “never give up if someone tells you: you can’t do it, dig deep and show them that it’s possible.” Intense, but obviously passionate about what he does, it was unexpectedly educational and really infectiously positive to talk with the Olympian - and really surprising to think he gets the DLR, just like everyone else.

You can see Troy competing next June, for Olympic trials in the USA – if you can’t get a plane ticket “just google USA diving trials, you can watch it online.” And of course you can see Troy compete with his partner in the 2012 Olympics, let’s hope he gets a medal this time so he can progress to spreading more thought provoking wisdom to the next generation of athletes.