Time to Shine
I was standing ten meters high looking down on certain death.
All around me I heard a roar, a heart pounding, mouth drying and knee shaking cheer as twenty thousand spectators arrived to watch me fall.
'This is it.' I muttered to myself, 'The moment of do or die.'
And do I shall.
It was the event of a lifetime, one chance to become the best. The Olympic Games came round once in four years and I planned to play.
So I prepared.
As an Olympic diver I had to be lean, strong and graceful. The diving board shook as I took my first small steps to the edge.
I tried not to look down but I couldn't help myself. Light bulbs flashed as this moment in history was taken from my grasp. It was a long way down and in that time I had to tumble not only gracefully but performing two and half back-somersaults with two and a half twists in mid-air.
English: Commemorative stamp of Greece, The First ...
English: The Olympic Flag flying in Victoria, Brit...
Thomas Hicks running the marathon at the 1904 Summ...I was nervous, how could I not be?
This was the scariest thing I had ever done. If I failed it would be replayed again and again on the enormous screens that hung to the aquatic centre walls.
I was watching myself now. Small, toned and shaking. I stared out pensively at the camera. Nobody could tell what I was thinking. I was a blank face of poise and concentration.
But inside I was a mess.
I wanted gold. I wanted to be the first fifteen year old boy to reach such an achievement in my country. That drove me forwards. I'd given my all in training, six days a week for five hours a day. I worked out, I jumped on trampolines and of course I dived.
None of that really mattered.