BEAA Ambassador Alice Dearing announced this week that she has retired from competition as an open water swimmer.
Throughout her career Alice has put time and effort into non-competitive avenues, such as her education, the media, and charitable causes.
Now, as part of the BEAA, UK Sport and UK Sports Institute campaign to raise awareness of support for athletes leaving a funded programme, she is urging her elite sporting peers to consider their own next steps – no matter how far away that might be.
“Having my education and other things outside of sport, I can’t promote that enough for athletes,” Alice told the BEAA. “Your sport is obviously important, it’s who you are, but you’re so much more than just your results in the pool, the lake, track or pitch.
“Each athlete has to go on that journey of understanding both themselves and their sport as a wider context. I encourage people to start that process when they’re ready because it can really help you understand what you want from life.”
Among other things, Alice co-founded the Black Swimming Association, a non-profit organisation set up to diversify aquatics through education, advocacy, support and research. Her work outside the water has seen her receive the Sunday Times’ Sportswomen of the Year Changemaker award and a Sports Journalists’ Association award in 2022, as well as inclusion on the 2023 BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour Power List.
She treasures these achievements alongside her appearance at the Tokyo Olympics, and says reaching international level sport puts her and her fellow athletes in a unique position.
“Reaching the level of competing for GB at a senior international level is really something quite special. There are not a lot of people who’ve been able to do it.”
Encouraging former elite athletes to join the BEAA’s alumni community, where they can connect with others from across the decades, Alice said: “To be part of special groups together is a really nice place to find yourself in, and to connect with other people outside your sport which you may never have known if it weren’t for the BEAA alumni group.
“Being an elite athlete has made me the person I am today. I think athletes are resilient people traditionally. Very resilient, very determined and very stubborn. Those skills don’t end in your field of play. They just begin there.”
