Free Hurt by Tabitha Suzuma

hurts. Far worse than a painful landing. It drives a stake through your heart. And you pull yourself up onto the side, shaking the water from your ears, trying to ignore the sympathetic applause, trying to keep your composure as you glance at the score board and see your name slip down through the rankings. But then the anger sets in – the anger with yourself, the anger with the universe; and it’s how you use that anger, his coach and psychologist always say, that makes the difference between a champion and an also-ran. If you can channel that anger, that sense of injustice, into your remaining dives, you can claw back the points, sometimes even make a complete comeback and go on to win the competition. You think: I’ll show them – I’ll show them what I’m capable of, I’ll show them I won’t be beaten, can’t be beaten, that one dropped dive is nothing . And then you go back up to the ten-metre platform and execute the perfect dive, and you know the other competitors are thinking, Damn, this guy just can’t be beaten .
    From the top board at the Ashway Aqua Centre, Mathéo arches his neck to stretch his muscles and stares up at the blinding white concrete roof just above him. From up here, the diving pool below is nothing but a small, rectangular slash of fluorescent blue. Beyond it, miniature people swim up and down the lanes of the regular pool, getting in their early morning workout. Sounds bounce and echo all around him, but up here he always feels oddly removed from it all, in a world of his own. The air is hot and humid – he dries himself with his cloth so that his hands will not slip when he holds his legs while somersaulting down. Slipping out of a dive is just one of the many dangers.
    The challenge when preparing for a difficult dive from the ten-metre board, whether in competition or in practice, is always to keep himself from imagining the many things that could go wrong. Today he is practising one of the toughest dives, The Big Front: four and a half somersaults with tuck, and it scares him. But down below, way down below, both his coach and father are waiting, squinting up at him, already assessing his attitude, his confidence, the amount of time it is taking him to psych himself up, and there is only so much stretching and bouncing on his toes Mathéo can get away with before he knows he will have to go for it.
    After walking up and down the board a few times, he finally takes up his position at the back, breathes deeply, closing his eyes to visualize each movement in his mind – every tuck and turn and spin his body will make in the air as he falls; all the moves etched into his mind through endless practice dry-diving into the foam pit, on the trampoline with a harness, as well as in the pool. He focuses on his spot, raises himself onto the balls of his feet, counts aloud to three and runs four steps, launching himself off the board and into space.
    He pulls his taut legs against his chest, spins down into four somersaults. His eyes constantly search for the water: the slash of blue. One, two, three, four, five. Then he stretches out as hard and fast as he can, left hand grabbing the back of his right, before punching the water like an arrow.
    It hurts, and he knows it was an imperfect dive as the vacuum sucks him under, slowing until it allows him to turn and kick straight for the surface. Bubbles rise above him; he can feel the riptide created by his mistimed entry and he shoots towards the light, emerging with a painful gasp, his hair stuck down around his face, chlorinated rivulets pouring down into his eyes. He feels bruised all over. Although it wasn’t a terrible dive, he already knows he over-rotated his entry and landed slightly flat, knocking the air from his body. He pulls himself onto the side and sits, fighting for breath, as Perez comes over, gesticulating at the giant screen on the wall as it replays Mathéo’s dive in slow-motion, highlighting his error.
    ‘Too much