Where Sport Can Take You: A Passport To New Experiences
Where Sport Can Take You
Sport has been part of my life for as long as I can remember, but perhaps one of the things I appreciate most now is how it has continued to evolve with me.
It has taken me to places I might never otherwise have visited, introduced me to people from around the world, and repeatedly encouraged me to step outside my comfort zone.
Swimming also gave me an immediate community and helped me settle into somewhere new
Miss Kate Nimmo, Head of Swimming and Athletics
When I moved away for my first teaching post, joining a Masters swimming club was a natural way to continue something I already loved.
It taught me another lesson I still value: personal bests do not have to stop in your teens. I continued to improve, moving from local competitions to National and International Masters events.
Swimming soon became a passport to new experiences.
I have raced in the Olympic pool in Sydney, sat in call rooms and changing rooms, swapped stories with competitors from different countries, and discovered that a shared love of sport can overcome differences in age, nationality, and sometimes even language.
One particular trip also changed the direction of my sporting life. I was in Slovenia competing at the European Masters Swimming Championships when some friends and I visited Lake Bled, the venue for the open-water races.
They went in for a swim. I was nervous about open water and stayed firmly on dry land. I regretted it almost immediately. When I returned home, that frustration gave me the push to try open-water swimming properly.
I later returned to Slovenia on an open-water swimming holiday and finally swam in Lake Bled, a small but satisfying example of how something that initially frightened me became part of my sporting life.
Open water took me from lakes to seas and eventually to marathon swims. It also produced some wonderful adventures.
One of my favourites was travelling to Istanbul with two friends for the Bosphorus Cross-Continental Swim. It was partly a girls’ weekend and partly the slightly surreal experience of swimming from Asia to Europe.
What I remember just as clearly as the race itself, though, is the atmosphere around it: travelling on the competitors’ ferry and talking to swimmers from all over the world about where they had come from, why they were there and the adventures sport had already given them.
That sense of community is something I have encountered repeatedly.
Eventually, swimming alone was no longer giving me quite the challenge I was looking for.
Ten years ago this summer, I bought my first road bike and entered my first triathlon the following year. Suddenly, I was an experienced swimmer but a complete beginner again in other areas, learning to race on a bike, transition, fuel, and somehow fit training for three sports into life.
Triathlon opened another set of doors. It has taken me to events across Europe representing the GB Age Group team, to training camps in Mallorca, and to World Championships in places including Lausanne and Pontevedra.
Travelling with a bike for the first time also taught me how quickly strangers within the sporting community will step in with advice or help when something does not quite go to plan. And plenty has not gone to plan.
Bereavement, COVID, and injury have all interrupted my sporting momentum at different times. A broken collarbone required surgery, and other injuries have forced me to change races or goals.
There have been periods when sport quite rightly had to move down the priority list. But one of the things I have learned is that you can return to it.
Along the way, I have continued to surprise myself, setting personal bests for running in my late forties and taking on distances I once thought were beyond me.
This summer provided another example. I arrived in Tallinn on my 50th birthday for my first Half Ironman, unsure whether an ongoing foot injury would allow me to finish.
Difficult weather added another challenge, but thankfully I made it to the finish line.
What stays with me as much as completing the race is the shared experience of everyone around you. In difficult conditions, there is an almost unspoken understanding between competitors.
A smile, a few encouraging words, or simply watching someone else keep going can be enough to help you do the same.
That feeling is remarkably similar whether you are in a Masters swimming changing room, on a ferry full of swimmers in Istanbul, or struggling through the closing stages of a triathlon.
In a few weeks, I will return to Pontevedra, where I previously raced in the World Aquathlon Championships, this time for the World Standard Distance Triathlon Championships.
With very little running behind me because of my foot, success there may look rather different from some previous races — another reminder that goals sometimes need to change.
Perhaps that is what I would most like young people to take from my experiences.
Sport does not have to finish when school finishes.
It can help you find a community when you move somewhere new, give you the confidence to travel, introduce you to people you would never otherwise meet, and continue to challenge you at every stage of life.
The athlete you are now does not have to be the athlete you remain.
I started as a pool swimmer who was too nervous to get into Lake Bled. I could never have predicted where saying yes to the next challenge would eventually take me, and I still don't really know where it might take me next.
Miss Kate Nimmo
Head of Swimming and Athletics
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