THERE is only one adrenaline shot which Grace Reid wants to experience any time soon – the thrill of competing at a European Championships on her home terrain of Edinburgh’s Royal Commonwealth pool.
Scotland’s diving sensation – who claimed a gold medal in the Gold Coast back in April – revealed this week that she takes an Epipen with her everywhere she goes, in order to alleviate the effects of a nut allergy which has caused more than one last-minute dash to alleviate the dramatic effects of an anaphylactic reaction.
“I’m really not that unfortunate but I’ve had a lot of problems in terms of allergies, I’m a sensitive old soul I guess,” says Reid. “It is something I have struggled with since I was a little girl, since I was about six. But I’m fortunate, my mum is actually a nurse so if I’ve ever had an episode she is pretty switched on. She is like ‘right, this is not good, we’re going to deal with this’.
“I’ve had instances back home where I have had to go to hospital and just get taken care of,” she added. “Just from cross contamination because I have eaten something and there has been a spoon or something.”
Considering the 22-year-old’s travels since Australia have taken her to Canada twice and Russia twice, then China, keeping on top of all this has taken some getting used to. “It’s something I would love not to have to think about but I do so when I travel I travel with all the medicines I need, when I get to a new place, I go and speak to the chef, get them to understand, no, no I really can’t eat this and I do all I can and minimise the risk. We are very well looked after. But I’m anaphylactic to nuts so going to somewhere like China that’s a strain that I usually don’t think about at home because I know what I can and can’t eat.”
It is 50 days and counting now until this unique multi-sport Euros gets under way in early August – the hub for everything bar the athletics, which is in Berlin, will be Glasgow. With her synchro partner and London training pal Tom Daley, with whom she won European gold, absent as he prepares to have a baby with his husband Dustin Lance Black, Reid will be one of the most recognisable figures present in August. She doesn’t feel this will be too much of a burden, however.
“I don’t think about it like that, I think the British Diving team has so much depth and experience that every athlete on the team that has been announced is a potential top-six medalist, champions within that realm,” she said. “And I am really excited to see how the whole team does, I’d like to think I am a strong member of that team but I am by no means the only one. I absolutely love London and it is feeling like home but this is home, home, as I say to my mum all the time. Coming here, with the home comforts, the familiarity, that home turf I am really hoping will be an asset to help my performance.”
She admits to being a little conflicted as to whether she would ever want Daley’s profile, even though she feels happy just to be “a little tadpole” in the giant pond which is London.
“I suppose it’s six of one and half a dozen the other,” she says. “It’s amazing to think you get invited to this launch and the next thing and that’s so exciting and cool but the downside is you go out with your friends for a coffee with your hair messy and people see you. He [Daley] handles the media fantastically. I’ve never seen him say no to anyone for a picture. If that did ever happen I would hope I’d handle it a similar way.”
“In London I am this little tadpole, but that’s really nice and I think it is really humbling to remind you that actually yes okay I am doing really well in my sport but I am a very tiny piece of a big, big system so no it’s nice and I think now and again maybe a little girl will come up to me and say I’ve started diving and that to me means the world, to think that I can have a positive impact on other people.”
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