Now recognised as one of the UK’s most inspiring Olympian speakers, Alice became the first Black woman to represent Great Britain in Olympic swimming. As a passionate advocate for inclusion in sport, she is a leading voice among Diversity & Inclusion speakers, drawing on her own experiences to challenge barriers and promote representation.
A dedicated mental health advocate, Alice also speaks widely on resilience, identity, and performance, making her one of the most compelling Mental Health & Wellbeing speakers on the circuit today. In this exclusive interview, she shares her journey and the mission driving her work today.
Q: As someone who grew up in Birmingham and broke barriers on the global stage, how important is greater diversity in swimming when it comes to inspiring the next generation of athletes?
Alice Dearing: “So, it is massively important to have as many people from as many backgrounds swimming as we can. Swimming is a life skill, and that's something that I've kind of been on a journey of learning as I've been going through my experience with co-founding the Black Swimming Association, but also as a swimmer myself.
“Initially, when I was coming through it, I just only viewed it as a sport or something to be done to try and be the best at — or the best that you can be in. But as I got older, I realised there are a lot of people who don't have a healthy relationship with water and have unfortunately been told all of these myths and stereotypes which are keeping our communities away from swimming. But also, this extends to anyone from any background. This is a life skill — we should all know how to do it.
“There are some specific issues which the community that I'm from — and Asian people as well — are having troubles with, getting in the water. Whether that's because culturally it's not seen as important, or we've actively been told through the past that we should stay away from swimming.
“So, we've kind of arrived at a place now where there aren't that many black or Asian people in swimming at a competitive level. And so, there have only been... like myself, being the first black woman to swim for Great Britain — that only happened in 2021, which I'm really proud of, that achievement, amazing achievement — but at the same time, it kind of highlights the fact that we have a lot of work to do. And recently there was another black woman who swam for Britain as well. So, change is happening — it's just not happening fast enough.
“Having that diversity is important to showcase to people that we should all learn how to swim. It just helps improve health, fitness, lifestyle for so many people across so many different communities and different issues which they do face. So, I really try to advocate for swimming as that — to go and give it a go. If you've never done it before, it really can open doors for you. And I've been really fortunate that it's given me so many positive things in my life, and I want other people to be able to experience those things too.”
Q: Looking back to your early days swimming in Birmingham, what first sparked your passion for the sport — and when did you realise it could become a professional path?
Alice Dearing: “Yeah, so my story into swimming kind of came from a whim from my mum, of just wanting to put me and my second eldest brother into a sport. She didn't really know where to start. So, we were both doing swimming lessons at this pool — it was half an hour once a week — and then she saw the noticeboard for the local swimming club which trained at that pool.
“I think she just emailed them, and they said, “Yeah, come along to the classes on Sunday afternoon.” And she just told me two days before. I didn’t really know how to take it. I didn’t really want to go, if I’m being honest — I was quite happy with my half an hour a week. I didn’t think I needed to involve myself any further.
“But we both went along, and we both fell in love from the first session — really enjoyed the competitive aspect of it, really just wanted to improve ourselves and get our technique better and try and be the best swimmers that we could be.
“My brother eventually moved into coaching because he started a little bit too late to get really good — and swimming is a tough sport like that. So, I started with the swimming club when I was eight years old, and he was 13. But he still carried on for quite a while and then moved into coaching.
“Anyway, my passion came from just wanting to try and be the best that I could be. I didn’t ever look at swimming as a sport that could take me to the Olympic Games or that I would be competing for Britain. I obviously thought about it, but never thought that it would happen to me, or never thought that I had the capabilities or the talent or the... or the work ethic, to be quite honest.
“So, it was always about getting to the next level for me — taking a very almost narrow approach, like putting blinders on, like a horse or something like that, and just focusing on the next stage. So, for me, obviously, that started off at county level.
“I was really happy I got my county time, and then looked up to the regional times. I was never looking at the county time trying to get a national time or something like that. It was just very step-by-step, taking it in my stride and just enjoying it as much as I could.
“And I’m quite honest about this: there are times in swimming when I absolutely hated it — that I thought about quitting, that I didn’t really want to do it anymore, especially being a teenage adolescent. But whenever those moments did happen, my mum would say to me, “Okay, just take the evening off training and see how you feel afterwards.”
“And I would take it off, and then I would come into her room afterwards and tell her that I felt guilty that I didn’t go swimming and that I want to swim. And she was like, “Okay, that’s fine, we’ll just go back tomorrow — it’s not that deep.” This happened not often — maybe once a season or something like that, so once a year.
“But in me, I just knew that swimming was something that I wanted to do. No matter how hard the work was, I still felt like it was a big part of me, and that there were things I wanted to achieve in it, and that I was going to keep trying and keep pushing, persevering, and trying to overcome all of this self-doubt, dislike of training sometimes, and all those barriers which can prevent you from doing the thing that you want to do — if that makes sense.
“So, just having that attitude to view training as a tool to better myself — and it wasn't the be-all and end-all of swimming, if that makes sense. Even though most of it was training, there was still so much around it that you have to contend with and try to improve yourself on.
“So, my passion definitely started at an early age, but it's ebbed and flowed. I can’t sit here and pretend that it was easy the whole time, and that I enjoyed every second of it, but I’m so proud of where I started and what I’ve been able to achieve.
“Yeah, I just can’t believe what swimming has given me in so many aspects of my life.”
This exclusive interview with Alice Dearing was conducted by Chris Tompkins.