Before the competition, you start questioning yourself if you’ve trained hard enough. And you start overthinking, if only you could go back in time, what if you hadn’t secretly skipped some trainings, if only you would have slept earlier or eaten better, if only you could have worked harder, if only you could be sure that you are still as good as you were. What if I am not good anymore? What if i am not ready for this? What if i keep failing? All this time you invested in the water, in the gym, what if I am just wasting my time? but you’re just here, sitting on a chair, waiting for your race, with all your insecurities and all your capacities. Which one is going to dominate your mind? You step behind the block, your thoughts dispel on the sound of the first whistle and you’re in another state, your brain, your eyes, your hands, nothing feels real anymore except for the sound, you just listen, and on the signal, all of your senses, all of your muscles, all of your power, your strength, your concentration is converging in one and ready to give it all. You swim driven by your unconsciousness and you keep fighting till your last breath. Everything goes so fast but at the same time it feels like an eternity.

Once you’ve touched the wall, back to reality, the first thing on your mind is the time: what’s my time? and at this second it just feels like opening your Christmas gift, so much waiting, looking at this gift for a month, asking yourself if it was what you asked for, if you’ve been good enough for it. sometimes, the gift you get is just an empty box, full of disappointments, and it just feels like a bad joke again. But other times, it’s the kind of special gift you would never even have expected under the tree, because it would feel too impossible, but this is what’s magic about it, because nothing is impossible.