I WAS IN A DARK PLACE

Olympic gold medallist Chad le Clos opens up about his depression and how seeking therapy saved him

- NASIFA SULAIMAN

THE voice on the Zoom call T from Dubai is as cheery as ever. He's sorry his camera is off, he says - he's connecting via his phone and his battery is a bit low.

"But here," he says, "I'll switch the camera on for a few seconds just to show it's me."

This is the confident, friendly Chad le Clos we've all come to know and love the golden boy of the pool, the most decorated Olympian in South African history, the human fish who defeated Michael Phelps at the 2012 Games to become the toast of the swimming world.

Chad looks and sounds so like his old self it's hard to believe he's been through what he calls the "toughest time" of his life in the past year, plagued by mental health issues triggered by an incident he describes as too traumatic and distressing to talk about.

The harrowing incident happened in January 2021 and he'll never, ever discuss it, he says. It affected him in a "very difficult way, and was worse than hearing his parents, Bert and Geraldine, both had cancer.

Yet instead of dealing with it, he pushed on. The Tokyo Olympics, postponed in 2020 as the pandemic raged, were looming and there was a lot of pressure on his strapping shoulders. Chad was expected to slaughter the opposition in the pool and bring home the medals.

Instead, he failed to advance to the heats in the 100m butterfly and was placed fifth in the 200m butterfly event. And although he felt terrible about letting down his family and his country, his lacklustre performance helped him realise he needed help - something his dad had been begging him to do for months.

"When I got home from Tokyo I realised I'd bitten off too much and I should have realised that earlier, Chad (30) tells us. He's currently training for the upcoming Fina World Championships and the Commonwealth Games.