Four-time Olympic diving gold medallist Shi Tingmao of China has revealed her struggles with depression, AFP reports.
Shi, 25, won comfortably won the three-meter springboard title for her second gold in Japan but cut a tearful figure in the immediate aftermath at the Tokyo Aquatics Center.
She said later that she had considered quitting diving after her form dipped last year.
"I have to really take care of my mental state and make sure I don't get into a depression," Shi said in unusually open comments for China's often-guarded athletes.
And she has worked with an expert on some of the mental stresses of being a competitive diver "and dealing with depression and things like that."
Hinting that she reached such a low that she might have given up the sport, she added: "I really love diving and I realized that there was no way that I could give it up.
"So to get to this point was not easy."
Shi, who also won two golds at Rio 2016, revealed the internal conflict she has had to deal with.
"There are two of me in my mental state that actually fight with one another," she said.
"Part of me says 'you're a gold medallist, you can take a break, you can be done'. Another part of me says 'you can't give this up, you love diving'."
Shi said she had not seen her family for 18 months because she had been so dedicated to her training and "we actually had very little contact."
"I'm sure my family have been worried for me but I also hope, through the screen, when we see each other, I can speak to my family and say that they have nothing to worry about, everything's fine."
Shi Tingmao, right, and Wang Han of China at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Sunday, Aug. 1, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan
