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Olympian’s bab LIZZIE’S DIVE MOTHERH
Pregnancy may have temporarily derailed her Games glory, but the diver’s making a splash as a mum
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Kiwi Olympic diver Lizzie Cui can’t quite believe that this is her life. This time last year, she was supposed to be packing her bags and heading off to her second Olympic Games in Tokyo. Instead, she was back home in New Zealand getting ready to become a mum for the fi rst time.
“I had to completely shift my priorities,” Lizzie, 24, tells the Weekly on Zoom from her home in the US, her baby daughter happily babbling away next to her. “I was focused on the Olympics and then I had to turn my energy to growing a baby. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
Lizzie was only 17 when she qualifi ed for her fi rst Olympic Games in 2016 and was the fi rst local diver in 24 years to compete in the prestigious competition.
Following her debut on the world stage, she won a scholarship to train and study at Louisiana State University in America, which she’s called home for the past six years.
In 2020, she was elated when she qualifi ed for her second Olympic Games. But three months before the rescheduled event was due to take place, a visit to the doctor to check on an ovarian cyst changed everything.
Lizzie’s doctor made her take a pregnancy test to check if it was safe for her to go on medication and she was stunned when she got a positive result. A blood test confi rmed the news.
“I didn’t know how to process it,” she recalls. “My fi rst thought was, ‘I can’t go to the Olympics.’ I’d been training for so long and it was really upsetting. But at the same time, it was my actions and decisions that got me in the situation.” Despite the surprise, Lizzie says she knew straight away that she was going to keep the baby and her decision was reinforced when she told her loved ones the news.
“I told my family I was going to keep the baby and they were nervous for me. I was nervous, too, of course, but they said they were going to support me.”
She then had to break the news to the baby’s father, Louisiana native Ryan Rousell, 25. At the time, the pair were friends and fl atmates who were in the early stages of fi guring out if there was something more to their relationship. Having both recently gone through break-ups, neither was interested in a serious relationship and certainly not a baby.
But, she says, Ryan’s reaction and his willingness to come back to Aotearoa to have the baby with her was the start of building the strong partnership they have today.
They got married in an intimate ceremony in the US with only their family in attendance a few months after they found out they were expecting. But they
Former flatmates Ryan and Lizzie are loving life with adorable Athena.
Lizzie’s back in action in the pool, preparing for the Paris Games.
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“Being a mum is hard but it’s so rewarding,” she says. “When she smiles, I can just tell by the way she looks at me that she knows I’m her mum and that’s really special.”
Now settling back into her life in Louisiana with her new family, Lizzie is looking forward to getting her Olympic dreams back on track for the 2024 Games in Paris and she’s already dipped her toes back in the swimming pool.
Thanks to the example set by other top athletes like Dame Valerie Adams, she knows being a mum will only make achieving her dreams mean so much more.
“I have my sport and career ambitions, but as I navigate motherhood with the support of Ryan and my family, I know being a parent doesn’t stop anything,” muses Lizzie. “Sometimes it’s hard but I’ll always land on my feet.
“That’s why it was an easy decision to have Athena. The Olympics is just one event, but my baby is the most important thing to me and she is defi nitely worth it.”
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