Katinka Hosszú: "It's important that people can count on me in my private life, too"

- I read an interview with your brother, in which he mentions, with appreciation, that you got up at five o’clock every day from when you were in the fifth form at school. Did you also regard it as a great sacrifice?
- I don’t really remember what it was like when I didn’t have to get up early, but I clearly remember when I first went to morning training.

The teams were made up by age group and, as a young girl I always wanted to swim with the older ones, I thought it was really cool that they trained in the morning too.

My grandfather was my coach and, although many people think he was strict with me, he always tried to hold me back and protect me a little. He said, for example, that I need not be there at six, it could be half past six for me, but I refused to do that. In the end, we agreed on quarter past six, though of course I was still there at six. I remember that it was still dark, but it seemed so exciting. Then, as the charm of the novelty passed, that part was no longer so appealing. I always found it hard to get up, so in the evening I used to prepare my clothes for the next day so that I could sleep longer and opened my eyes five minutes before I had to leave. Mom made me hot cocoa and Dad took me to training, especially in the winter. Later, I rode I often travelled by bike and on my scooter.

- Your grandfather was not the only coach who was also close to you in private life". Your former husband was also your coach and I have just read that maybe your present partner will be next. It seems as if you don't need a coach so much as you need someone to hold a mirror for you, to identify with you...
- The most important thing is to see both the goals and the work to be invested in them as equally important. When things didn’t go well, often the problem was that that was not the case. With Grandpa, I got used to us inspiring each other and that he represented the same determination and awareness he expected of me as a swimmer. Still, I wanted to have another coach so I wouldn’t feel even the slightest sign of favoritism. By the way, I also went to a six-grade grammar school because my mom taught at the primary school attended. That freedom was important to me. At the same time, it was very difficult to someone to whom my goals were as important as they were to my grandfather and for me.

- You mean, to find someone who gives can reinforce your momentum and determination when needed?
- That may sound cruel, but it's hard to work with someone who needs to be pulled. If one only gives 80 percent, the other can’t provide the remaining twenty percent well. As a teenager, that was my biggest problem in swimming, though I only discovered it later. If something isn’t important to my environment, then I’m not motivated either.

- You said in an interview that if you train less one day, you have such remorse the next day that you work three times harder. And that you remember that, on the other side of the world, maybe a potential opponent is getting into the pool right now. Don’t you have any remorse about cancelled competitions?
- It is there even now, don't worry! I feel that I have a lot of time right now and I could do a lot of things that I couldn’t at other times. I feel I am not exploiting it.

- Before the interview, laughing, you said that if you had a dog, you would want it to be the most beautiful, clever and smart, but you didn’t have the time to achieve that, therefore you would rather not have one. I remembered you once saying that if you had a family, you would stop competing because you wouldn’t want to take time away from them. Are you a maximalist in everything?
- I recently found out that I am! A year or two ago I laughed at anyone who said that, even though many did, including my family.

I always felt like I was still very far from the maximum, I thought they were just saying that because they wanted to be kind.

At the same time, I also had to realise that some people like to take advantage of it, knowing that, if they entrust me with something, it will be the best it can be. Only that is very tiring.

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Photo: László Emmer

- Clearly, you have a definite list of priorities.
- Yes! Swimming comes first, and I subordinate everything to it, though family, friends, my personal relationship is very important. Not just the time we spend together, but rather to be a steady, fixed point for them. So they can count on me. At the very end of the list, I have cleaning at home. I’m happy to do it, but somehow I never feel like it’s finished and there’s not enough time to feel like I’ve done it perfectly. I defend myself against that by just letting it go, refusing to do it, in fact, I don’t even look at it. So I don't stress myself.

- Swimming is at the top of your list, although it’s obviously not just about jumping into the pool.
- Yes, I feel like everything I’ve achieved only has worth if I can use it for something. If I can inspire others because the medals are not just achievements; that alone is no longer enough. Everything related to that takes first place.

- When did you start to feel that victory alone was not enough?
- It wasn't a moment. Krisztina Egerszegi was my role model with my grandad at the time and, when Ági Kovács won in Sidney, I knew I wanted to be an Olympic champion, because then what it meant to me was that I would be the best. When I got close to being on the podium, I realized that in order to be the best in the world, I had to swim a world record. That became my main goal after the London Olympics. That’s when I realized that you also need a lot of luck for an Olympic championship title.

I read somewhere that you are less likely to be an Olympic champion than to win the lottery.

- Well, in my case, for sure. But in the case of Katinka Hosszú, the odds are different. And while you can’t do much for to win the five number lottery, you put in a lot of work for the title.
- Sure, there's some truth in that. I thought I was the best in the world and London was a big disappointment because I didn’t live up to my own expectations. In 2015, I swam my first big pool world record and then I believed there that I was the best. That was the greatest experience to me. While training for the Rio Olympics I regarded it more as marketing than a real milestone. By then, I had talked to many Olympic champions who told me that being an Olympian does not change either your world or you yourself. As a child, I sort of imagined that we became heroes after the Olympics. I would also like to tell that to those who are preparing for the Olympics, because children have a dream and subordinate everything to it, and then there are a lot of depressed Olympic champions. That is a topic discussed by many in the America, including Michael Phelps. I’m grateful that I only became an Olympic champion when I was 27, when I already understood what it meant. Now I can say from personal experience that it does not change the world.

- But the world record is always changing. That is, the feeling of ‘I'm the best’ also fades away. With that, did you also accept that you are not just a swimmer?
- Yes! From swimming, I learned a lot about dealing with difficult situations and about myself and, from that, everything can be translated into everyday situations. I’m not saying that I can handle myself perfectly yet, but I know myself better than most thirty-year-olds. When millions expect results from you, you are forced into situations where you have to face yourself.

- Talking of Liliana Szilágyi, you once said you were on good terms but you did not give each other advice, because you are also opponents. How do you draw such boundaries? Is it easy, at all, to exclude the will to win from your private life?
- It is very hard. Somehow, I always thought that I am an easy person because I can be influenced and I am flexible. But I came to realize that if I think something, it has to be that way.

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Photo: László Emmer

- Yes, we still remember when you tore that ten million check in two in front of the press ...."
- It had a serious background, we specifically told Tamás Gyárfás that we should see who was the stronger. And don’t take that sentence either to mean that Liliana and I are friends or going to dinner together. By the way, the will to win is not easy in private life either, I have to hold myself back in everyday situations. When I sit in a car, for example, if someone invites me to race it can be dangerous.

My siblings and I also competed in everything in our childhood: in eating, in who could get up from the TV to their room first.

Now I try to get everyone to compete with me because there are no competitions now, so there is no challenge. Some agree to compete, others don’t.

- The fact that you have arranged a one-year grant for the serious preparation, in the International Swimming League for 320 young swimmers under the current circumstance suggests that you can be very selfless in regard to others, even future competitors.
- Don't imagine that in a competition I want to crush my opponent. If they are not in top form, there's no point in racing. I’ve experienced many things in swimming and I see exactly what could be done better. It feels good that I invented this grant and I discussed it all with the best swimmers in the world. This is what gives me a lot now, this is the gain of the Olympic title.

- You courageously appear in the tabloid media, even though you’ve been thoroughly scrutinised many times. You are also open about your new relationship, including providing photos. Aren't you afraid of the publicity?
- A lot of things were published about me that weren’t true or were only half-true, but were written with a negative tone. At the same time, I can state that, today, I might regard the world differently to how I did a few years ago, and that I am only human, I can be wrong. I struggled a lot to reach the point of saying that they can write what they want, I don’t care. When our divorce started in 2017-18, it was very difficult to make a statement about it because it’s only easy if you know exactly who you are, what you want and what you represent. But if you, too, are full of questions and you are not left alone, it’s very difficult. Then they add yet another twist and write something that’s a lie and present you as someone you’re not, and then it’s too late to refute it. It took a long time for me to realize that I didn’t have to know about everything that appeared about me, I didn’t have to have an answer to everything. And that people don’t know the answer to everything at all. And that’s acceptable. It hurt me that I couldn’t sit down to talk to the people who wrote false things about me. I think we would have left as different people.

- I think the love of the fans reaches you too. A couple of months ago, some little girls were traveling with their training gear to Margaret Island on the tram, and one was heard to say, “I’m going to train with Katinka”, with her eyes sparkling eyes just like yours with your smile now.
- Yes, it feels really good. However, there is obviously an image of Katinka Hosszú that is no longer quite me. I try to make sure that the most important values remain in the image, and I try to control that. For example, I really look up to basketball player LeBron James, who isn’t just a fantastic player; I like that he opened an agency with his friends, opened a school back where he came from and he gives back the positive things that make him much more than a successful athlete. However, the image I have of him may not be exactly the same as the real LeBron James.Of course, I would love to get to know him better personally, it would be good to talk to him, but I am really helped by the LeBron James I built for myself. I hope there are such images of me as well. People know you swim very well, but it's hard to really show yourself even on your own platform

- What do you want to show of yourself?

- I can be very funny. I always post about hard work and achievement, but often I am also relaxed and humorous.

- We got to know that side of you after the photography, though in the beginning, it was as if you experienced this as a serious task, watching, and concentrating like a professional model, which also surprised the photographer.
- I always listen to photographers to see what suits me; I like it when we work fast and as efficiently as possible and when everyone goes home afterwards feeling that it was a good photo shoot.

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Photo: Tamás Páczai

- Did the restrictions due to the epidemic change your daily routine?
- I was lucky to be able to train, and the national team is also training this week. Still, I have a lot more time, I can sleep more, I am much more relaxed and I read a lot.

- What are you reading now?
- Many autobiographical books about tennis players such as Rafael Nadal, Andre Agassi, Marija Sharapova...

- Studies for your portrait film now being made?
- A bit, because I've been watching the documentaries. And I love psychological-philosophical topics. Recently, for example, I read Man’s search for meaning by Victor E. Frankl. The author is a psychologist who survived Auschwitz but lost his friends and his pregnant wife.

He writes that you can be happy in any situation if you can find the meaning and essence of your life, your suffering. I read it at the beginning of the quarantine, and I thought it was really appropriate.

I hope this epidemic triggers changes in all of us, it would be good if the world slowed down a bit. I had to slow down a bit too. Because life is running away.

Is there anything you don't want from your previous life anymore, or a lesson from quarantine?
- Video conferences, for example, are very useful. If I have a half-hour online meeting, it’s really half an hour, not one and a half or two, as it was with the travelling and the preparation. That way we have more time for the important things.

- Did you miss being at home, too?
- To be honest, I haven't had much of a home so far. I will have one now. Maybe it was a bit intentional so that I wouldn’t wish to be at home, I didn’t want to be attached because I knew I had to travel all the time and even when I was home, I just went there to sleep. Now is the time to change that.

- A portrait film is being made about you at the age of thirty. What does it feel like?
- Things like that are hard to digest, though I'm happy about it, it's a great honour. True, I am sometimes loud, but I was basically a very shy girl, so I worked a lot to reach this level. Yet I am also the little girl who blushes at a family meal for ten when addressed by the others.

This documentary is a great new challenge in my life, it urges me to get to know myself as we’re going over my life and career and during filming I come face to face with myself.
But this film is also important to me because of others. I hope that it will be a production that gives people strength, encourages them to achieve their goals and helps them in difficult situations, as well. The shooting is especially fun, it's interesting to see behind the scenes of the filming and I'm excitedly looking forward to the final result.