Cassiel Rousseau reveals to Senior Correspondent Mike Osborne the superpower behind his dramatic rise and spectacular dives.
The fear of heights can weigh you down when you’re about to leap from a 10m platform so former acrobat Cassiel Rousseau performs some mental gymnastics to clear his mind of needless anxiety.
He then engages his superpower – his spatial awareness – to allow him to spin and twist through the air before piercing the water like a bullet.
The French-speaking Australian diver calls it “going with the flow” a tactic he hopes will carry him to the podium at the Paris Olympics, just as it did in 2023 when he took out the 10m platform world title.
“My aerial awareness is one of the best in the world and having that in the 10m platform really helps with my fear of heights,” says Rousseau, who will compete in the individual 10m platform in Paris as well as the 10m synchronised event with partner Domonic Bedggood.
“Some divers don’t have the same level of aerial awareness and they can’t spot where they are in the air. It gives me the confidence of knowing I’m not going to stuff up a dive.
“I can work things out in my head and then it just depends on my entry in the water. This means I’m pretty consistent in competition.”
When he’s standing atop the 10m platform the 23-year-old says he works mentally hard to “think of nothing”.
“I take in the atmosphere and the crowd cheering. I do all my thinking before I’m up there,” the 23-year-old says.
“I rehearse the dive in my mind many times before I get on the tower. I like to think of myself doing the dive in first person then I look at myself in third person and see the dive that way.
“And then I think of the key words like ‘stand tall’ in the take off and ‘squeeze my bum’ on the entry. I know all the dives I’ve already done won’t be that much different from what I’m about to do. I simply go with the flow and then all the muscle memory just kicks in.”
Rousseau says his favourite dive changes often because it’s so hard to perfect the six dives needed for competition.
“There’s always one dive that gives you headaches,” he says. “But my favourite dive at the moment is the one I start with – the reverse three and half tuck. It’s all about coming out strong and confident.”
While aerial awareness is his superpower, Rousseau is also blessed with elite sporting genes courtesy of his Olympic cycling champion French grandfather who he is hoping to emulate in Paris and grab a rare piece of history.
He’s also benefited greatly from his childhood training as a gymnast and acrobat with the Robertson Gymnastics Academy in Brisbane.
“I did gymnastics until I was about 13 and then I went to sports acrobatics until I was 16 or 17,” he said, crediting them for his ability to twist and turn in the air as he plummets from the 10m tower.
By the time he was 17 he was growing too big to continue with gymnastics and acrobatics, so his French mother Emmanuelle forced him to join one of his sisters at a diving trial.
“I did not want to go to the trial for diving because of my fear of heights,” he admits. “But mum got me out of bed that morning despite me kicking and screaming and she took me with my sister. Surprisingly I actually had quite a bit of fun on the trial day.”
Within a year he was competing as an elite junior, then he finished eighth in the Covid-delayed Tokyo Olympics’ 10m platform at the age of 20 before winning the Fukuoka world championship two years later in 2023. Not surprisingly World Aquatics named Rousseau Diver of the Year.
He passed up the opportunity to defend his 10m platform individual title at this year’s world championships to focus on the 10m synchronised event with Bedggood.
“Competing with Dom is so much fun because he is such a good person to stand alongside and compete with,” the Queensland Academy of Sport diver says
“If you stuff up in synchro it makes you feel a bit worse compared to the individual because you don’t want to let your partner down. That’s why competing with Dom is so good because he’s like me – we both just go with the flow and try to have a lot of fun.”
The pair took the bronze medal at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games, where Rousseau won the individual.
In Paris, Rousseau and Bedggood will compete in the synchro event at the start of the Games on Monday July 29, while the individual 10m platform comes on Saturday August 10 which is the second last day.
Rousseau will spend the down time at the Australian divers’ training base in Southend, the English coastal city in Essex an hour’s drive east of London. It’ll be the team’s holding camp before and during the Games to rest, recover and reset.
He says his experience from Tokyo will help deal with the 12-day gap between events in Paris,
“Since Tokyo I’ve grown physically, my form is better, my entries are better but mentally I’m still the same,” he says. “I still go with the flow, and if I come first that’s good and if I come last that’s ok too.
“But coming into Paris with Tokyo behind me it’s about enjoying the experience. The whole ‘razzamatazz’ of the Games isn’t there this time because I’ve already been through it and I know what’s coming.”
Olympic success also runs through his French blood. His grandfather Michel Rousseau was also a world champion, in cycling, and won gold for France in the sprint event at the 1956 Melbourne Games.
“Over the journey he has become a bigger part of what I do, and I’m hoping for the old switcheroo and that I can flip it around,” he says. Naturally grandad is his number one hero.
If Rousseau honours his legacy by also winning Olympic gold in Paris, the feat which would grant him a rare piece of history: World and Olympic champion grandfather and grandson winning Games gold while competing for two different countries in two different sports 68 years apart.
Rousseau will also feel very much at home in Paris as French was his first language thanks to his mother Emmanuelle who did “a pretty good job at keeping us up to speed”.
The Olympics will also be the first time his mother has visited Paris since she attended her Olympic champion father’s funeral in 2016.
“Mum hasn’t seen me compete internationally or even interstate (outside Queensland), and for her to watch me in Paris at the Olympics in the country where she grew up is just something extra special,” Rousseau says.
He says his main challengers in Paris will be the Chinese divers.
”They are pretty much always the dominant team heading into any competition,” he says. “Other countries like Great Britain are also very tough and then there is Japan and Mexico.
“Winning gold is not necessarily my aim. I just enjoy the sport and doing the hard work and hope that medals will be a by-product of the hard work.”
Rousseau’s “go with the flow” game plan spills into his non-sporting life where he is keen to take a break from diving next year to seek out new challenges.
“Paris won’t be my last Games but I just don’t like thinking too far ahead into the future,” he says. “After this Olympics all that will be on my mind is having a rest. And getting back into my life of studying and working.
“I was a part-time receptionist before I stopped to prepare for the Olympics but I’m keen to start earning some money again and see what opportunities arise after Paris.”
Michael Osborne has been a journalist for more than four decades including 35 years with the national news agency Australian Associated Press, rising from junior reporter to Editor.
He was AAP Editor for 11 years and served four years as Head of Sport and Racing. He was also posted to London and Beijing as AAP’s Bureau Chief and Foreign Correspondent.
He has worked at six Olympics and five Commonwealth Games, covered tennis grand slams, golf majors, international cricket, rugby world cups and numerous sporting world championships. He also co-ordinated and managed AAP’s teams and coverage at three Olympic Games in Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
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