EP 11: James Roberts - The Rocket

Welcome back to another episode of the White Line Podcast.

On episode 11, we are joined by a very special guest, Australian swimmer and dual-Olympian, James Roberts.

Through a career spanning more than a decade, James has been a pivotal part of the Dolphins swim team, competing in the 4 x 100m freestyle relay events in London and Rio, with a bronze medal for the latter.

Now we’ve all just watched the Tokyo Olympics and seen the pressure that is placed on our swimmers to perform. 

Aptly nicknamed ‘The Rocket’, James takes us into the ruthless world of swimming and offers insight into how he manages that external and internal pressure.

The most prevalent theme throughout this episode is James’ resilience and persistence. Multiple shoulder reconstructions, regenerative discs, inflammatory arthritis, not making final relay teams - there’s not too many personal adversities that this guy hasn’t had to endure, yet he has built a career on showing up when the chips are down.

We chat about so much - Olympics campaigns, recurring injury challenges, occasionally skipping squad training to go for a surf, crossing paths with Kobe and Lebron in the London athletes village, an aspiring real estate career, and heaps more.

A huge thank you to the big fella for his time. We will definitely have to arrange that round of golf!

White Line Book Club
Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice - by Matthew Syed

James Roberts
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/james_roberts__
Twitter - https://twitter.com/james__roberts
FINA - https://www.fina.org/athletes/1017711/james-roberts

White Line Podcast
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Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/whitelinepodcast
Music by TVNXMI (https://soundcloud.com/tvnxmimusic)