What if you competed in the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028 in a discipline about which you know almost nothing? Impossible, you will answer straight away. Well no. So take the example of Jade (22 years old) and Naïs Gillet (21 years old). These two sisters will compete in the Olympics in Paris, competing in the synchronized (3 meters), after having discovered diving barely five years ago, while they were doing gymnastics.
A crazy trajectory, which even resulted in a title of vice world champion for Jade, the eldest, during the last world championships in Fukuoka, during the mixed event, while she is a specialist in 10 meter diving , while his sister jumps 3 meters. Invited in the show “The Crusaders You Know”, broadcast on Twitch and 20Minutes TV, the two Normans looked back on their journey and their ambitions.
How did you come up with the idea of changing disciplines?
Naïs Gillet: It’s just stupid, it’s from a Facebook post. We had been doing gym for ten years, with certain titles, and my mother saw this Facebook post where the French Swimming Federation was looking for athletes with acrobatic and physical qualities for the Paris 2024 objective. There are two phases of selections, we took the tests and entered Insep in August 2018.
Jade Gillet: Our dream, since we were little, has been to make the Olympics. We started gymnastics, and we thought we would make the Games in this sport, but it was not possible, with lots of small problems, especially with clubs, and we could not join the French team. We said to ourselves that we would try the adventure [dans le plongeon].
The fact that France has an automatic quota, as organizing country, for synchronized diving, must also have facilitated this process…
JG: Downright. When we inquired about the discipline, we saw that synchronized diving was directly qualified for the Paris Olympics. At that time, there were no girls doing 3 meter synchronization. At that time, I didn’t know that I was going to go up to 10 meters individually either. The goal was really to create this synchronization, to have our place for the Games. That’s really why we got into diving. We said to ourselves: “Let’s try it, and we’ll see if it works.” We had nothing to lose.
How do we manage to progress in an environment that is not hypercompetitive?
JG: It is complicated. The only competitors who are stronger than us are boys, so we don’t train with girls who are stronger than us. When we do internships abroad, and there are successful girls, it feels good, it allows us to position ourselves in relation to others. But it is above all the competitions that help us to know where we are. But it’s true that what we lack is competition. But the one above us.
NG: I also know that I have set my sights on a foreign idol. She’s an Australian, I love how she dives, I would like to look like her and act like her. And it’s thanks to that, today, that I’m progressing, and it pushes me to go further.
When you each go abroad for training courses specific to your specialties, how do you then organize yourself on the synchronized side?
NG: We send each other videos to see each other’s progress. We know each other and we also both know that we need to progress individually.
JG: We know that our synchro works, we’ve been doing it for three or four years and it works. If we increase the difficulty of our dives, we just have to succeed individually and then we know that we will succeed in settling in with a few sessions. It’s not the biggest job to do it as a team.
How does this synchronization work work?
NG: For all training, we have a dry work phase, where we arrive on mats. This allows us to do a lot of repetitions in a short time. We also do trampoline. And, it’s stupid, but we count. We also look at ourselves, with peripheral vision, even if we always stare ahead. And, once you’re in the air, you’re gone…
It’s certainly an advantage to be a sister when it comes to synchronized. Are there also any problems due to being sisters?
JG: Oh yes, and that’s what we work on with our mental trainer. There are times, we know we are sisters, so there are words or phrases that we would not allow with others. We talk to each other as if we were sisters on the board, even though we’re not sisters, we’re divers. Synchro is first and foremost individual. If your individual is rotten, even if you have correct sync, it won’t work. She works in a different way than me, and there are going to be things we don’t agree on.
Is there sometimes one who wants to create new difficulties and the other not?
NG: For the Games, we aim to do two new dives, maybe three. And for the Worlds, a new plunge. Jade has a much easier time doing new dives than me. Me, I need to work more, whereas 3 meters is my height, it’s me who does it every day. Jade does it more easily than me even though I work on it every day, and I’m less successful than her. For me, it’s difficult to accept this. And this is the first time I’ve told him.
You already have your quota for synchronized, but there is also a quota to be found in your respective specialties, is that right?
JG: We approach it differently. I don’t have this goal in mind, I’ll do what I have to do and we’ll see. I remember that if I started diving, it was not for this discipline, not for this height (10 meters), it was for synchro. And since we already have a place, that’s just a bonus. Yes, we are all competitors, we all want to do more, and I would really like to qualify individually, but the priority is synchro.
NG: For me, it’s a little different. Last season, I had problems, with an injury, and I arrived at the worlds a little struggling, and yet it wasn’t that bad. In my approach, I will try to put a little more difficulty, to have a little more coefficient and to have a slightly greater margin of error. I’m going to go for the top 18, I know I want it.
Jade, you brought home the second world medal in the history of French diving, in a mixed competition, what were your feelings at that moment?
At the time, I didn’t expect it at all. It was my first world championships, and during the competition, I didn’t watch anything. I had done individual before, I had completely failed, and it annoyed me, because I couldn’t make an entry into the water like I do in training. So I was focused on that. And on the last jump, I manage to do it. The coaches tell me that we are second, I didn’t believe it, I didn’t expect to do that, I didn’t realize it.