In conversation with Chris Lee
Alumni Chris describes his growth from a competitive swimmer at university to a dedicated coach
In 2012 Chris became a student athlete, balancing an architecture degree at the University with training to become a national-level swimmer. It is a move that changed his life.
It is 4am. The alarm on Chris Lee’s phone sounds and the luminosity lamp in his room, which has been getting brighter for half an hour, creates an illusion that the sun has risen. As autumn turns to winter, there is often nothing glorious or illuminating about surfacing at this hour. The walk through Central Park to Plymouth’s Life Centre is, more often than not, a lonely one.
Five days a week, though, this is Chris’s routine. In all winds and weather, all times of the year, there are people who rely on the fact he doesn’t switch off the alarm and roll over. “I like walking through Central Park at 5am,” Chris says. “No-one else is up and it’s a time to gather your thoughts.” But it’s also more than that. “Many of the kids I work with only have one shot at success,” he adds. “I have to be there for them.”
The ‘kids’ that Chris refers to have come from all over the world.
As Head of Development for Plymouth Leander Swimming Club, he is responsible for guiding a group aged between 14 and 24 towards their own personal glories. They include sporting scholars from the University, here to combine a rigorous training schedule with studying for a degree. There are also stellar talents from the city and local schools, with dreams of becoming the next champion in their chosen discipline.
All of them look up to Chris – at 6ft 8in, it would be hard for them not to. But this is about more than just a physical presence. He has been in their position. He has felt the pain they do after a training session. He has overcome the mental challenges to achieve national recognition. And now he is committed to helping them be the best they can be.
When swimmers prove to themselves that they can do something, that is the best feeling. We had someone last year who wanted a certain time. At the first attempt, he didn’t get it. So we worked hard, went to the English nationals and he won it with a nine-second PB. I remember his face and his parents’ faces. That is what continues to motivate me.
As we chat in a small room next to the Life Centre’s 50-metre pool, it is clear Chris feels at home here. That is probably just as well given he spends 27 hours a week coaching his swimmers, not to mention the hours of planning and preparation. But the water has always been a big part of Chris’s life. His mum tells stories of how, while working as a teacher, she would bring him along to school swimming sessions. As the children were getting ready to swim he would join them, running along the poolside and jumping in the deep end. He was 18 months old.
In spite of that, his path to swimming is not a wholly conventional one. During his teenage years, he swam and played water polo at a regional standard. He also played tennis at the national college championships. It was only aged 17 that he decided to focus on the pool. He obviously had no idea at that point, but it is a decision that has ultimately changed his life.
Just over a year after taking that literal plunge, it is July 2012. Chris is on holiday with his family in France. Like millions worldwide, he is keeping a keen eye to the London Olympics. At around 7.30pm on the Games’ first Monday, he is watching the swimming finals. Given his passion for the sport it is perhaps no surprise, but there is one swimmer he is focussed on.
At the age of just 15, Lithuanian swimmer Rūta Meilutytė storms to gold in the women’s 100-metre breaststroke final. Until that point few people had heard of her, but Chris is one of the exceptions. In fact, he had swum with her just two weeks previously.
Ahead of coming to the University to study for a
BA (Hons) Architecture
degree, Chris had a two-week trial with Plymouth Leander. He swam with Ruta – at the time a pupil at Plymouth College.
“I worked hard, but they were something else,” Chris says. “Rūta in particular was meticulous – in her gym, her pre-pool, everything. There were times I was laid out on the poolside, unable to walk because of lactic acid or because my arms had gone numb. She would still be going.”
However, Chris also uses her experience at London 2012 to inspire his team: “In the last 25 metres of that Olympic final, she was in real pain. It is a reminder to my swimmers that even world record holders struggle.”
Having secured his place at Plymouth, Chris’s training ramped up from eight hours a week to 20. Nine swimming sessions. Three gym sessions. Adjusting to changes in diet. Balancing training and study. But it paid off. Over the next four years, he made 50m backstroke finals at both the English and British swimming championships. At a British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) event, he lined up against the-then world record holder Liam Tancock.
Despite this, Chris is undecidedly modest about his achievements. “Swimming was my drive and I got to a level I never thought possible. But I don’t think I was a talented swimmer,” he says. “I wanted to be the hardest worker in the pool. I hated missing sessions. And on the rare occasion I slept through the alarm I would run to the pool as I wanted to be there.”
That level of commitment – no more, no less – is what Chris expects from his swimmers now.
At 28, it might appear something of a stretch to describe him as a father figure. But that is very much how Chris sees his role. There are days when his athletes need a push, or an arm around the shoulder. There are also times where he needs to show them that swimming isn’t all about hard work – it can, and needs to be, fun as well.
“I find myself singing while they’re swimming,” he says. “I’m often not conscious of what I’m singing until one of them gives me a funny look. When I start singing The Final Countdown as they’ve got 10 minutes of a two-hour session left, I guess I can understand that.”
The Life Centre’s 10-metre diving board casts a long shadow over his training sessions. At the end of one cycle, his swimmers decided they wanted to follow in the steps of Tom Daley OBE, Tonia Couch and the countless others who have launched themselves to the blue below. For the coaches, there was no real opportunity to escape the same fate.
“I stood on the 10m board and my legs were shaking,” he says. “You fall for so long, it is such a high place. But then you see eight-year-olds go up there and just jump. It was so much more nerve-wracking than anything I’ve done in swimming.”
Whether competing or coaching, Chris holds true to the premise that if enough hard work has gone in, you can only do your best.
As a coach, that approach is yielding results. Three of his swimmers went to the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham – they all reached finals.
Others – notably Reece Dunn MBE, already a three-time Paralympic champion and world record holder – have a genuine chance of making it to the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. With Paris the venue, it may be the closest they ever come to having their own home Olympics.
Chris’s dalliances with chlorinated water are now merely observational. He admits his competitive edge won’t let him simply dive in for a relaxing few lengths. But his passion for water has not deserted him completely.
These days, when his schedule allows, he regularly takes to the waters off Plymouth Hoe – and once in, there is still that sense of being at ease.
His love of architecture, the other reason he first looked at Plymouth, is also still evident. “I loved my course and the people I met. I’m still in touch with a lot of them,” he says. “I’ve always loved how architects can take a set of ideas and incorporate them in one structure.
"That, again, is something I can pass on to my university swimmers to help them balance their schedules.”
Chris also plans to one day put his architecture studies into practice to design his own house. And, yes, it will have a pool.
Although it was hard work to study and train, it was definitely a sacrifice worth making.