Nicolette Teo does some soul-searching post-competition at her second Olympics.

In Beijing

IT HAS been two whole days since I concluded my competition outing at the Beijing Olympics and I'm still unsure what happened.

My performances at this Olympics did not remotely go the way I thought they would have. On the night after my 200m breaststroke, I could not fall asleep till 6am in the morning even though I was physically and emotionally spent. I just lay in bed and could not stop thinking.

This, I think, is my greatest weakness - over analyzing and over thinking everything. I constantly struggle with switching off my mind and just go with the flow. Needless to say, I have been doing a lot of thinking in the past two days.

I know some may think I am being overly dramatic by saying that I'm totally heart broken over my swims but one would have to understand  
where I'm coming from. When you have spent the past year putting your  heart, soul and absolutely everything you have into your preparation, failing to attain your goals is devastating.

I can honestly say that I’ve have never been more prepared for any meet in my entire swimming career, nor have I trained as hard or as well as I have in the past  year. Going into these games I knew I had done everything I could to put myself in a position to swim fast. The people who surrounded me and have watched me train for these Olympics were constantly telling me that it was my time to shine. Furthermore, I knew I was going to swim fast because of all the work I had done.

It may sound cocky - almost foolish in fact considering the outcome - to say "I knew", but I had faith in my preparation.

Unfortunately, things did not work out the way I planned. My 100m breaststroke swim really shook me to my core and I don’t think I really  
recovered mentally and emotionally in time for the 200m. It would be easy to blame that first swim on my cap and suit malfunctions  
but it was so much more than that.

I think I wanted to swim fast so badly that I over swam the race and started spinning. I could list a 100 more things that I would change but such things would bore and/or confuse you if you don’t understand swimming. More importantly, I'm not trying to justify nor come up with excuses for my performances.

Instead I will share what I think is my biggest lesson.

Before Beijing, I was focused solely on swimming and that was it. It was all I had. In addition, I equated my entire self-worth to my success in the pool. You would think I would have figured it out by now that what makes me special is not how I perform in the pool but is measured by the people who I love and who love me. They are the ones that make me worthwhile; they are the ones that make me extraordinary.

My biggest obstacle is to really buy into this fact, to realize that my whole life's worth is not based on this Olympic performance, and to believe I'm so much more than that.

Right now, I'm at the point in my career where I'm done with college swimming (therefore, once I graduate, my scholarship from UCLA will be terminated) and I do not know if I will be able to get the support and funding from Singapore that I need to continue swimming. I hate the thought that money could be the reason I retire but it is a fact of life. However, right now the main thing on my mind is: Do I want to  
keep swimming?

I've been swimming competitively for 15 years of and while the thought of having time to do whatever I desire excites, I'm also deathly afraid.

What will I do without swimming? Who will I be?

On the other hand, there is the fact that I am still so so in love with swimming and everything it has to offer. That love, coupled with a  
burning vengeance to show everyone (and myself) that I can compete at the level that I have been training at, is telling me to keep  
swimming.

But I also know that such a need to prove myself is not the right reason to keep swimming and that such an outlook is just another  
inner demon I would need to overcome. I need to swim because I love it, because it is a part of my life - but not my entire life. These are  
the things I need to contemplate and mull over in the next few weeks.

All this being said, I just realized that majority of my blog entries have been characteristically deep and serious with a huge serving of  
misery. Therefore on a lighter note, I will say, that I am insanely proud of how my young team of four rookies (not including me) performed  
at these Games.

All of them managed to not get overwhelmed by the grandeur of the Olympics yet use the excitement and atmosphere here to fuel national record-breaking swims. Additionally, Tao Li's ground breaking 100 fly swim was amazing! Fifth and an Asian record! That is such a huge deal for her and for Singapore swimming. I cannot express how happy and excited I am for her and for what this means for the future generations of Singapore swimmers.

I know Tao Li worked very hard for this and it was really a proud moment to cheer for her in the finals, where Singapore has always spectated at and never participated in.

I will also say that despite the disappointing outcome of my swims, I am proud of how well I prepared myself for these Games. Although I have no results to show for it, I have learned that I am not afraid of doing the work. More importantly, I had a great time doing so. I guess you could say that even though the outcome was not what I desired, I thoroughly enjoyed the process of training for these Games.

And for now, I am working on convincing myself that that is enough.