Jordan Houlden diving in to focus on biggest challenge yet as 2024 Paris Olympics looms large

It’s one of those sporting intangibles but generally speaking, those that focus the best usually get the most out of themselves and end up on podiums.

Jordan Houlden was a ‘fiddler’ at school as he puts it, he struggled to concentrate and his mind would wander.

But he lived with it, to the point where it didn’t stop him from being active in his childhood before settling on diving as his sport of choice.

He was even good enough to represent the City of Sheffield at national events, and Great Britain in international meets.

But this time last year, at the age of 23, he was coming to a crossroads.

“I was at a point of asking myself do I carry on with diving or do I step away and get a real job,” he tells The Yorkshire Post.

And that’s when he had a conversation with a lifestyle coach that changed everything.

“I’ve always tended to just switch off from conversations very easily, it’s a hard thing to explain,” says Houlden.

“I could be stood on the diving board thinking what am I having for tea?

“I didn’t think of it as a medical thing until I saw a lifestyle coach and I mentioned it to her. She said ‘do you think you might have ADHD?’

“My mum, who has been a massive support for me, had suspected it but never said anything.

“It’s never felt like a constant battle, it just felt normal for me to drift off.”

Armed with the diagnosis and the help that came with it, Houlden then sat with his coach and decided 2022 would be the year he gave it everything to see if he had a future in the sport.

“It was all or nothing, that’s how I approached it.”

It worked. In February at the national championships at his home pool at Ponds Forge, Sheffield-born and raised Houlden won silver medals on the 3m and 1m springboards.

“The nationals are usually held down in Plymouth and I don’t like that pool because I like to have something to spot in front of me, and they have this massive maroon curtain,” laughs Houlden, who perhaps hadn’t realised then how much he was struggling with focus.

“Usually at Ponds Forge I’ll pick a spot right to the end of the pool, I like to have something to focus on.”

His success at nationals got him into the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and the European Championships in Rome.

With new-found focus, Houlden won silver in the 3m springboard and bronze in the 1m in the Second City, and then the following week added another silver in the 3m in the Eternal City.

“I definitely exceeded what I was expecting. I was just hoping for the final in Birmingham, do my dives, enjoy it, but I was able to make it stick and perform well,” says Houlden.

“I was on a massive high from the Commonwealths into the Europeans, it still doesn’t feel real to me.”

Some of the techniques he had learned since his diagnosis for ADHD came in helpful during competition.

“I don’t look at the scores or where I am, I just try and go in there and do what I do best, that’s how I normally work,” he says.

“Coming to the last dive in Birmingham, I did look at the scores, I knew I was up there, I knew I needed a strong last dive to get top three, so that was quite nerve-racking. I was a little shaky, but I was able to manage one that was good enough for silver.

“Finals are about keeping adrenalised, keeping yourself in the zone, but not too adrenalised because it might tip you over the edge, so it’s about striking that balance.”

It was a medal-laden summer that fills Houlden with confidence as the Paris Olympics of 2024 draw ever closer.

“That’s the aim. I take things day by day, 100 per cent effort with everything I do,” says Houlden who may have to battle multiple Olympic medal-winner Jack Laugher for a place on Team GB.

He has continued his form from the summer, winning two titles at the recent Scottish Nationals, in the same pool that will host the British Championships in February.

“I didn’t do my full list either, I’ve still got my highest-difficulty dive in my repertoire,” he says.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in store.”

Houlden has enough awareness about him to appreciate if it doesn’t work out in diving, there are other things he can pursue.

During the first Covid lockdown, when divers couldn’t get into pools, he worked as a carer.

“It was quite a mentally hard job but goodbecause you got a reward from it, you got to see people being happy,” he recalls.

“It helped take my mind off diving.”

But now his mind is on diving, clearer than it has ever been, which makes Jordan Houlden a genuine Olympic prospect.