Yasmin Harper interview: Britain's first medallist in Paris already back in training for the next one

Just as the 24-year-old was Britain’s first Olympic medallist alongside Scarlett Mew Jensen on the opening morning of competition on the final Saturday in July, so she is the first back in the pool at Ponds Forge International Sports Centre on the first day of October.

While the rest of her British diving team-mates are still on their holidays, still basking in the glow of the squad’s strongest ever showing at an Olympics, Harper is already back on the 3m springboard, taking the first steps on the road to Los Angeles in four years’ time.

“I’ve probably taken six weeks off since I finished the Olympics,” says Harper, as she sits in the stands overlooking the diving pool at Ponds Forge after her return to training.

“I had a couple of holidays but when they were over it’s like what do I do now? I don’t want to be sat at home just lazing about, so I think it’s the right time for me to come back again.

“Plus the longer you leave it the harder it is to get back to physical fitness and everything like that.

“The hard part will be when training gets hard, when it’s dark outside and it’s raining and you’ve got to get up, you’ve got to get grinding again, that’s when it’s going to feel like hard work.

“But that’s hard regardless of Olympic Games’ success or not.

“I do feel refreshed and that I’ve had a good break, so it’s time to get back into it.”

She is not alone in returning quickly. Jordan Houlden, her City of Sheffield team-mate, is also back training after his strong showing on Olympic debut, even if it did not yield the medal that Harper came home with.

Nine weeks on from her crowning moment alongside Mew Jensen, she has had time to reflect with great pride on what was a historic achievement by female British divers in the 3m synchro final.

Her bronze medal might be in a wardrobe at the minute waiting to be encased in a frame and hung on the wall, but even without the symbolism, the memories are still vivid.

“I think it has sunk in now,” says Harper. “It was something I had wanted and had been aspiring to for probably the last year or so since the world championship when Scarlet and I got a medal for the first time.

“Since then it was on my mind and something that I really wanted so when it did happen it didn’t feel like a surprise, it was more like happiness because we’d delivered.”

The partnership was still in its infancy at the Paris Aquatics Centre.

Harper was diving with someone else when Mew Jensen’s partner suffered an injury in early 2023, creating an opening that the Chester-born diver – who has only ever trained at Sheffield since moving to the area aged nine and taking up diving at the relatively late age of 14 – seized upon.

Together they won a silver at the world championships that year and a bronze at the same level in Doha this February, thrusting them into the position of medal candidates in their first Olympics as a partnership.

And they did not disappoint in Paris.

“I was nervous, of course I was, it doesn’t matter what I’m doing or how prepared I am, I’m always nervous for everything I do competition wise,” says Harper.

“But you build up to that level, it’s not like you jump straight in at an Olympic final, you have experiences through competitions and at the worlds that are all preparing you for that moment.

“I really prepared well for that to be able to cope under that pressure.

“You have to be in the zone, but also appreciating and noticing what’s going on around you, I always try to do that as well.

“So you’re seeing what’s going on and then when it comes to your dive, really focusing on that.”

Eight of the 11 divers sent to Paris won a medal and Great Britain won 65 in total, but Harper and Mew Jensen were the first at those Games and suddenly found themselves topping the news headlines.

“That was really cool actually,” smiles Harper. “We’d been so focused on ourselves and the competition that we didn’t really know what was going on externally.

“Once we finished and then suddenly saw it was all over the news and on Instagram, “British divers win first medal”, that was a cool moment and just added to it.

“Everything we got to do that day and the day after, BBC sofa, champions walk next to the Eiffel Tower, was really cool.”

To add to the excitement, Harper celebrated her 24th birthday on the Sunday, but still had the individual 3m event to prepare for towards the end of the Games.

“I had a couple of days off, I went back to London the following day to have a bit of a break from that environment, just a little bit a breather while the training eased off a little bit,” says Harper, who enjoyed staying in the Athlete’s Village but was not awestruck by the company she kept in there.

“I felt like it took me about four days to recover from all of the adrenaline, so going back to London was really helpful and gave me some space to have the synchro as one thing and then move onto the next challenge.”

Feeling liberated by her bronze medal in the synchro, Harper battled her way through the preliminary round and semi-final to a fifth-place finish when it was just her stood in the silence on the edge of the springboard.

“I was very pleased with the individual, I felt very content with that result, I went in there wanting to make the final so coming fifth in the end I felt very happy with that,” continues Harper.

“It was something I’d really worked on, the previous world championships hadn’t all gone to plan, so it made me feel really good that it all came together at the Olympics.

“It’s also made me feel inspired with a desire to do more for the next one.”

Which is why she has come back to training quicker than any of her fellow British diving medallists.

There is no falling off a cliff emotionally or mentally as many Olympic medallists have done post-Games, instead Harper is mapping out a path to build on what she achieved in Paris.

Los Angeles is a long way off in the distance and Harper is aware there will be peaks and troughs in performance and motivation, which is why she is setting herself little goals.

“Four years is too long to have that as the thing that’s keeping you in your lane, that’s too far away, you can easily deviate,” says Harper, who is determined to stay in Sheffield working under her long-time coach, Tom Owens.

“Really for me now I’m looking at it as the period up to Christmas, I want to sort out the little bad habits that crept in which you don’t have time to sort out, now is the time for that.

“Then looking at 2025 I want to have some success at the world championships.

“Plus I’ve got a Christmas holiday booked to look forward to!”

Of the potential pitfalls of the emotional comedown post Olympics, Harper responds: “I did speak to my psychologist a little bit about it before the Games, but you can’t say how you’re going to feel and you don’t know how you’re going to feel once it’s over.

“I use that support when I need it because I think it’s really helpful. But I’ve actually had a smooth transition so far, which is good.”

The partnership with Mew Jensen will continue, but Harper has another reason to stay motivated as the mornings get darker and the body gets used to the rigours of a tough training regime again.

“The individual is going to be a really big driver for me over the next couple of years.

“I still really want to pursue the synchro, we’ve had our bits of success in that and both Scarlet and I want to achieve more things together, but right now I really want to achieve something individually,” says Harper, whose coach Owens reports more than 100 new kids tried diving at Ponds Forge off the back of the Olympics.

“That’s cool to hear,” says Harper. “It’s nice to see that kids watch you on TV and then they want to give that a go.

“When I get messages from parents on Instagram saying my child watched you win a medal at the Olympic Games and now they want to try diving, it’s really nice.

“It’s good to see that the Olympics can still motivate kids.”