Birmingham: Sam Fricker thinks about getting business cards printed but the problem is what to put on them: professional diver, private school coach, eco-conscious straw manufacturer or, most appropriately, TikTok sensation?
“I’ve got 1.5 million followers on TikTok and I’m about to hit a million on YouTube as well,” the 20-year-old says. “I’ve started doing YouTube full-time in the last 90 days and now I’ve got 910 million hits. Nearly a billion. Hectic.”
Sam Fricker will contest the men’s 10m platform, 3m springboard and synchronised 3m springboard in Birmingham.Credit:Getty
Fricker’s social media numbers have continued to soar since arriving in Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games where he will compete in the men’s 10m platform, 3m springboard and synchronised 3m springboard.
He’s a fresh-faced, big-haired, big-smiling Novocastrian; a walking billboard for clean living and positivity, devoid of arrogance and strut.
But haters are always gonna hate.
“Trolls? I get tons of hate but who cares?!” he says. “I don’t care. If my friend came up to me and said, ‘Hey Sam, you shouldn’t do that’, then he’s probably right and I’ll listen. But if some person with no profile photo and zero followers is telling me I’m bad at diving, am I really taking that on board? People say anything: they say I can’t dive, they make fun of the way I talk …”
Make fun of the way he talks?
“I had really bad teeth when I was younger,” he continues. “I had ‘shark teeth’. I had braces for a long time. I couldn’t move my tongue properly, so when I was younger it was harder to pronounce words. As I’ve gotten older, and my teeth have gotten better, it’s become easier. So, they take a shot at that. But most people are good.”
Social media is the multi-headed snake coaches in all sports don’t know how to handle. Most don’t understand it. “Let me get this right: people put up photos of the bacon and eggs they’re having for breakfast?” puzzled Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy once asked me. “Is that what social media is?”
Sam Fricker’s coaches have come around to his social media use.Credit: Getty
Mostly, coaches want to eliminate as many distractions as possible. A torrent of abusive comments can derail the strongest-minded athlete.
At the time of writing, Fricker had posted 12 TikTok videos just on Monday. When we spoke outside a church in Edgbaston, the Australian team’s media liaison officer, Matt Barnard, took vision from a variety of angles. Fricker then posted the footage to his Instagram account.
“My coaches are coming around to it,” Fricker says. “I’m going to be doing what I’m doing, so they’ve come to support and understand that. And it’s really good for the sport. Diving doesn’t get much attention like other sports so it’s a cool opportunity to share what we do. And it helps my diving.”
It helps because he can shoot practice sessions everywhere he goes in the world, setting up his phone on a tripod. It can also help his coach identify a serious injury, which Fricker knows something about having broken his ankle twice since last year’s Tokyo Olympics.
Late last year, he was on a beach with some friends at Cronulla in Sydney’s south just weeks after coming out of quarantine after returning from Japan.
He did a backflip and landed awkwardly. Of course, he was shooting a short video for TikTok at the time.
He sent the video to his coach, Joel Rodriguez, who competed for Mexico at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics.
“It’s broken,” Rodriguez told him over the phone.
“What do you mean?”
“Listen to it. You can hear the break.”
‘In a competition, 90 per cent of it is mental. We’ve all done the training. It’s just about who can do them when they need [to] do them.’
Fricker then broke his ankle a second time walking down some stairs, but he’s recovered and is now seeking gold in three events.
Brushing aside trolls is easier than composing yourself while standing on the 10m platform.
“In a competition, 90 per cent of it is mental,” he says. “We’ve all done the training. We’ve all done similar dives. It’s just about who can do them when they need [to] do them. What you’re doing is keeping it super simple. You’re not stressing too much, you’re trying to be in the moment one dive at a time.
“When I’m up there, about to do my inward three-and-a-half, my favourite dive, you’re taking slow breaths with two key words per dive. Sometimes, you have all those negative thoughts going through your head, you just have to do your best to battle those and stick to the positives.”
One last question: is there anything in his life he doesn’t document?
“Not really,” he says. “I’m doing a lot of livin’!”
And you’re livin’ it well, Sammy. Go well.
Buckets of fun
Here’s a sentence I didn’t expect to be writing: I’m a freak for 3 x 3 basketball, especially sitting here in the sun high in the press tribune at Smithfield.
Look, the quality of basketball isn’t necessarily great. You don’t expect to see air-balls when unmarked from outside the arc.
Australia’s Amber Merritt looks for a way past Amy Conroy during the 3×3 wheelchair basketball win over England.Credit:Getty
But the exciting format of 10-minute matches with a 12-second shot clock makes it a great spectator sport.
Australia’s women’s wheelchair team were on the verge of tears after beating England to progress to the gold medal match.
“Women’s wheelchair basketball has a bit of a downside in the last few years so to have such a successful year now and get to showcase all the hard work on the international stage that we’ve had is incredible,” Amber Merritt said.
The in-venue commentators were also on point.
“This is going to be a fascinating, fascinating contest,” said one, to which the other responded: “This is going to be a fascinating contest.”
Amazing analysis.
THE QUOTE
“You know these women will have had to fight for respect from the first moment they picked up the ball — Lets f**king go girls!” — Country legend Shania Twain pays tribute to England following their win in the Women’s Euro 2022 final. Man, I feel like a handball.
THUMBS UP
With Michael Buble’s Feeling Good as the background music, Australian gymnast Georgia Godwin nailed her floor routine to win gold in the women’s all-round, snapping England’s dominance in the event. And that makes all of us feel good.
THUMBS DOWN
Australian weightlifter Kyle Bruce was inconsolable after judges snatched the gold medal out of his hands and swapped it for silver in the men’s 81kg category. He appeared to have won he lifted 183kg in the clean and jerk but the judges ruled his elbows had briefly unlocked during the lift. “I don’t know how they could turn that over,” he said.
Get all the latest news from the Birmingham Commonwealth Games here. We’ll be live blogging the action from 4pm-10am daily.
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