MEN’S FASHION: Champion diver Alexandre Despatie on his return to Olympic form

For Alexandre Despatie, diving is all about aesthetics. “Every time I step on the boards, I’m judged by how I look,” says the two-time Olympic medallist while on set at his Men’s FASHION cover shoot in Toronto. “It’s a fact I live with. My form has to be sharp. Every angle of my body is studied—it’s what I’m marked on.”

At a solid five-foot-eight and 155 pounds, Despatie’s frame is noticeably well toned. As he approaches the camera in a brief black swimsuit, an air of confidence radiates from his diamond-cut build. “Our bodies are our machines—our Formula One race cars,” he later says, after throwing on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. “They need to be perfect to run well.”

In the midst of preparing for the London Summer Games—his fourth Olympiad to date—the Montrealer is clearly running on overdrive. Heading to the gym six days a week, he maintains a schedule that befits his title as Canada’s 36-time senior diving champion. Yet his daily routine—which includes 1,000 crunches, one hour of strength training, 20 minutes of trampoline work, an indoor cycling program called PowerWatts and 50 sets of ab exercises called “pike-ups”—is something he feels “lucky” to be able to  do at all.

“If we’d spoken [last year] when my knee injury happened, I wouldn’t be sure what to say to you about my situation,” Despatie says. His diagnosis of tendinitis and bursitis left him no choice but to opt out of joining the Canadian diving team at the 2011 World Games. “The pain wasn’t settling down,” he explains. “I even started thinking that it might be the end of my career, because I couldn’t dive in that condition.” With treatment and physical therapy, the 26-year-old recovered and quickly began to plot another Olympic coup.

“Being back and fitter than ever, the desire and the flame to win have been reignited,” Despatie says. His return to form is something he has been sharing with the public since he began tweeting in January. “Nothing short of a disaster… this is how I feel,” he posted after what was supposed to be his comeback performance at the FINA Diving Grand Prix in February. However, he redeemed himself a week later at the 2012 World Cup, earning a bronze medal in the three-metre diving category and securing his place at the London Olympic Games. 

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