Simply Swim Interviews Claire Cashmore: Was it hard doing a degree whilst training?

Yeah, I got my degree in linguistics from Leeds University. So I started, straight out of Beijing. I literally flew back, arrived back, and then the next day I went up to Leeds Uni to start fresh this week and then straight into my course. And then I had a little, a few weeks off from training, and then straight into it. So I finished the year before London, so I had a year of break before London, 2012 games. So it's kind of perfect timing. And actually, I swam my best after my dissertation. So clearly, it didn't have much of that much of an impact on me. Balancing education and swimming is obviously a really tough thing, but I think it's so important that you can have that balance. And actually for me, it worked really well. Obviously, you have to kind of realize that you're not going to be able to go out with your friends all the time, and you're going to have to make a lot of sacrifices in your life. But standing on that medal podium in London, made all those early mornings and all those sacrifices of not going on holiday with my friends, or going out that night, really worthwhile.