Diving

I sat next to Matthew Mitcham on the plane to Beijing. He asked me a question that no man has before or since. As the plane hurtled down the runway, I was fumbling with the words to the Lord’s Prayer when Mitcham turned to me and said: “Do you like musicals?”

I enjoy musicals about as much as knee reconstructions. Or plane trips. As Mitcham talked and talked about one show tune or another, I became convinced a mental patient wearing an official Olympic tracksuit had been let loose on the plane. The next time I looked out the window we were approaching 20,000-feet.

Of course, once the landing gear was folded away it became clear that helping a stranger to overcome a morbid fear of take-off was his intention from the start. That’s the type of guy Matt Mitcham is.

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