Fitness Training
Resilience in Motion: Kassidy Cook
Champion diver Kassidy Cook shares her journey from setbacks to strength, discovering joy in fitness, community and triumphs beyond medals.
Every triumphant elite athlete has a story of perseverance, but few have one with as many twists and turns as diving legend Kassidy Cook. “It’s been such a tumultuous journey—definitely not linear,” she says. And it’s true. On the bright side, she’s sitting at an F45 gym in Wilmington, Delaware, with a silver medal in her lap, a fulfilling new career as a fitness coach and two decades of hard-earned wisdom to show for the harrowing journey.
The fifth of six children of fiercely athletic parents, Cook played all sorts of sports as a youngster but showed enough talent and passion for diving that she was all in when most of her friends were still sipping juice boxes at snack time. “I’ve been obsessed and had an Olympic dream since I was 6,” she says, noting that her family moved from Florida to Texas so she could train with some of the best diving coaches in the U.S. “I never had a fear of heights, and I was a bit of a wild child. I’ve always thrived under pressure, so I started chasing that dream a long time ago.”
Cook, 30, has been grinding as an elite athlete for most of her life. “I’m a very driven person,” she says without bluster. “Once I set my mind to something, I’ll stop at nothing to achieve that goal.” But back when the journey started, she didn’t know how many obstacles she’d face to achieve that goal—or how all the injuries, near misses and heartbreaks would shape her for the better.
The first challenge came at the trials for the 2012 Games. Only 17 at the time, Cook was a favorite to make the U.S. team, but she and her synchro partner wound up finishing a mere 0.42 points short of qualifying. “I was devastated,” Cook says, recalling the agony of the infinitesimal margin. “I remember crying my eyes out on television, feeling like my life was over.”
Cook was photographed at the F45 Midtown gym in Wilmington, Delaware.
© Laura Barisonzi
A tough road
And somehow, things got even harder soon after, when she had to go under the knife for a major shoulder surgery. It was the first of numerous serious injuries she’d face in the next decade. “I’ve had two surgeries on my right shoulder and one on my left, meniscus tears on both of my knees and two surgeries on my right foot,” she says, describing the cumulative impact of heavy training and doing acrobatics before hitting the water at 35 miles per hour. “These procedures, with all the uncertainties and rehab, are not just physically tough but mentally tough, too, because you never know whether you’ll get back to the same level.”
The physical and emotional toll of these setbacks was too much for the young athlete to absorb without aftereffects. Today, Cook understands the importance of facing—and talking about—her struggles, but back then she felt like she couldn’t ask for help. “I didn’t want to be looked at as weak, so I just tried to suck it up,” she admits. “I felt like my body was failing me, and I entered this self-sabotage mode where I wasn’t taking care of my body.”
She took a break from competing, slacked off on her training and partied too much and before long was dealing with eating and body-image problems. Though it took quite a bit of time and work to open up—to both her family and sports psychologists— and tackle the underlying issues, that leap put her on a path to rediscovering her love of the sport.
As that multiyear break from international competition came to an end, Cook’s body and mind were finally in order, so she took a gap year from Stanford University to prep for the 2016 trials. And she was ready for the moment—she won the 3 m springboard competition to earn a spot to compete in Rio. But Cook acknowledges that at age 21, she wasn’t fully prepared for all the distractions and complications of competing on the largest stage. “I was thrown off mentally and didn’t compete to the best of my ability,” she says, summarizing the disappointment that came after finishing 13th in Rio. “I was proud to make the team but knew deep down I had unfinished business.”
Keep up with Kassidy Cook!
Instagram: @kassidycook13
