Cover Story: Bertrand Rhodict Lises is ready to make a splash at Paris 2024 Olympics

Ahead of the Summer Olympics in Paris, we’re diving into the month of April with 19-year-old national diver, Bertrand Rhodict Lises, who is also the first Malaysian to secure a spot for the Men’s 10M Platform event at the coveted games. 

Bertrand Rhodict is living the dream. In just a few months he will be jetting off to Paris, France to take his place at the 2024 Summer Olympics — a dream that every athlete before him has coveted, and those after him will. And at only 19 years old, after his advancement to the final at the World Aquatic Championships 2023 in Fukuoka, this dream has been realised.

Rhodict (as his friends call him) was born in Kuching, Sarawak, in the city. His brother and sister were already both swimmers, and his parents sent him along to take it up — and at four years old, he quickly decided that the sport just wasn’t for him.

“That’s a very early age to know,” I can’t help but chip in.

“Yeah,” he laughs. “I think it’s because I was still very small, so I couldn’t reach the end of the pool. It just wasn’t satisfying. And it was very tiring to have to keep swimming to make myself float. So, that’s why — well, I wouldn’t say I hate it but — I lost interest in swimming.”

But Rhodict found another way to love the water. Almost immediately after quitting swimming, he took up diving. “From there, it took me quite some years to realise diving could actually be a career,” he opens up. “So, I started taking things seriously after that. And at the age of 14, I was selected to join the national team here in Bukit Jalil, and I got the chance to train with them. And it’s been maybe fourteen, fifteen years of my life training.”

We are at the studio for our April cover shoot and Rhodict is getting his spilt dye mullet patted down. He swivels in the makeup chair and drums his fingers on the table in front of him — a testament to the kind of restless, kinetic energy he seems to possess; an “inability to sit still” that he claims to have, which drove him to the water in the first place. The whole shoot is positioned to capture his relationship with the element: for our winning shot, we have him crouched down underneath the umbrella as water is splashed his way.

On top of the world

Rhodict is no stranger to making a winning shot. In fact, his advancement to the final at the World Aquatic Championships last year — and subsequently qualifying for the Summer Olympics — had been an unexpected one. “I actually didn’t think that I would qualify, because my dives’ degree of difficulty wasn’t enough for me to push through to the finals,” Rhodict tells me. “But I made it into the finals. And I haven’t gotten over ‘that moment’ ever since.”

It’s clear how much impact that moment had had on Rhodict. When I revisited the very moment on screen, I could sense the feelings that must have collided within him as he stood on the platform, just before the dive — a mixture of pride and perturbation in representing our country in Fukuoka.

Rhodict competed in the 10-metre platform individual event at the World Aquatic Championships — a far different feat from his springboard, or his synchronised diving that he’d done with Enrique Maccartney Harold at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games. Platform diving showcases, according to Rhodict, “the most basic set of dives”, and thus, anything less than perfect simply won’t cut it.

“With my set of dives, being able to qualify with just that, it’s quite challenging to be able to qualify,” he shares. “But I managed to achieve it, and qualify. I have to execute it well to be able to qualify for the Olympics — and I did.”

When I bring up that he had done much more than just achieve it — he’s carrying the pride of the whole nation on his back — Rhodict ducks his head and smiles, but clearly the moment was pivotal. Endless training (twice a day on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; once till the evening on alternating days) had prepared him for exactly this.

Riding the waves

Of course, the journey that had brought him to his dream was not all smooth-sailing. He regards eleven as the age he “began to take diving seriously”; when he fell in love with diving and saw that he was in this for life, something that he “really, truly loved to do”. But it’s also been a long and rigorous ride, and at one point Rhodict had even considered quitting.

“A lot of times, actually,” he says to my surprise, when I ask if there had ever been a time when he felt like he didn’t quite love diving. “I wanted to quit three times — when I was seven, eight and nine. During school holidays, training was a bit easier. But training at the start of the year, when I just began school… that was when I hated it. There was just no time for — for anything. I hated it so much that I wanted to quit. But I managed to stay — and I’m really glad I did, because it got me to where I am now.”

He cites his parents as his greatest motivators throughout his career thus far. “They spent a lot of time on me, sending me to training and everything,” he muses, “so it’s not fair that I quit diving and not continue just because I didn’t like it sometimes, you know?”

It feels very real and very human to hear from the national athlete himself that despite the sport being his entire life, he doesn’t let it consume him. As he goes on about his relationship with diving, I can see that Rhodict is someone who likes to have a sense of control in what he does. He is fully aware of his strengths and shortcomings, and exactly what he feels he has room to improve.

“I’m bad with the twisting dive,” he admits with a laugh. (In the twisting technique, the diver has to rotate his body on its long axis, while also performing another type of dive.) “But I’m good with flips. My twist is very bad, and that’s the hardest element for me to master. And I’d say my greatest strength is probably in my back and reverse dives. I’ve never failed to execute those well, even during competitions. Or if I do fail, the probability is very low.”

Since he has dived both individually and synchronically, I wonder aloud which he prefers. Rhodict expresses that while it often depends on the situation, “in terms of individual diving, it’s something that he can control”. Knowing this, we give him free rein throughout the shoot, letting him play around with different poses and expressions. It’s plain to see that he is very much out of his element in front of the camera, and we encourage him to loosen his limbs, as he’s inclined to do just before he steps onto the diving platform.

Still a teenager, Rhodict has a lot of his youth intact, and it certainly shows on set. He has trouble keeping from laughing when the fine spray of water gets to his clothes; he playfully stomps around in the shallow makeshift pool in between takes. It’s refreshing to see both the serious and fun-loving sides of the athlete.

Right before a big competition, Rhodict taps deeper into this and focuses on relaxing himself. “I just listen to songs, some slow-beat songs like Drake,” he shares. “And I’ll bring my favourite treat around, the Haribo gummies — Happy-Coca flavoured. So, I will usually listen to music and eat my comfort food, that’s all, just to calm myself down.”

To believe it is to see it through

Rhodict also credits his teammates for keeping him going, and as he puts it: “Without my teammates, I don’t think I’d be able to make it — teammates play a big role.” In the public eye, diving may seem like a ‘lonely’ sport — only you and the platform as you meet the water head first — but one should never underestimate the importance of those who train with you night and day. “And find something that you love to do,” he goes on. “That’s what keeps you motivated. Maybe learn some new sets of dives. At least, that’s what makes me more interested in diving, once you know that it is what you want to do.”

He emphasises that while support from others is crucial, ultimately, the only one who can truly motivate you is you. “It’s like, if you don’t believe in yourself, what’s the point of you doing it?” Rhodict affirms. “If you believe in yourself, you probably can go further than what you imagine. I think the key to every person’s success is that you have to believe in yourself. Because no one’s gonna believe in you unless you believe in yourself.”

editor-in-chief MARTIN TEO | creative direction RONN TAN | interview PUTERI YASMIN SURAYA | styled by BIRDY LEE | assisted by MALLIE MARAN | photography HERRY CHIA EE | videography STANLEY LOH | hair & makeup DIANA TANG | wardrobe LOUIS VUITTON, SANDRO, VERSACE, ZEGNA, STYLIST’S OWN

Find out more about BERTRAND RHODICT LISES in the latest issue of LSA Digital Cover Vol. 019 HERE.