Ben Proud is a British international swimmer, partnered with AirAsia, with a massively successful career in sprint events. Ben has had a decorated swimming career, holding two British records (50 freestyle and 50 butterfly). Ben won gold at the 2017 World Championships (50 Butterfly), the 2022 Commonwealth Games in the 50 Butterfly, and the 2023 World Short Course (25m) Championships in the 50m Freestyle.
The Student interviewed Ben with student-athlete Ciara Schlosshan to understand his story and hear his advice for student-athletes.
Aoife: How did you start swimming?
Ben: I spent my whole childhood in Malaysia, living in Kuala Lumpur and had a great childhood. I was always around the water, which was pretty cool and it was part of our lifestyle, whether it be snorkelling, scuba diving, wakeboarding, swimming, you know, whatever it might be. So I had a lot of exposure to that when I was a kid and then, at about 16, I met a coach and he took me under his wing and we started training.
Ciara: That doesn’t sound like a normal start to a career. I was training from the age of eight at Leeds. So how do you think that helped you transition into senior swimming?
Ben: I think the stress that some kids go through can definitely put them out of swimming. Because some people would be doing it for a long, long time. It tends to be quite tough and it’s a tough lifestyle, you know, with 4:30 a.m. wakeups and training five to six hours a day. It’s pretty brutal.
So for me, I think coming into that late definitely helped with the mindset of just being a bit more fresh and easygoing, but also physically, I think it helped me as a sprinter. I didn’t have that aerobic background as a kid and I was kind of able to get straight into sprinting.
Aoife: You came back to the UK and then you went to Plymouth Margin. How did you balance swimming and university?
Ben: Well, so I think the easiest thing that helped my studies when I started swimming was that I kind of aligned all lessons to be somewhat aligned with swimming.
If that was taking psychology and biology at A levels, so I could learn about the mind and body and the physicalities of what we go through, as well as PE, like a typical athlete. Then I went into sports development, and again, I was using these things to learn more about the sport and more about what I’m getting myself into to enhance my swimming career. So I think doing that kind of thing helped because it meant that I shared the same kind of passion and motivation for those studies as I did for swimming.
Ciara: How do you look back on when you were studying and swimming in comparison to now? I personally really enjoy having something else to do other than swim, but I’m nowhere near the level that you are. So do you find it easier to just put everything into swimming or do you have other things to take your mind off of swimming?
Ben: There’s a fine balance and I think everybody has a different mentality and different way of working. I’ve known some people who have tried to replicate the lifestyle that I enjoy and they find it just burns them out really quickly. Whereas for me, I kind of like that linear approach of just going heavy into it. But looking back at my studies, I kind of miss those days because those are the times when you just had full energy. You could do so much more; you could ride through 14 or 15 hour days and do it six days a week.
I ultimately dropped out of university for the Olympics, so I went heavy into swimming and haven’t returned to university since. But I kind of wish I stayed on, persevered, got that degree, and balanced things a bit better because of those skills of managing yourself.
Aoife: The Olympics are coming up. What are you planning to do out there this summer?
Ben: Well, I can say probably the same thing I’ve said for years. I want to execute my best race in the final. I think it’s so tough to kind of put you against the rest of the world and start to think about outcome and, you know, results, medals, and all this, when in reality, if it’s just yourself and doing the best you can, honestly, that’s the best thing you can take away.
Aoife: How have you found travelling between countries that you’re living in and travelling for swimming?
Ben: I mean, it’s been fantastic. What other job can you do where you travel the world and see these great places? I was really fortunate to have spent my childhood in Malaysia. We had so much, you know, easy access to these beautiful parts of the world. And that’s kind of the way I grew up. You know, once a month, once every couple of months, we could travel somewhere. My swimming career has just been a kind of extension of that. I go to more places and see different things.
I also love to travel, especially around my favourite places in Asia and am lucky to have had the support of Air Asia as a sponsor during my Olympic career. We’ve done some great Air Asia swim clinics for local children in Malaysia Thailand and the Philippines, and that has been a very satisfying way of giving back and using my swimming experience to help others and inspire the next generation.
Aoife: Any advice to student athletes?
Ben: Being a student athlete comes with its own challenges. It’s a very different way of living. You know, you might miss out on social situations. You might have to work a little bit harder, but you know, honestly, it’s worth being proud of that fact and enjoying that routine, that journey, and that kind of discipline that you have to go through because, it’s a very rare trait and it’s a very good trait to have.
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Image via FitMG