Former Australian swimming star Stephanie Rice has defended her vegan lifestyle despite doing “a lot of crap” and opened her relationship with Kobe Bryant.
Rice immediately became a golden girl of Aussie swimming after he turned up when he was 17 and won two gold medals at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.
She went on to break world records, win three Olympic gold medals, and was inducted into Sport Australia’s Hall of Fame last year.
The injury forced her to retire after the 2012 London Games. At that time, she said she had made the switch to “98 percent vegan”.
“Honestly, the vegan community can be pretty polarizing, so 98 percent only give me the freedom to have a leather handbag or eat a piece of birthday cake,” she said.
It is my choice and I am happy about it.
“I don’t do this regularly, but I didn’t want to be one of those who get caught and then get knocked down because they haven’t done anything to the extreme.
She admitted that she “does a lot of crap” online about her choice, but said that she doesn’t really care.
“It’s my choice and I’m happy about it,” she said.
The 32-year-old also opened her “mentor partnership” with the late NBA star Kobe Bryant.
The couple met at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and met again before the 2012 London Olympics. The Australian swim team prepared in the same hotel as the US Dream Team.
Rice expressed the idea that it was a “personal relationship”.
“It was really about trusting someone who made it to the extreme and really trying to understand his thinking as an athlete, but even then he was helping me to make this transition from sport,” she said .
“He made it absolutely incredible and it is a shame that his life was shortened because I feel like he had so much to give.
“(I am) just so happy to have what I had with him.”
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