First and foremost, it's paramount for young child to learn how to swim, and the best place for that to happen is at primary school if they've got the facilities.

I'm a proud New Zealander, and I represent Paralympics New Zealand. I love what I do, and I do it because I love it. The passion is unbelievable in every race I do. I have the ambition to change things outside the pool, too.

I race six events. I specialise in butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle, and it's not impossible, but it is hard to be able to race every single race, and day after day as well.

I don't really take into account what the media says. People have their own opinions about what goes on, but they don't see what goes on behind the scenes with an athlete and their preparation.

You think about child abuse and you think of a father viciously attacking a daughter or a son, but in my family it was my mother. My mother, I would say, was a... very brutal disciplinarian.

My mother was the favorite child of her parents. My father was the favorite child of his parents. The result of these two favorite children was me. And I am an only child. So I was convinced that I was the center of the universe.

I started in the industry when I was 4 years old, but I started in the spotlight when I was 11 years old, when I got 'Modern Family.'

Being away from my family for six months a year - even if it was in the beautiful surroundings of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean - was just too hard.