First of all, how are you? How are your days going?

Nida Eliz Üstündağ: Thank you, I'm fine, I hope you are too. I spend my time intensely between training periods.

Can you talk about how you met with sports and how you decided to make it your profession for the blog readers on Suüstü?

Nida Eliz Üstündağ: My family has a great passion for sports, especially my father. When I was born, my father's place of duty was Gökçeada. I grew up there, and I was always involved in sports. My father especially loves the sea and is interested in diving, one of the many areas in which he is successful. It has a great impact on my sports development. In fact, my first contact with water occurred when I was only 6 months old, my family got me used to water at a very early age. Thus, the sea has been my biggest passion throughout my life.

Even if it was any sport, I would most likely be an athlete. As I mentioned, I grew up with an athletic father and sports have been a part of me in every moment of my life. I have been in the gym since I was two years old with my father. Actually, the main reason why I started swimming is that my father aimed for me to develop in the volleyball branch. At the infrastructure level, he directed me to gymnastics in order to lay my physical foundations for sports, then my passion for swimming carried me to be permanent in this branch.

Family and lifestyle are one of the most important factors of sports development, especially our blog readers and society is suffering from the pandemic right now. How has the pandemic process affected your life, professional sports career, training order and swimming sport? How did you manage to adapt to this new process?

Nida Eliz Üstündağ: When the first pandemic started, we thought it would end in a few weeks or months. Later, when the process continued, our training areas were reopened with the support of the Ministry and we were able to continue our training in the pool. Staying away from training has very negative effects for us, swimmers follow 11 months of the year in an intense training order. It is very essential for our development that we can stick to the training regimen, we can lose training gains in a very short time compared to many branches. We are in two groups of training, 6 days a week, on land and in water. The most critical training gain in swimming is what we have described as the “Feel of Water”. The feeling that the water has left on your arm does not disappear, and the dominance of your body created by that feeling carries you forward. When we were away from our training, we had to train hard to regain that feeling when we returned to the pool and water. Of course, this situation did not make a sharp distinction for the competition in the branch because the whole world is under the same conditions, everyone is changing their order and everyone is in pandemic conditions. This is how we managed to keep our psychology alive and thus we were able to maintain our determination in training.

Speaking of psychology, we always think that individual sports are more challenging in this respect, or it's hard to empathize with the mental part of it without being professional. We can grow by experiencing the competition of a team sport with our friends on the street, but we are curious to achieve this in an area where our opponents also have our own limits. Your university education is also on psychology, does this contribute to your career? Or is it not possible to dominate our own psychology and to “seam his own ripper” with the local language?

Nida Eliz Üstündağ: It is not possible for her to sew (with a smile). Yes, I can be a little better at finding and analyzing my own problems than my peers or peers. However, when the issue is at the solution point, it is difficult to find a solution in this area by ourselves. At least, I prefer to get support from my environment in this regard, I can manage the support of my environment, the contribution of the field of psychology to me.

I do not have the kind of ambition you describe for individual sports, perhaps this is not the nature of individual sports. Your opponent is more yourself, so your opponent is not exactly a target in front of you. Passing on a rival or someone is defined by such ambition, I talk about myself more as a determined person. In other words, I am more in competition with myself, I have seen the advantage of this situation during the pandemic period, in fact, you are in a state of development by constantly focusing on yourself.

I would like to talk a little bit about our biggest common denominator, which brings us together with the readers of On Water. The pairing of summer and sea by a general audience, and the feeling of freshness of the water remains in all of us. Your professional career has carried you to many different seas and ports, what is your favorite port city?

Nida Eliz Üstündağ: A difficult question… When you say sea, Italy is always my favourite. But the Olympic pool in the city of Marseille was really great. The sea, the pool and the view are all together, I can describe it like this for you. There is a pool in two layers just above the cliffs, the pool and the sea are at a distance of 5 meters, together with the sky and the view, it is fascinating. (You can access this unique pool view when you search for Cercle des nageurs de Marseille.

Your career includes direct Sea breeze, your harmony with water is the biggest part of it. So how does this situation resonate in your soul, does everything about the sea arouse sympathy in you? Such as watercraft, sea creatures, nautical theme..

Nida Eliz Üstündağ: Even for me, summer vacation is a direct connotation of peace, including the sea view. So, like everyone else in our society, I have very refreshing feelings for the sea. I can say that the basis of the holiday that comes in the summer is our lives, if only it were not in such a luxurious location and could contact the sea more. Unfortunately, it makes me sad that people don't get enough touch with that feeling of spaciousness.

After your career, do you have Deniz in your retirement plan? Do you have a plan to own a vehicle, yacht or boat?

Nida Eliz Üstündağ: My father is diving, we sometimes make plans with him. In fact, the continuation of the flow seems to depend on it, I want to dive, I want to witness the depths of the sea. I have never been interested in Yachts or Boats, but Deniz is quite interesting for me, maybe one day I can have such a hobby. But it's hard to predict right now.

Well, finally, have you ever encountered our brand on Suüstü before? Are you interested in ship models and nautical themed designs?

Nida Eliz Üstündağ: I came across your brand on Suüstü through social media, but I haven't had the chance to visit your stores yet. I would like to state that I find your designs very stylish, frankly, I would like to visit your store at my first opportunity.

Nida, thank you for your kind comments, for spending time with us and for your pleasant conversation. We wish you success in your career as well, keep your bow clear.