Ellie Simmonds shares negative experience with Olympics team member amid Strictly scandal

express.co.uk exclusively spoke to Ellie Simmons about the struggles she faced during the Paralympics leading to her decision to exit competitive sport age just 21 the swimming Ace now a ba winning documentary filmmaker and TV presenter also revealed that her intense training routine in her younger years had led her to miss out on growing up I was growing up in professional sport and in the spotlight and feeling the pressure I was just burnt out she explained we had an individual on the team who was not the nicest and treated us not in a nice way that's why I took the decision afterwards to take a year out from the sport Ellie continued I was lucky that I could make the decision but career changes or just saying no to things is okay to look after your mental health and look after yourself instead of agonizing over it she opted to take a break from the difficult and pressurized workplace environment and ended up having the best year that I've ever had she used the time to go traveling everywhere from diverse places in the UK to the picturesque island of Madagascar where she went without any phone signal for an entire 24 hours the digital detox helped her to pause focus on the beautiful world that we live in and find that confidence of being okay on my own while doing so though she traveled solo she wasn't lonely for a second and ended up making friends all around the world Ellie can't relate to the traumatic strictly experience that contestants like Sherlock Amanda Abington and love Islands Zara mcdermit have reported as she had a perfect partnership with her Pro dance partner Nikita kusman the pair had pep talks where he advised her to convert her nerves into adrenaline and instead of feeling anxious enjoy her experience on stage she was also able to tap into the skills shared learned as a competitive athlete to help manage the pressure that I had every Saturday night while dancing in front of millions of TV viewers since her permanent retirement from sport after the Tokyo Olympics and her decision to go into TV full-time instead Ellie feels the pressure is off something she especially notices when reporting on events like the Olympic Games as a presenter I'm going to have the easy job in a sense now I can just talk about the sport whereas I know a lot of the athletes give their life for their Sport and it's a lot of sacrifice and dedication during the games she explained I know the nerves that I felt and the pressure that I felt before so it's going to be nice to not be competing in just must be there to experience the Olympics and Paralympics from a different point of view meanwhile finding her balance in this next chapter of life is ongoing and Shish has been practicing self-care through exercise moderation of how much time she spends on social media and adding supplements to her diet shush is currently working with a company called bioglan on a campaign to look after herself physically as well as honing her mental strength