I’ll be gunning for Grant as I hit the gold trail again

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Phil Blanche, Western Mail

Wales’ Olympic swimming medallist David Davies reflects on the year that changed his life and how 2005 may be the year that he beats Australian legend Grant Hackett

THIS year has been the most successful of my swimming career, but also my most enjoyable - I’ve loved every minute of it.

My goal for the year was always to perform to the best of my ability at the Olympics. I didn’t put pressure on myself to win medals - just fulfil my potential.

So to come back from Athens with a bronze medal for the 1500m was such an amazing feeling, especially as I set such a huge personal best in the process.

The European Shortcourse Championships in Vienna this month was my first big race since Athens and I wasn’t really sure what to expect of myself going into the event.

I set a personal best in the final of the 400m and then won silver in the 1500m. I was pleased with my performance - although I would have liked the colour of the medal to be gold as I had led for most of the race.

But I will now look to 2005 and I just want to train hard and be even more successful in the future.

The world championships will be held in Montreal in July, an event which I placed fourth in last time.

I will be up against Grant Hackett again and I know that I am closer to him than I have ever been before, so I would love 2005 to be the year that I take him!

In August I will then compete in the Commonwealth Games trials for 2006, an event where I will again be up against Grant. But it will be in front of his home crowd in Melbourne and the prospect of taking him on in his home country is a great motivator for me.

The Commonwealths will also mean that I am competing for Wales, rather than Great Britain.

I am very patriotic, so it will be great to swim for my home country, which I only get the chance to do once every four years.

The other big event next year will be the announcement in July of the city that will host the 2012 Olympic Games.

I think London has put a great bid together and people from communities all over Britain seem to have come together to back the bid.

The result will be close, but I think London has to be one of the favourites - it’s about time Britain held a Games and I think we would do a great job of hosting a successful Olympics.

I’m particularly excited that an aquatics centre is going to be built in the capital regardless of whether we win the bid.

We do have a lack of swimming facilities in Britain that put us at a disadvantage against the rest of the world, so any new facilities will boost British swimming.

The facility will be built as a swimming centre of excellence with financial help from The National Lottery, and I personally would not have been able to achieve what I have this year without the support I have received from that area.

I’ve only got one go at what I’m doing, and the funding I receive means I am able to give myself the best preparation.

I don’t have to work, which means I can be a full-time swimmer. I can put in the hours in the pool to get the best out of myself.

Hackett prompts rookies to fill gap

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A GAPING hole has appeared in one of the nation’s strongest events, the men’s 200m freestyle, for next year’s world championships in Montreal.

Former world record-holder Grant Hackett has confirmed he will not contest the individual 200m next year, and Olympic champion Ian Thorpe is considering skipping the world titles altogether.

Between them, Hackett and Thorpe have dominated the national 200m ranks for the past five years but both want to scale back their race commitments in 2005 to refresh themselves for the 2007 world championships in Melbourne and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Given Hackett’s health problems this year — he competed in Athens with fluid in his lungs after a bout of pneumonia in February — he is loath to overload his competition program.

He is also mindful of the increased competition in his core distance events from the young Olympic 1500m medallists Larsen Jensen and David Davies, who both swam into the 14:40s in Athens.

“The (world titles) program is back to the 800m being on the same day as the 200m, so they interfere with each other and I want to focus on the distance stuff this season,” Hackett said.

“I can’t keep trying to spread myself too thin. I would rather come away with good results in the 400m, 800m and 1500m.”

He still plans to be part of the 4×200m freestyle relay.

New national coach Alan Thompson is philosophical about the prospect of losing his two 200m guns for the first major championship where he will lead the team.

“If we can get four more years out of those boys — with Melbourne in 2007 and Beijing in 2008 — that’s where we really want them to perform,” Thompson said.

“If Grant and Ian go hell for leather now we may not have that. And who knows what it may unearth in our 200m stocks. It (losing Hackett and Thorpe) may not be the best thing for the team in the short term, but it might be in the long term.

“We have people like Nick Sprenger (Olympic relay silver medallist), who’s young but quite experienced now. Once those kids see a little bit of light — and a lot of those guys haven’t seen any light with Ian and Grant there — it might give them the incentive they need.”

The opportunity will be there not only for the next generation, but for the previous one.

Michael Klim was the world 200m champion before Thorpe annexed the event, but has not swum it as an individual event since the Sydney Olympics.

However Klim’s coach Ian Pope said they would consider it in the light of the vacancies.

“I wouldn’t close the door on it — no way,” Pope said.

Pope also believes 20-year-old Olympic backstroker Patrick Murphy has considerable promise as a freestyler and will be another contender.

Hackett exhorted Australia’s young freestylers to grab the opportunity which was opening for them.

“In the post-Olympic period a lot of young swimmers can make the most of that — that’s where my opportunity arose (when Kieren Perkins took time off after the 1996 Olympics),” he said.

Hackett said he would reserve the right to challenge for a place in the 200m again.

Grant accepts body of evidence

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Michael Cowley hears how Grant Hackett aims to stay healthy and prolong his career - by learning his limits.

After not doing so nearly cost him two Olympic gold medals, Grant Hackett has finally decided it’s time to start listening when his body is speaking to him.

Illness has been a companion of Hackett’s at most major swimming events in recent years. As a result, the quickest man on the planet in the most arduous event in his sport has at times given the impression he’s a sickly sort of sportsman. As of now, that image is redundant.

At the Sydney Olympics in 2000, Hackett was struck down by glandular fever and had to struggle through it to win gold in the 1500 metres freestyle. In Athens this year, a chronic chest infection left fluid on his lung and dramatically decreased its capacity, bringing him closer to defeat than he had been in eight years of dominating the staying event.

After fearing that he had suffered permanent damage from pushing his body through illness to swim in Greece, Hackett has had a wake-up call.

“I had mild pneumonia at the beginning of the year and I spent some time in hospital and it came from there,” he explained.

“I had a chronic chest infection and due to this, there had been mucus sitting on my lungs for so long, it actually blocked part of my left lung. A partial percentage of it just deflated.
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“A CAT scan I got two weeks after the Games showed I had this much [he indicates a few centimetres] fluid on there. It was extensive, and the biggest concern for me was: ‘Will it ever be the same again?’

“Because I’d trained with this for eight months, because I hadn’t had the time to take three or four weeks off to eradicate it, will it be something that will haunt me for the rest of my life?

“I thought there would be some permanent damage. But I was lucky enough that three weeks ago I got another CAT scan, and, in between that I’ve been taking plenty of medication and constantly seeing the doctor, and it was 100 per cent clear.

“I’m a distance swimmer. I have to put more hours in and it has to be a little bit more extreme, the training, because it’s an endurance event. I’m prepared to do that to the extent of … making my body ill, which is a little bit sad but that’s what you have to do.

“You’re on that knife’s edge - not only me, all athletes are - and I sometimes push myself over that knife’s edge.

“I kid myself, if it’s a sore throat, that I’ll wake up in the morning and it will be fine. And it’s not. At times I’ve been my own worst enemy, but at the same time it’s been my best asset, it’s been what’s enabled me to win. But this was the final wake-up call that I needed to go: ‘OK, Grant, if you do have a sore throat … have a session off. Have a couple of days off, don’t try to train through it and make it worse.”‘

Hackett said that he never considered not swimming the 1500m in Athens, but as the week went on his health deteriorated, and in the final he “did what was necessary” to win. When it was done he climbed out of the pool, stood on top of the starting blocks and raised his arms in jubilation, looking as if he was about to collapse.

“The way I felt after that race, I’ve felt close to that before; people just noticed it more this time because of the wobbly legs. I got up on the blocks, and nearly fell off. There was no stage I thought I wouldn’t race. … I’m a competitor. If I was on my death bed I would have gotten up and raced that thing.”

History beckons in Beijing for Hackett. No man has won three successive Olympic 1500m golds. Kieren Perkins came close with gold in Barcelona, Atlanta, then silver in Sydney behind Hackett, who can now emulate Dawn Fraser by winning the same event at three consecutive Olympics. “It’s crossed my mind a couple of times because everyone has spoken about it so much,” he said.

“I just keep thinking I’m not going to worry about it, and I’ll do the best I can and if I get three in a row, great. And it would be great to be in that company with those other athletes who have done it. But I’ve surpassed anything I thought I would achieve in the sport … Just to do two [Olympic golds] is fantastic, and to do three, wow, it would be a bonus.

“I want to improve over the next four years on my 14 minutes 34 seconds and I’m prepared to do what it takes. But three in a row … I’m not going to put it in my mind as this be-all and end-all thing, because it’s honestly not.”

How long Hackett has left in the pool is unknown. He said he was still highly motivated to swim and wouldn’t walk away after Beijing.

“I would like to go a year or two longer than Beijing, because I’m not sure it would be healthy to retire after the Olympics,” he said. “Maybe in five or six years it could be the time for me to retire.

I’ll only be 28 [in Beijing], and that’s not old, so it’s not whether you can do it physically, it’s whether you want to do it mentally.”