In at the Deep End Read online

  Representing Wales is different from swimming for Great Britain. It’s like a vacation, or, put another way, Britain is my bread and butter but performing for Wales is only once every four years so the heart beats just as fast, but it’s a different type of beat, a very patriotic one.

  The Welsh national anthem is one of the most emotional anthems around. I found that it made my bottom lip tremble and I could feel the whole waterworks building up, I couldn’t smile.

  Afterwards my mum asked me why I hadn’t smiled, and I told her I was trying not to cry. But I did really enjoy it. There were so many Welsh flags being waved as I was doing my lap of honour, I couldn’t believe it. One of the flags had ‘Dai the fish’ on it.

  The Commonwealth Games has such an enjoyable, laid-back kind of atmosphere. Everybody knows each other, everybody speaks English and they really are a “friendly” Games. There is so much attention from Wales. Welsh people love their sport, they love their successful sportsmen and they give us tremendous coverage and support.

  I had a few days off from swimming when I got back from Melbourne. I was walking around London when I realised that my foot was hurting badly. I wasn’t sure if it was the shoes that I was wearing but when I took them off there was a big black lump on my ankle. My first reaction was that I must have banged it, so I put some ice on the foot expecting it to be better the next day. But instead it got worse.

  I kept walking on it until the pain became unbearable. It was constantly throbbing and hurting me. One night I was up at one o’clock in the morning with my foot in an ice cold bath, reading a book because I couldn’t sleep. My mum decided to take me hospital. By the minute the pain got more unbearable. I was nearly crying with it.

  The hospital gave me strong painkillers and I had blood tests and they kept me in overnight. They also did an ultrasound scan on my ankle; that’s what they use to test the health of unborn babies. They showed the scan on a screen and told me there was a lot of infection – muck, basically – gathered in a big abscess which would need surgery.

  I was on an intravenous drip to calm the infection down but I still needed surgery, not once, but twice, because they had to open my foot up, clear all the muck out and then leave it open for the wound to seep.

  Then, a couple of days later I had to go back in again to have the infection cleaned and the foot was only stitched halfway up so that the wound could seal from the inside out.

  All this meant I had an open wound which would prevent me from swimming for seven weeks. It was unheard of; I’d never ever had seven weeks off, seven weeks out of the water!

  Chapter Eleven

  Fighting back

  The real downside from the injury was that I wouldn’t be able to go to the European Championships – I wouldn’t be fit enough for the next big meeting.

  I’d never been to the senior European Championships before and it was the only other championship I needed to complete my set of major international medals. It was hard to take, but we tried to put a positive spin on it. At least it hadn’t happened in Olympic year and jeopardised my chances of another Olympic medal.

  I hoped I would be able to take advantage of the break, recharge and come back better than ever. But the seven weeks off were so boring, so long. I had no direction in my life, sitting there with a cast on, watching daytime television. I couldn’t even move around the house.

  Naturally I put weight on, and as soon as I could I was doing some exercise in the gym, one-legged cycling, one-legged rowing. But it wasn’t the same. I wasn’t getting the same buzz from it. I used to go and watch the guys swim but that got me down even more. I couldn’t even enjoy doing things with my mates as I was on crutches.

  However, in all that time I never felt like quitting, although it would have been the easy option. I knew I had a lot more to give. I was only twenty-one; I would get over it. I just had to be persistent and patient.

  After the seven weeks off, when I got back into the pool I felt absolutely terrible. It took so long to get the feel back, to get the weight off and to get the fitness back. It was also hard to watch the British team swim in Budapest. I was at home on my own as Dave Haller was with another swimmer, Gregor Tait, so I had to go to the pool on my own and train with no real motivation. It was a depressing time. In fact, it was horrible.

  But, on the other hand, while the swimmers who had been at the European Championships were on their break, I was still swimming, and when they returned I was ahead of them.

  Now I felt like I was back in the game. I went to Australia for seven weeks to do some good training with Bob Treffene and the British men’s team. I got really fit and came back in December to prepare for what was to be my trial for the World Championships. Everybody else had qualified via their times at the European Championships, but I had a late exemption because of my injury and was allowed to do a qualifying swim in Eindhoven, Holland. I swam fourteen minutes fifty-five seconds, which was the quickest time I did that year and the fourth fastest in the world that year.

  Given where I was and that I hadn’t fully tapered for it, which meant there was still more to come from me, I was very encouraged and very happy and knew I was back.

  So, having qualified, the next step for me was the World Championships in Melbourne which were to take place in April 2007. I hadn’t really taken in during the Commonwealth Games what a great sporting city Melbourne is. It’s sports-mad. There were posters everywhere advertising the swimming with pictures of the Australian superstars Grant Hackett and Leisel Jones, and other top swimmers, on billboards around the city.

  You know it’s big when you get a police escort from the airport to the hotel!

  The event was being staged at the Rod Laver Arena, better known for hosting the Australian Open tennis championships. To have a pool in it seemed daft, how did they do that?

  My first reaction was ‘Wow’. It was a really good environment, a great setting and an electric atmosphere. To this day it’s one of the best places I have ever swum.

  I enjoyed it more than my previous trip to Melbourne. I was just pleased to be there, happy to be on the team. I didn’t feel under much pressure, didn’t feel I had much to prove.

  Again my event was at the back end of the programme; I would swim at the weekend, when there was a full house for both the heats and the final.

  The Australians consider the 1500 metres freestyle an event they own, so once again I would be up against the national hero in Grant Hackett. I knew he was off form, but that Yuri Prilukov had swum amazingly well in December, so I thought he was going to move the event on.

  As for me, I hadn’t competed much, only once since the Commonwealth Games, when I qualified in Eindhoven, so I expected to be a bit rusty.

  I was relaxed about it all; I just wanted to enjoy it and see what I could do.

  I watched the heats and saw that the best times were under fifteen minutes. I’d been the only person who had ever done that before. That raised the stakes and I knew that I would have to win my heat, which was the last of twelve. It was nearly one o’clock in the afternoon by the time I swam. I was like a little rabbit in a hutch just waiting to go.

  When I got in I felt good. I worked hard, perhaps, with hindsight, just a little too hard, and finished in fourteen minutes fifty-three seconds, my third fastest time ever. I’d wrapped up the heat early but had kept going because I felt I had something to prove to myself – quite what, I don’t know. That time meant I was fastest going into the final.

  People were saying it was the best I’d looked in a long time and they were very excited about what I could do the next day. The Australian media thought I would win it. I thought that I had a massive chance. With Hackett not on top form, who else was in the frame? Larsen Jensen had looked really good in the heats, Prilukov just sneaked in in lane one, and then there was the Polish guy, Mateusz Sawrymowicz, who had shown some early season form. I thought that the race was pretty wide open. If I had something left in me, I could win.

  Nat
ional Performance Director Bill Sweetenham said, “It’s yours for the taking. You look great, it’s the best that I have ever seen you.”

  But the heat had taken more out of me than I had expected. Whether it was a fitness thing or that I forced myself too early, I don’t know, but I didn’t feel as fresh.

  I did go quicker in the final, to finish third, a result I would have welcomed when I was lying in hospital, feeling down, the year before, but now I was left with the feeling I could have done better. The best thing about it was that I had pre-qualified for the Olympic Games; a top four place in Melbourne meant that you were automatically in the team for Beijing.

  The drama of having to achieve the qualifying time at the Olympic trials was out of the way. I was definitely going and had eighteen months to prepare for it.

  Chapter Twelve

  A change of scene

  My decision to move from Cardiff to Loughborough surprised a lot of people.

  But I’d found that my life had become automatic, repetitive and routine. I was getting up, going training, swimming, coming home, eating food, going to bed, training again, going to bed again. I wasn’t enjoying it and I didn’t have the same drive as I used to have.

  I thrive off a good atmosphere, good training sets and moving on but I’d grown out of the club environment. Suddenly the guys around me weren’t my age any more. They were aged fourteen or fifteen and I was no longer a teenager; I was twenty-two. I felt I wanted to go out with a few friends, not to drink but to stay out later than I normally would. I wanted to have a laugh.

  Training started to suffer because I was missing sessions, which was really unlike me. But I realised that something wasn’t right.

  While I was moping around the house my mother managed to get it all out of me. She said, “You know what you have to do.”

  I said, “I can’t leave, that’s unheard of.” She told me that I would only get one shot at it; could I really see myself continuing this way for a year? She said, “Especially when you don’t want to do it, is it going to work?”

  My response was, “I’ll do it, because it’s the Olympics.” Mum responded by telling me that it was easy to say that, but it would be tough and that I had to do what was right for me.

  I talked to Dave, my coach, and he was very unhappy about what I had to say. It was one of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had in my life. I didn’t want to hurt him but I had to be honest. I let him know that I was unhappy and he pointed to all the achievements I’d made over my long period in Cardiff. He told me he had been around the block a few times and knew what he was doing. But my restlessness was nothing to do with him. I totally respected him as a coach and what he had done for me and still, to this day, believe he is one of the best coaches we have in British swimming. For me the problem was the whole experience, my life, the environment I was in, the routine I was living. I needed something extra to make me kick on and try to improve on what I’d already done. It had been three years since I’d had a personal best time in my main event.

  The prospect of a new fifty-metre pool in Cardiff didn’t alter my thinking. After all, I’d trained in a twenty-five metre pool and achieved an Olympic bronze medal three years earlier.

  In the end Dave was really good about me leaving. He said, “Move on then. Do what you need to do. Just make sure you train hard and do what you have to do for next year.” He had some suggestions as to where I should go. I also consulted Bob Treffene, because he’s a big part of my career and my life, and is also a good friend. We came to the conclusion that I should go up to Loughborough; it’s where half of the British team swim.

  But those last few sessions in Cardiff were hard for both of us.

  Dave was working with swimmers who were going to the National Youth Championships and I was preparing for a meeting in Japan. As I was seeing out my time at the club I was left to my own devices.

  There was so much we could have said. I told him how thankful I was for all he’d done for me, and he responded by saying, “You owe me nothing.”

  He had not only helped me as a swimmer but as a person growing up and was an enormous influence on my life. He used to take me to school sometimes; he got me my first sponsorship deal, took me down to his golf course a few times and was always looking out for me.

  I also knew it was going to be hard to move away from my family. I’d always lived at home and had all my family around me but I didn’t want to be around them when I was unhappy. And I knew that if the worst came to the worst I could always go back home. There would always be a bed and an open door for me in Barry.

  I thought Loughborough would be a nice place to train, to get away from it all and be around a lot of different people. It would also mean that I was working with a young coach in Kevin Renshaw, with whom I’d had a good relationship in the past. I was instantly attracted to him in terms of what he had to offer me.

  I settled in straight away at Loughborough. I enjoyed the group atmosphere, being around others who swam at the pool. British teammates like Ross Davenport, David Carry, Liam Tancock, Caitlin McClatchey and British coaches such as Ben Titley and Ian Turner were there, so there was a lot going on.

  Everything was on site. Physiotherapists were there for you, there is top sports science at the university, and it felt like a much more professional environment. You feel you’re doing everything right, everything is catered for.

  It was quite a contrast after spending thirteen years at Cardiff where, for me, everything had become stale.

  Chapter Thirteen

  2008 – an amazing year

  So there I was, preparing for, and looking forward to, Olympic year and my foot problem flared up again.

  This time, because I knew what had happened before, I was able to catch it very early. I was at home for the weekend that Wales won the Rugby Union Grand Slam and got checked out by the hospital. They confirmed that I had the same problem again but this time managed to get rid of it with intravenous drugs.

  This happened the week before I was due to go to Eindhoven for the European Swimming Championships. Remember I’d never been to a ‘long course’, i.e. fifty-metre pool, version of the European Championships. I thought, oh brilliant, I’m not going to get to go again.

  Then the doctor told me I could race, but that it had to be my decision. The foot was cleared up now and fit for swimming but it was only two days before I was due to go to Holland. Ultimately it was my decision and I said, “I’m going!” I’d done so many good training sets and it was the only major event I would be able to swim at before the Olympic Games.

  It was weird getting back into the pool at Eindhoven as my foot was still a bit swollen and heavy and I’d lost some feeling in it. I was also taking medication in tablet form and it was quite strong, affecting my system and making my heart rate higher – it didn’t feel natural.

  The heats of the 1500 metres freestyle were really, really slow. I won the first heat and thought that I’d done enough, but when I looked at the time it was fifteen minutes eighteen seconds. I thought, I’m not going to be in the final, what have I done? I’d thought that I was coasting when actually I was dawdling.

  I watched the next heats come in and luckily they were going slowly as well and I actually qualified second for the final. That was a real let-off because, if I’d been at the World Championships, it would have been the end. I would have been out straight away.

  The final was a gutsy swim. I went for it quite fast and it did hurt towards the end, but I gritted my teeth and managed to come second, not too far behind Yuri Prilukov, in a time of fourteen minutes fifty-four seconds.

  Given the circumstances that was pretty good, although if I’d been fully fit I think I could have gone quicker.

  So it was a silver medal this time whereas, apart from the Commonwealth Games, I’d had bronze every time. It was a step up on the podium and I took a lot of positives out of it. I’d beaten the world champion Mateusz Sawrymowicz into third place. That was a massive thing f
or me. Now I just had to keep healthy.

  At the Olympic trials, selection policy dictated that I couldn’t swim my event for Beijing, as I was already qualified, so I did the 400 metres freestyle, which was something different and gave me some more confidence.

  Then from the Olympic trials in Sheffield it was off to the World Short Course Championships taking place the following week at the Manchester Evening News Arena, which I didn’t really want to do. But Britain was hosting the event, at another fantastic venue, so we had to do it.

  I was training through it and feeling pretty rough but swam on the last day and won silver again. The order was the same as it had been in Eindhoven a few weeks earlier. Now I was out of the habit of getting bronze medals, with two silver medals inside a month and once again I’d beaten the world champion.

  The crowd reaction was brilliant. Steve Parry, my team-mate from the Olympics in Athens, was doing the interviews poolside and he got them behind me. It was a full house on the Sunday afternoon and it was really nice to walk around, feeling that adulation. My family had driven up from south Wales, my sponsors were there too and I had the support of other swimmers who had got tickets for the day. And it was on prime time television on BBC2, which gave great exposure to the sport.

  2008 was turning out to be the busiest year I’d ever had, with two major events in March and April, and the Olympics still to come, but that wasn’t all. In May it was the World Open Water Championships in Seville, Spain.

  I’d started doing the 10k event in South Africa in January, had enjoyed it, won the race and decided to go to Seville. I had to finish in the top ten to qualify for Beijing, and if I didn’t do it I would knock it on the head. That would be the end of my Open Water adventure.

  I kept to my plan, swimming from the front again, broke the pack, and the front of the field was reduced to three and then two. I had a huge tussle with Vladimir Dyatchin of Russia, who was to be disqualified in the Olympic final, going into the home straight around the last turning buoy. We were virtually swimming on top of each other, arms flying everywhere. He struck me on the chin once and I swallowed water and was sick. The water was dirty, but it was a calm, flat, straight river which was pretty much ideal for my first main Open Water event.