The first thing a visitor to the indoor pool at Loughborough University
notices is the giant electronic clock. The numbers tick on in vivid red, a
constant admonishment against time-wasting. Jo Jackson notices the clock
only when time drags, which is usually during her lighter training sessions,
but is aware that less than one glowing click of a second separates her from
a unique place in the history of swimming.
Jackson broke the world record for the 400m freestyle at the recent British
trials in Sheffield. A split-second behind, Rebecca Adlington, the double
Olympic gold medallist, also broke the old record. Coming so soon after the
triumphs in the pool in Beijing, it was another golden moment for British
swimming. Lost in the euphoria, however, was the winning time: 4min 0.66sec.
A clipped fingernail away from sub-4min immortality.
“I’ve looked back on that race and there were so many technical things wrong
with it,” Jackson reflects. “My turns were really bad, I lost 0.3 of a
second to Becky on every turn and there are seven turns in 400m, so that’s
two seconds off without swimming any better.”
The turns were once again the focus of Jackson’s slow-burning technical
session on Thursday morning. Her technique was filmed with special
underwater cameras and analysed by sports scientist Jody Cossor at poolside.
“It’s down to streamlining,” says Jackson, which for her means straightening
her arms as she begins the turn. “It’s something I should have learnt at the
age of 12 but I couldn’t streamline because I’ve had problems with my
shoulder. Instead of extending my arms, they were bent. So I'm doing a lot
of work with the physio as well and my turns have improved so much over the
past four months.”
Jackson knows that, not far to the north, Adlington will also be preparing
hard for the world championships in Rome next month, the next stage of their
growing rivalry in the water. Both girls were disappointed that their epic
battle in Sheffield was played out before a crowd worthier of a school
swimming gala than a world record, but the suggestion that the best way of
attracting attention is to sacrifice their friendship for feud is met with a
predictable snort.
“No, couldn’t do that,” says Jackson. “Everybody loves Becky, she’s such a
down to-earth person. Once we’re in the pool we’re fighting for our places,
for medals and times, but we’re genuinely so happy for each other when
things go well. When she won two golds in Beijing, I was so proud and happy
for her and it was the same the other way round when I broke the world
record.
“We help each other along. I don’t think I would have broken the record if she
hadn’t been pushing me all the way. Once a week, we train together and push
each other on. But we’re both really down to earth and just chat away about
everything. She’s just bought a house and I’ve got a place in Loughborough,
so it’s, ‘How are you getting on with the decorating and where did you buy
that?’
“Some people try to make out we have a massive rivalry and we put on the fact
that we like each other, but that’s just wrong. We're not rivals at all.”
No less than Adlington, Jackson is larger than life, a strapping six-foot
slice of Yorkshire lass with a strong voice and a passion for her sport.
After sitting her GCSEs, Jackson went to sixth form to take her A-levels but
found she yearned for the pool, not the classroom. Her career is testimony
to her tenacity and to the central influences in her life, her elder sister
Nicola, a world-class swimmer, and her parents, Barry, a mechanic in the
army, and Gillian, a nursery school teacher.
It was, in one way, typical that Jackson’s emergence on the world stage, with
a bronze in the 400m in Beijing, should be eclipsed by Adlington’s double
gold. Jackson’s rise through the ranks is peppered with near misses, one
reason the world record and victory at the British trials did so much to
bolster her surprisingly fragile confidence. The mood both in the team and
for Jackson herself in China was in marked contrast to four years earlier,
in Athens, when a dark cloud hung over British swimming. Jackson went into
the 2004 Games as a rare medal prospect and came out having failed to reach
the final.
“I was devastated,” she recalls. “I just wasn’t prepared. I was quite young,
only 17, and was used to swimming in Britain and not having to go that quick
to make the final. When I came back, part of me thought, ‘I don’t think I
can do this any more’. All my dreams had been taken away from me and I began
to doubt whether I was good enough. But I had a big break and found I really
missed it, so I prepared myself for swimming fast heats and backing that up
in the finals and things started to improve.”
Friend or foe, the presence of Adlington in the next lane — both in Sheffield
and in Beijing — has served as a natural motivation. Jackson doesn’t have to
worry what the rest of the world is doing; she just has to glance across the
pool when the pair are training together or pick up the phone. If she is
matching the double Olympic champion, she cannot be far away from the prize
herself. Jackson remembers the mood in the holding room before the Beijing
Olympic final. “You’re kept in there for about 20 or 30 minutes and other
girls try to stare you out sometimes, which can be quite scary,” she says.
“But me and Becky were just chatting and laughing away and that helped us to
relax.” It must have unnerved their rivals, too.
At the Scottish national trials in Glasgow this week, Jackson will invade
Adlington’s territory by attempting to qualify for the 800m in Rome, which
is beyond her usual range. If she succeeds, she will join Adlington on the
startline at the world championships in both 400m and 800m. Her main
ambition, though, is to break that magic mark of four minutes.
“I don’t know when it’s going to happen and I know every other girl in the
final at the worlds will be thinking they can go under four minutes,” she
says. “I’ve just got to stay fit and well and hope to be at my best at the
right time. It’s an amazing opportunity, a dream really.”
The big red clock says that this might just be Joanne Jackson’s time.
