Months of fine-tuning enabled British swimmer to complete successfully her
golden mission in Beijing If you want to design an athlete with a perfect
attitude and drive, you would build Rebecca Adlington.” These are the words
of Bill Furniss, her coach, and it may well be that, in six days' time, BBC
Sports Personality of the Year voters will agree with him.
In any case, expect a rewind of the women's 400 metres freestyle final in
Beijing. More to the point, expect a second viewing of the drama of the last
thrilling 50 metres and a reminder that as they spun their final turn and
headed into the last lap, Adlington was in fourth place, 1.46sec behind the
leader, Katie Hoff, the American referred to by some as “the female Michael
Phelps”. The 1.46sec represented a lead of about 2 metres.
Yet, as we know, Adlington would eat up the gap. She would win by seven
hundredths of a second.
“If Carlsberg made swimmers,” Furniss said, “they'd make them like her.”
Indeed they would. And this is how they would do it. From that tightest of
winning margins, here are the seven stories that gave Adlington those tiny
seven hundredths of a second.
1 From the ruins of Rome
Adlington's 400 metres gold was all about her majestic finish and this is
where it started: beaten soundly by Alessia Filippi, the Italian, in an
international 800 metres race in Rome on 7 June. The manner of the defeat
was the key. Filippi so comprehensively destroyed her in the second half of
the race that Furniss decided there and then to change course.
“We made one big decision based on that single race,” he said. Thereafter,
every single training swim would be planned around finishing faster than she
started. In other words, she did nothing but negative splits: every swim
would be split in half and the second half would be faster than the first.
Previously, in training, if she did 30 sets of 100 metres, she would
generally do each of them in 31 seconds out, 31 back. Thereafter, it was 32
out, 30 back.
“I knew the race would be all in the second half,” Furniss said. “What we
changed that day gave Rebecca the blistering last 50 metres.”
2 Noises in the head
Furniss was able to drill Adlington on those negative splits thanks partly to
an April team training camp in Palma, Majorca, where he found himself
rooming with Patrick Miley, the father and coach of Hannah Miley,
Adlington's team-mate. In his competing days, Miley was a swimmer and
triathlete and was so preoccupied with pacing his stroke that he would swim
with a couple of Casio watches tucked under his goggles so he could hear
them ticking and adjust his stroke speed accordingly.
Miley went on to design the “aquapacer”, a small digital gismo that sits
inside a swimmer's hat and can be set to beep at any required pace allowing
a swimmer to learn a preferred stroke rate.
To swim faster, most swimmers increase the stroke rate, but with the
aquapacer, Miley took Adlington through a session where they slowed her
stroke rate down and found she was able to maintain the same high speed. In
other words, the length of her stroke was her asset. “Rebecca is one of the
rare swimmers where this is the case,” Miley said. “She was moving with such
efficiency, it may have felt like she was swimming downhill.”
Furniss and Adlington had already worked on a rate of 42 strokes per minute.
The aquapacer helped her to learn the pace during training. And learning to
swim with such efficiency was crucial because towards the end of 400 metres
in Beijing, she had more left to give than the opposition.
Moving into those last 50 metres in Beijing, Adlington upped her stroke rate,
just as she had done in training - just as the beeping in her head had
instructed her to do.
3 Doctor's orders
On July 26, Adlington arrived in the Team GB training camp in Osaka, Japan. A
couple of days later, she was suffering from sinusitis and a viral infection
that became bacterial. “You try and keep things like this to yourselves,”
Furniss said, acknowledging that he withheld this information from the
public arena. “It was a very worrying time, a big concern. I didn't tell her
at the time, though. I told her, ‘We've done the work, don't panic.'”
Having a doctor, Ian Gordon, on the spot was vital. “The key was to minimise
days out of the water,” Gordon said. “Five days out would have had an effect
on her performance.”
Gordon prescribed the antibiotic amoxicillin. Adlington was out of the pool
for two days. But it was close.
4 The quick turn
Once back in the pool, Adlington was able to fine-tune the weaker part of her
game: her tumble turn. This involved linking up again with Jodi Cossor, the
biomechanist at British Swimming, who, over the course of the previous year,
had worked with her in the pool at Loughborough, videoing her turns from
above and below.
The previous September, Cossor had highlighted two errors: 1) between her last
stroke and the turn, she would slow down; 2) she would plant her feet too
high on the wall, thus reducing the power of the push-off.
Cossor videoed her again in Osaka, reinforcing all the learning of the
previous year. At the British Olympic trials in April, Adlington had
averaged 8.82sec per turn; in the Beijing final, she had shaved that down to
8.63sec, a total save through the race of 1.33sec.
5 Ducking the pressure
Arriving in Beijing, Adlington was No1 in the world for the 800 metres. She
was therefore well known, there was pressure and expectation on her and she
would have been watched closely around the pool. Also, the Water Cube, the
Olympic venue, was a complex of two 50-metre pools, mostly heaving with
Olympic swimmers. For an athlete requiring focus and self-confidence, this
was not ideal.
British Swimming, however, had identified the perfect antidote: it hired
another pool, a facility its swimmers could use privately where Adlington
was able to prepare for her big race. “That was a stroke of genius,” Furniss
said.
6 Stocking filler
Adlington's 400 metres heat was the last on the evening of August 10 with the
final due at 11.17 the following morning. This strange scheduling - due to
the demands of American television - is very unusual for swim meets and it
meant that one of the unique challenges that the Beijing Olympics presented
was recovering fully, refuelling and sleeping with only 14 hours until the
final. Federica Pellegrini, the Italian world record-holder, for instance,
would swim significantly slower in the final the next day than the heat,
likewise Laure Manaudou, the world record-holder at 200 metres from France.
After her heat, Adlington went straight into the warm-down pool, where she was
not allowed out until her heart rate dropped below 110 and the concentration
of lactate in her blood (tested from a prick to the earlobe) had also
fallen. There then followed physiotherapy with two therapists working on her
at once to speed up the process. And finally she was allowed to return to
the Olympic village, wearing flight socks to help circulation and support
the muscles.
“A lot of the girls did not recover after the heats,” Furniss said. “A lot
were still hurting in the final. Rebecca's regeneration protocol is very
fixed. A lot of nations don't do it that way.”
7 The finish
Adlington did to all her rivals in the final what Filippi had done to her in
Rome. Except her finish was even more dramatic.
In that last length, she drew on the strength and experience of all that
negative-split training and raised her stroke rate. She turned at 350 metres
1.46sec behind Hoff. With five metres to go, Hoff was still 0.13sec - 22
centimetres - ahead.
The finish itself was programmed into Adlington, too. “Rebecca knows exactly
how many strokes per length so she is coached to finish at the end of a
stroke,” Furniss said. “It's been drilled into her. And that is what she
did.”
Hoff, however, finished with her arm not straight, her wrist cocked and her
hand flat. No one can be sure how much time that final error cost her but
for that last five metres took Adlington 2.69sec, Hoff 2.89.
“At her last stroke Rebecca was still swimming at maximum speed,” Furniss
said. “The other girls were deteriorating faster. She timed her effort
perfectly.”
Olympic guiding lights
Rebecca Adlington, swimming, 400 metres and 800 metres freestyle, gold
“Coaches aren't just experts in their chosen sport, their job is to get the
best out of their athletes and this takes a little sprinkling of magic. Not
every coach has it, but you Bill [Furniss] definitely have that magic.
“You push me harder than anyone, you know what's best for me, but the really
important thing is that you understand me as a person and not just a
swimmer. You were so important in dealing with all the pressure of Beijing -
before, during and after. You kept me focused throughout the Games and
reassured me that the effort I had put in during those long training
sessions would pay off.
“It may have been said before, but there's not a shadow of doubt in my mind
when I say I couldn't have done without you. Thank you so much, Bill.”
Acer Nethercott, rowing, men's eight, silver
“There is no way we would have been anywhere near the medal podium had it not
been for the expert guidance and stewardship of Mark Banks, John West and
Jürgen Grobler. Thank you!
“If I had my way, the coaches would be presented with medals on the podium
just like the athletes, for only that would recognise the extent to which
you are indispensable to the attainment of the results we achieve.”
Josh West, rowing, men's eight, silver
“John West and Mark Banks transformed a group of rowers in the span of 18
months from struggling to contending for Olympic qualification to being
silver medallists. I wouldn't have stood on the podium without them, and I
don't think there's much more coaches could do - they even made the process
fun.”
Jamie Staff, cycling, team sprint, gold
“I've always had the passion to be successful. I believe that I've always had
the physical attributes to be the best in the world. What I lacked was the
ability to plan ahead, become structured and, most of all, the ability to
control my emotions in the sporting arena. With a lot of help from Iain
Dyer, Mark Simpson, Steve Peters, Scott Gardner, Shane Sutton and Jan van
Eijden, I have become the athlete that I knew I could be. My life has
changed, my trophy cupboard is now complete, I am a better man because of my
coaches.”
Sophie Christiansen, Paralympics, equestrian dressage, two golds, one silver
“I would like to thank my coach, Clive Milkins. He has dedicated his whole
life to Para-Dressage and without him I would not have fulfilled my
life-long dream. Even more impressively, he has put up with me for seven
years! We have been through the highs and lows of sport together.
“To me, he is more than a coach, he is a groom, psychologist, taxi driver,
carer and friend, and he has helped me become European, World and Paralympic
champion. Also, because my parents aren't into horses and I am studying at
university, he looks after my horse, so I really wouldn't be where I am
today without his help.”
Hamilton overtaken
Lewis Hamilton, who had been favourite with William Hill, the bookmaker, to
win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award since he clinched the
drivers’ World Championship, has now been overtaken by Rebecca Adlington,
the double Olympic gold medal-winner.Hills has experienced a large wager for
the Mansfield swimmer that has resulted in her odds being slashed from 11-4
to even-money favourite, with Hamilton’s odds drifting from 1-2 to 5-4
second favourite. Other odds: 9-2 Chris Hoy; 33-1 Joe Calzaghe; 40-1
Andy Murray; 80-1 Ben Ainslie, Christine Ohuruogu, Bradley Wiggins; 100-1
Nicole Cooke, Rebecca Romero.
