In at the Deep End
Page 5
The photographs of the finish are amazing. I’m reaching for the pad after an hour and fifty-three minutes swimming and there is only a third of a second between us.
I’d come second again, which seemed to be the theme of the year, but I had qualified for the Olympics. It didn’t seem like a World Championships, even though it was. The silver medal was great of course, but it was all about the qualification for Beijing.
Chapter Fourteen
Looking forward
The British public had really enjoyed the Beijing Olympic Games.
Rebecca Adlington, with her two gold medals in the 400 and 800 metres freestyle, had given us and the public the belief that a British swimmer could go out and beat the best in the world. In the past, British swimming had gone without medals at several major championships and the belief just hadn’t been there.
Now others can be inspired by what Becky has done in the pool and what Keri-Anne Payne, Cassie Patten and I have achieved in the Open Water. The public have really taken to swimming and the sport has a new-found respect. Nowhere was that more obvious than when many of the Olympians and Paralympians were paraded in open-top buses in London on a cold day in mid October. I didn’t know where to look because there were so many people around and we had to wave to them all. The number of people who turned out to greet us on a working day was incredible.
It felt like we’d won the FA Cup. It was similar to those pictures you see after a team has won at Wembley, or when England won the Ashes, only this time you’re starring in it. It’s almost too much: people hanging out of office windows, on the street, standing on top of parked cars and shouting your name. It takes a while to sink in but it’s really enjoyable and makes you feel so proud. I got a few pictures on my camera phone of the masses of people in Trafalgar Square – all packed in like people on football terraces.
I was lucky enough to have an open-top bus parade in Cardiff as well. I saw a lot of people I knew, it was patriotic and very, very Welshthemed. It was a Monday, a school day, and I was expecting the odd grandma or granddad to turn up, but lots of people made the effort and that’s when you realise the effect that the team has had.
Once the big ordeal of a major Games is over, it’s hard to imagine getting back into a pool again! That’s why I took a long break after the Olympics – not only to recharge the batteries, but to enjoy myself and to get the hunger back.
But then you start missing training. I have to confess I felt terrible when I got back into the pool. I was a little overweight and I’d lost the feel for swimming. My body had, in effect, shut down for two months, at least where swimming was concerned.
Getting back into shape compares with the pre-season training that footballers do. It involves a lot of outdoor running, gym work, cycling, rowing and some hard slogs in the pool to build up the base for the aerobic work.
I’m now starting to get asked whether I will concentrate on pool swimming or competing in the Open Water competitions. But there is actually no such thing as an Open Water swimmer or a pool swimmer. I train full-time in the pool; all of my sets are geared towards racing better in the 1500 metres freestyle. That training is good enough to do Open Water as well. However, I will do more events to get more experience.
Everything is planned in great detail. At the Olympics in Beijing, we shipped over an ice bath for muscle-damage recovery; no one had ever done the event before so every angle had to be covered. I worked with a top cycling and marathon nutritionist to help deal with my carbohydrates and my recovery system.
2010 will be decision time in my life as to how the 1500 metres is going. That will be a target for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. It’ll be less than two years out from the London Olympics, and I’ll be able to see how well I’m performing, in order to decide if I can compete at the top level.
Maybe I would be better off just doing the Open Water, but there’s a lot of potential in both events and I have a strong desire to do both in London in 2012.
It’s hard to believe that the London Olympics are less than four years away. The timing has fitted in so nicely with my career. When London was awarded the Games I was pleased but didn’t realise how very big it would be. Now I can see just how massive it will be for athletes like me, to be competing there. Also it’s so important for Britain to put on a great show. Hosting the Olympics now is so competitive.
However, I don’t feel there’s any extra pressure on the athletes to perform at a home Games. The governing bodies of the various sports may feel it, but, if anything, it should be easier for us because of the fantastic support we’ll receive and the familiar surroundings. In football the crowd is sometimes called the twelfth man, so it should be like that for us.
I have always dreamed of retiring after my best performance or at a really big competition, where the memories will be amazing, at the very pinnacle of the sport. That’s the best time to walk away and, hopefully, London 2012 will provide me with the best of both worlds and I will be able to hang my goggles up, happy, and have no regrets.
That’s the plan as far as swimming is concerned, but of course there’s more to life than swimming. I will miss it for certain, and it might take a while to get over the sadness of leaving so much behind, but I see myself going back to Cardiff, and living a normal life.
I hope that, whatever walk of life I do go into, I will have had enough experience to help me be strong in that environment. I’m only twenty-three now so I’m not thinking about having a family but when Davies junior eventually appears, if it’s a boy, I might get him involved in football, rugby or golf.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he was very sports-oriented!
I’ve become interested in working in the Police Force or possibly as a teacher. Or maybe I will go into the media. I’m keeping my options open.
Whatever I end up doing, I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and say that I gave my first career everything. And I’ll have lots of brilliant memories and a stack of medals to show for it.
Inside Out
Real life stories from behind bars
Brought together by their crimes, the prisoners at Parc Prison, Bridgend, share their stories of life on the other side of the security walls.
Whether they are tough criminals or teenagers in trouble for the first time, they all have one thing in common – they had a life outside.
The prisoners have put into words what it’s really like doing time at Parc Prison, how they got there and their hopes for the future.
These stories of their lives before crime will surprise and move you, make you laugh and cry in equal measures!
Royalties from this book will go to Parc Prison’s arts and educational fund to support creative workshops for prisoners.
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Black-Eyed Devils
Catrin Collier
One look was enough. Amy Watkins and Tom Kelly were in love. But that one look condemned them both.
‘Look at Amy again and you’ll return to Ireland in a box.’ Amy’s father is out to kill Tom.
All Tom wants is Amy and a wage that will keep them. But Tonypandy in 1911 is a dangerous place for Irish workers like Tom, who have been brought in to replace the striking miners. The miners drag them from their beds and hang them from lamp posts as a warning to those who would take their jobs.
Frightened for Amy, Tom fights to deny his heart, while Amy dreams of a future with the man she loves. But in a world of hatred, anger and violence, her dream seems impossible until a man they believed to be their enemy offers to help. But, can they trust him with their lives?
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Alive and Kicking
Andy Legg
Andy Legg is one of the best-loved players in Welsh international football and his legendary long throw-in earned him a place in the record book.
One of a select few to play for South Wales arch-rivals Swansea City and Cardiff City, Andy played six times for Wales and more than 600 League games for Swansea,
Notts County, Birmingham City, Peterborough, Reading and Cardiff.
But in 2005 his life was turned upside down when a lump in his neck turned out to be cancer. Alive and Kicking is Andy’s emotional account of his treatment, his fears for his life and how the messages of support from his fans gave him the strength to fight on and return to the game.
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Bring it Back Home
Niall Griffiths
Chased by a hit-man, a young man returns home from London to a small town in Wales. Reconciliation with his family is alternated with his pursuer’s progress. A long criminal connection is revealed but can he escape the sins of his fathers?
This is a tense, tightly written drama that will captivate the reader with fast, gut-wrenching action.
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The Rubber Woman
Lindsay Ashford
The world of Cardiff's sex trade hits the headlines when a woman is butchered and left for dead. Pauline distributes condoms to the women of the red light district and is known locally as 'the rubber woman'. She and Megan, a forensic psychologist, make it their mission to stop more women becoming victims. They don't know it yet, but one of them is already marked out for death.
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Aim High
Dame Tanni Grey Thompson
Aim High reveals what has motivated Dame Tanni Grey Thompson, UK’s leading wheelchair athlete, through the highs and lows of her outstanding career. Her triumphs, which include winning 16 medals, eleven of which are gold, countless European titles, six London Marathons and over 30 world records have catapulted this Welsh wheelchair athlete firmly into the public consciousness.
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The Corpse’s Tale
Katherine John
Dai Morgan has the body of a man and the mind of a child. He lived with his mother in the Mid Wales village of Llan, next door to bright, beautiful 19 year old Anna Harris. The vicar found Anna’s naked, battered body in the churchyard one morning. The police discovered Anna’s bloodstained earring in Dai’s pocket.
The judge gave Dai life.
After ten years in gaol Dai appealed against his sentence and was freed. Sergeants Trevor Joseph and Peter Collins are sent to Llan to reopen the case. But the villagers refuse to believe Dai innocent. The Llan police do not make mistakes or allow murderers to walk free.
Do they?
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The Hardest Test
Scott Quinnell
Scott Quinnell is one of the best-known names in rugby. He played both rugby league and rugby union, for Wales and for the British Lions. He was captain of the Welsh team seven times and won 52 caps.
But amidst all this success, Scott had a painful secret. He struggled to read. In The Hardest Test, he describes his struggle against learning difficulties throughout his childhood and his journey towards becoming one of the best rugby players in Britain. When he retired from rugby in 2005 he continued his battle with dyslexia in order to change both his and his children’s lives.
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Life’s New Hurdles
Colin Jackson
Colin Jackson is one of the greatest athletes that Britain has ever produced. He was in the world top ten for 16 years, and was world number 1 for two of them. He set seven European and Commonwealth and nine UK records and he still holds the world record for indoor hurdling.
In 2003, Colin retired from athletics in front of an adoring home crowd. Then real life began. In Life’s New Hurdles Colin describes the shock of adjusting to sudden change. From athletics commentating to sports presenting and Strictly Come Dancing, Colin describes the challenges and joys of starting a whole new life.
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Vinyl Demand
Hayley Long
Beth Roberts and Rula Popek have a lot in common. They are both 19, both have crap jobs and both live in the worst flat in the whole of Wales.
The girls have no money, no boyfriends, family who are thousands of miles away and a final demand for a gas bill which they cannot pay. It all looks pretty bleak until one day when Rula stumbles across an entire vinyl record collection which has been left in a local charity shop. She takes a gamble and blows the money for the gas bill on the whole lot and the dream of becoming Cardiff’s very own answer to the global girl DJ, Lisa Lashes. It’s just a shame she didn’t bother to explain the plan to Beth first.
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Losing It
Roger Granelli
Losing It is set in the world of Baldock, local drug dealer and hard man of the Welsh Valleys. When one of his drug-runners, TJ, starts taking his own cut, it proves to be a big mistake. Baldock’s reaction is explosive and violent.
Baldock’s life is not straight forward. At home sits his dependent, wheelchair-bound father, a WWII veteran who has no idea about his son’s drug empire. This taut father and son relationship is the backdrop to Baldock’s increasingly desperate need to find and deal with TJ. Looking for TJ, Baldock neglects his father’s needs with incendiary results that will change his life forever.
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Quick Reads
Books in the Quick Reads Series
101 Ways to get your Child to Read Patience Thomson
A Day to Remember Fiona Phillips
Aim High Tanni Grey Thompson
Alive and Kicking Andy Legg
All These Lonely People Gervase Phinn
Black-Eyed Devils Catrin Collier
Bring It Back Home Niall Griffiths
The Cave Kate Mosse
A Cool Head Ian Rankin
The Corpse’s Tale Katherine John
The Dare John Boyne
Doctor Who: The Sontaran Games Jacqueline Rayner
Dragons’ Den: Your Road to Success
The Hardest Test Scott Quinnell
In At the Deep End David Davies
Inside Out Parc Prisoners
Life’s New Hurdles Colin Jackson
Losing It Roger Granelli
Reaching for the Stars Lola Jaye
The Rubber Woman Lindsay Ashford
Secrets Lynne Barrett-Lee
The Tannery Sherrie Hewson
Vinyl Demand Hayley Long