News

Why were you in Israel?

CH: I was in Israel for the LEN World Cup with the Great Britain Open Water Squad. The competition was being used for trials for European juniors and for the World championships.

What were your impressions of Israel?

CH: This is going to sound really weird, but where we were staying in Eilat was a lot like Las Vegas. They have gone really over the top with making really large hotels and basically just made for tourism. The food was really strange with it being kosher so you couldn’t mix meat with dairy. It was also really really hot.

What kind of training did you do in the lead up to the race?

CH: It was just a basic week of training really, quite a bit of speed work for example 32*100s best average was our hardest set and only 2 people managed to do the whole thing properly and that was Dan Fogg and Gareth Keating, the rest of us dropped out after 20.

What were your race day preparations?

CH: Race preparation started about 3 days before the actually race with carbohydrate loading, this I enjoyed because it just involved eating loads of pasta and potatoes, chicken nuggets and chocolate cake was also included (which the coaches didn’t know). On the actual race day we were advised to wake up at about 4.30 to try and get some food which for me was a carbohydrate bar and a carbohydrate gel, then went back to sleep until breakfast at 5.30, after that it was down to the beach for registration and numbering. Then it was time to warm up, this for me was basically jumping into the sea and swimming about 500- 600 then getting out and stretching. After this we had about half an hour until the race actually started. It was a very nerve wracking time because half of us had never swam open water before and didn’t know what to expect from it.

How did you feel during the race?

CH: During the race was fine, I just tried to stay with the leading pack and tried not to drop away from them. At about the 4th lap the lead pack went wide and I tried to be smart and go straight by myself. This was a bad mistake because i wasn’t able to draft of anyone it was a lot harder swimming by myself.

Did you enjoy it?

CH: Yeah it was good fun, I didn’t think I would enjoy it that much but it was enjoyable.

How long did it take for you to recover afterward?

CH: A long time, its probably taken me about 5 days to get back to feeling normal.

Where to next?

CH: Next I’m off to Slovenia for 2 weeks on the Club training camp then to Glasgow for the British Gas Scottish Open Championships. Then I have a few days of training before I go to Croatia for the European Junior Open Water Championships then the European Junior Championships in Prague, then the World Open Water Championships in Italy, it’s going to be a busy summer.

What are you most looking forward to over the next couple of months?

CH: Definitely the World Championships for the experience. But also looking forward to the 2 European Junior events because I have a good chance of winning a medal.

What advice do you have to give younger WBC swimmers aspiring to make GB selection?

CH: That anything can happen, just keep training hard and keep believing in yourself.




--
LJBailey