Britain’s open water swimmers continued their excellent performance at the World Open Water Swimming Championships as David Davies claimed the silver medal and guaranteed his nomination to the Olympic team in the men’s 10km race.
The Olympic bronze medallist went into the event with only one open water race under his belt, but showed no signs of nerves as he gained an excellent start and dominated the pack to take an early lead.
The British champion controlled the tempo of the race and as the swimmers approached the 2.5km mark Davies was closely followed by Olympic champion Grant Hackett.
At the halfway mark the pack began to stretch out and the top three Davies, Valerio Cleri (Italy) and Hackett began to pull away.
Hackett struggled as the race entered 7.5km and found the experience of Russian world champion Vladimir Dyatchin and Thomas Lurz (Germany) too much as he began to fall back through the field.
Davies continued his dominance of the race until the final turning buoy where Dyatchin managed to just push past him to take the lead as they entered the final 500m. As they hit the final 200m Davies closed the gap on Dyatchin and they were swimming length for length but Dyatchin just clinched the gold in a time of 1:53.21.0.
Davies took his second world silver medal of 2008 and his nomination to the first British open water Olympic team with a time of 1:53.21.3.
“I am very very pleased with that result,” Davies said. “That race took a lot out of me, I feel like I have done twelve rounds with Mike Tyson.
“That was my first competitive 10km swim, in South Africa there was only six athletes competing, so the conditions here were perfect for me gain experience in the event. I am a rhythmic swimmer and so we planned for me to get out into the lead early on and get myself some clear space so I was well out of the pack.
“When I got into the lead I had no idea what was going on behind me, I just kept my pace and didn’t stop to feed throughout the race. I did make some mistakes with my lines and my tactics, but these are things that will come with more experience of open water swimming.
“Dyatchin got me at the last turn and he used his experience to make me swerve towards the turning buoy. But I am pleased to be able to get that result while I am in the middle of heavy training.
“I was not rested going into that race and I used it as part of my training programme so for me this is an encouraging position to be.
“I have had a busy start to 2008 and I am looking forward to getting back to Loughborough and getting some solid training under my belt. It is great to know I now have options for Beijing and I am now going to have discussions with my coach before we decide my next step.”
The bronze medal was taken by Thomas Lurz who touched home in a time of 1:53.27.2. British swimmer Alan Bircher was also trying to guarantee his nomination to the Olympic squad but failed to make an impact against the world-class field and finished a disappointing 21st with a time of 1:54.44.2.
Hackett finished in 15th place but was disqualified from the field after deliberately preventing another swimmer from overtaking in the final 300m, this was his second yellow card of the race.
The British record holder Davies has been training in Loughborough with Kevin Renshaw for the past eight months and took part in his first open water swim in February, for Renshaw this event was a learning curve for both of them.
“We knew that David was obviously one of the most inexperienced open water swimmers in the competition so we had a good strategy in place to help him avoid the fight in the pack,” Renshaw said. “It was a good performance from him today and he now needs to improve every time he takes part in a 10km race.
“He needs to learn how to deal with the hard knocks of being in the pack, this is hard for a pool swimmer to learn as they are so used to competing with their own space. Nevertheless, he is a tough athlete and he puts his heart and soul into every race he takes part in so I know that he will be able to learn from this and improve for next time.”
-ENDS-
The squad comprises:
Cassandra Patten (Stockport Metro)
Kerri-Anne Payne (Stockport Metro)
Charlotte Wooliscroft (Shiverers)
David Davies (City of Cardiff)
Alan Bircher (Bath University)
Daniel Fogg (Waltham Forest)
For further details contact British Swimming Media Assistant Gemma Field on 01509 632262, 07917 726431 or email gemma.field@swimmng.org <mailto:gemma.field@swimmng.org>
British Swimming is the National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Synchronised Swimming, Water Polo and Open Water in Great Britain. It is responsible internationally for the high performance representation of the sport. The members of British Swimming are the three Home Countries national governing bodies of England (Amateur Swimming Association), Scotland (Scottish Amateur Swimming Association) and Wales (Welsh Amateur Swimming Association). British Swimming seeks to enable its athletes to achieve gold medal success at the Olympics, Paralympics, World Championships and Commonwealth Games.
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