Swimming: I proved I am good enough - Chris Cook

Apr 3 2008 The Journal

CHRIS Cook’s rollercoaster swimming career hit a new high yesterday when he became the first Briton to go under a minute for the 100m breaststroke.

The Commonwealth double champion’s winning time of 59.88 seconds at the Olympic trials and British Championships in Sheffield qualified him for the Olympic Games in Beijing, toppled Darren Mew’s four-year-old British and Commonwealth records, took Cook to number four in the 2008 world rankings and placed him fifth in the world all-time list.

City of Newcastle’s Cook, 29 next month, arrived in the final disappointed with his heat performance despite recording an Olympic qualifying time (1:00.54) behind former world bronze medallist James Gibson.

“I messed up in the heat and was disappointed not to go under the minute mark then,” he said.

“But now I feel I have answered some critics who thought I was too old and not good enough. I’ve had a ropey 18 months of under-performing but this was the one we were looking for.” Cook, from South Shields, believes his poor 2007 can be at least partly explained by the changes made to his training plan by City of Newcastle head coach Ian Oliver. “Since we heard that the finals here and in Beijing would be in the mornings, we have turned things on their head,” he said.

“I’ve been getting up at 4.30am to learn to race fast in the morning and it’s paying off. Ian Oliver is such an inspiration. The race plan was completely his idea. It involved doing 17 strokes on the first length and 20 on the second length. It took me a while to buy into it but I did eventually.”

Cook’s scalps in the final included 2004 Olympic finalists Mew and James Gibson, who both miss out on a trip to Beijing. They finished third and fourth in the final with the second slot going to City of Edinburgh’s Kris Gilchrist in a time of 1:01.06, half-a-second slower than Gibson’s winning time in the heat, which the former world bronze medallist was unable to repeat in the final.

“I’m gutted for James. He’s a great team-mate and he’ll be devastated,” Cook added. Beijing will be Cook’s second Olympics and the fifth in a row for Oliver and his club. “I am ecstatic,” said Oliver. “It was what we worked on together after the European Championships in 2006. The plan was for Chris to go out on 17 strokes in 28.5secs and come back on 20 strokes.”

Derwentside’s Jo Jackson secured her Olympic qualification at the first attempt when she finished second to the Commonwealth record-breaking Rebecca Adlington in the women’s 400m freestyle.

Jackson’s heat time off 4:05.38 was well inside Caitlin McClatchey’s British record but Adlington went even quicker in both heat and final to claim the first qualification place in 4:04.50. McClatchey misses out after coming third and failing to achieve the qualifying time, although she has already qualified in the 100m freestyle.