Swimming is one of the great spectator sports. It is a sport won and lost with the finest of margins. That one-hundredth of a second can be the difference between a gold medal or nothing.
Irish swimmer Conor Ferguson broke down just how swimmers mentally and physically go about attaining these small incremental gains.
Ferguson competes in the backstroke and from a very young age had his eyes on the Olympics. While studying for his GCSEs, he amazingly just missed out on the Olympic A qualifying time.
“It was absolutely crazy and a bit of a breakthrough year. I always set these crazy goals for myself from a young age and even as a kid you have these mad visions,” Ferguson said.
“I just wanted to go to the 2016 Rio Olympics and it just stuck with me.
“It was nearly disrespectful to any Olympian out there as I never knew how hard it was, but I was just a kid at a very young age.”
In 2015 he sat down with his coach Peter Hill and the high-performance director of Irish swimming to discuss the goal.
He added: “I actually remember sitting down with the high-performance director at the time and saying to him that I want to go to the Olympics.”
“He told me to focus on making a European junior team before making that as I was a substantial way off the time. We were talking two seconds.
“In February of that year I ended up dropping a bomb and going 54.6 seconds, the time was a 54.36 which I needed.”
Then 6 weeks later he got even closer.
“I just missed out by five one-hundredths of a second which was a really hard pill to swallow at the time,” he continued.
“I actually went home that night and got the stopwatch out on his phone and attempted to hit that time. I just couldn’t hit it and I was sat there all night.
“I just couldn’t get over all this hard work and I missed out on it by that much.”
However, Ferguson thoroughly believes that everything happens for a reason and took the learnings as a positive.
COVID-19 cancelled Olympic trials last April when Ferguson felt in great shape leading up to it. He then got diagnosed with glandular fever on top of picking up COVID-19. This kept him out of training for five weeks in the lead up to the rescheduled trials in which he missed out on qualification.
He now asks himself questions like, “if I hadn’t of made that Olympics [2016], would I still be swimming?” He appreciates the work ethic required to succeed at the top level, taking nothing for granted.
Learning the process of marginal gains
In terms of the transition from a junior to a senior swimmer, Ferguson also notices how all the small gains are everything.
“I have been progressing by the smallest of margins, we are talking one-hundredth of second, one-tenth of a second,” he said.
“At the start, I found it difficult, why am I not dropping half a second here,” after stating he experienced this regularly when he was 16.
“I have experienced a plateau for a number of years. I haven’t got any slower I just have been progressing by the smallest of margins.”
Ferguson, however, now appreciates every PB he gets and understands that the top level of swimming takes patience with dedication. It is rather all about the learning process.
“I would say this to any young swimmer that if you see a time after your initial reaction give yourself a bit of time to happy or sad about it, but take the time to sit down and either learn from your mistakes or learn how to progress,” he added.
“That is definitely the most important thing to go on and improve again.”
Competing in the 100m backstroke at the Olympic games is the dream for the 22-year-old. Looking at the recent Olympic final in Tokyo there were 0.21 seconds between gold and bronze medals. The margins are so small.
At only 22 years old Ferguson has a long career ahead as a swimmer. Having learnt so much in the sport already, he is fully aware that the attention to detail will only intensify as embarks on his professional career.
“It is all about time management and being strict around that. It is all about stuff like meal prepping so the night before having my meals set out for the day, so I am not in work ordering up a JustEat,” he said.
“I also need to make sure once I finish work I am at the gym for an appropriate time.”
There is no doubt that Ferguson will be eyeing up 2023 to make his dream will become a reality. For now, the focus remains on reducing the hundredths of the second.
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