Few swimmers have a greater understanding of how to tease the best performance out of themselves than Aimee Willmott, who has written an academic paper on the subject.
Willmott’s dissertation, published in the European Journal of Sport Science, considers the effect clothing worn between a warm-up and competition can have on performance. She concludes that wearing the right garb can give a 0.59% boost in performance, which may not sound significant but in a sport such as swimming the finest margins decide medals.
Accordingly, Willmott touched the wall only 0.26sec ahead of Hannah Miley to claim one of Team England’s six gold medals on the opening day of the Commonwealth Games on Australia’s Gold Coast.
On a humid evening at the Optics Aquatics Centre, Willmott followed her own advice and togged up until the last possible moment before the 400m medley final. “I did five years of uni and finished last year and did my study based on how hot you are before you swim determining how fast you swim,” said Willmott, who graduated with a degree in sport and exercise science from the University of East London. “I practise what I preach. I dressed up really warm and was so hot before with the nerves and the crowd combined.”
Willmott and Miley were stroke for stroke until the final 15m of the race when the red cap of the Teeside swimmer poked in front and she denied the Scotswoman a hat-trick of Commonwealth titles. It completed a remarkable comeback for Willmott after she was forced to relocate her training base from the London Aquatics centre to the University of Stirling when the elite programme at the home of the 2012 Olympics was abruptly shelved. She doubted she would even make it to the Gold Coast after sustaining a series of injuries that shook her self-belief.
“After the 12 months I’ve had with two broken ribs, a bashed elbow and knee surgery it was just a huge sigh of relief to get here,” she said. “To just do the business is incredible.”
“The injury setbacks were really bad to the point where me and my parents couldn’t even have a conversation because I was just so stressed,” she added. “When you break your ribs, you can’t really do a lot so from swimming twice a day and gym, to the programme in London closing down and sitting on a sofa for eight weeks it was really hard to deal with. I’ve learned a lot, gained a lot of confidence and got the enjoyment back. I’d lost that a little bit before.”
Her victory came before a fourth gold of the day for the England team, this one for James Wilby, who beat the defending champion Ross Murdoch from Scotland into second, to win the men’s 200m breaststroke. There were two other golds in the pool for England, for Paralympic champion Ellie Robinson in the women’s S7 50m butterfly and Tom Hamer in the men’s S14 200m freestyle.
The honour of England’s first gold of the Games went to the visually impaired cyclist Sophie Thornhill and her tandem pilot Helen Scott who won the women’s sprint. Later, England claimed silver in the men’s team sprint and men’s team pursuit.
The double Olympic champion Max Whitlock won the first of a possible three golds as England’s men won the team gymnastics event. The team of Whitlock, Nile Wilson, James Hall, Courtney Tulloch and Dominick Cunningham were utterly dominant, taking the title a massive 10 points ahead of nearest rivals Canada.
The team event doubles up as qualification for the individual disciplines and Whitlock competed only on the floor and pommel horse, the two apparatus on which he won gold at Rio 2016.
His complex floor routine, which has undergone a facelift since Rio, scored 14.8 before he returned to the pommel horse for a top score of 15.150, putting him in pole position for double gold in those individual events.
Anna Hursey, the 11-year-old table tennis player from Wales, continued a remarkable rise to prominence by winning her first doubles match. She was making her Commonwealth Games debut but there was no hint of nerves as she and partner Charlotte Carey brought Wales their only win as India claimed the five-rubber series 3-1.
