Fran Halsall party-pooped at British sport’s greatest jamboree. The London Olympics of 2012, the games of Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Hoy, was followed by such a beano that some are still feeling the hangover. But there was no splash over at the Aquatics Centre. And for Halsall, who reached four out of five swimming finals but failed to win a medal, there was utter misery.
Now, as she prepares for this week’s 2015 world championships in Kazan, Russia, where she will be taking part in the 50m butterfly and 50m freestyle, as well as two medley relays, she says: “In London I really felt so disappointed with myself. Everybody else, deservedly, felt really happy and wanted to celebrate. I wanted to sit on my own and be grumpy for a while.
“So I didn’t go to the parade or the garden party. I didn’t think I deserved to be there. Everybody was so happy and it was such a great time. But I felt a bit of a killjoy and I didn’t really want to be around.”
There were tears too, just as there had been when her mother took her to kindergarten and introduced her to swimming. She hated it then – four years later she was pleading with her parents to take her to the pool.
Since London there has been redemption. Last year there were two gold medals at both the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the European championships in Berlin, following her three earlier golds in the British championships in April, and there have been a succession of personal best times. She is faster and stronger than she has ever been. But it is the Olympic flame that burns within her. “I’m already thinking about the Olympics in Rio next year,” she says. “Last year was such a good year, with the Commonwealth Games and I had a No1 world ranking, so I came into this season feeling really good.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes in Russia but I’m going with no expectations of what I want to achieve and how I’m going to swim. Because I had an injury setback in December which set me back.
“I’m going to see what happens. If I get on the podium that’s great, and next year I will be looking towards the Olympics. This week is going to be a good marker.”
Halsall has put on 7kg (15lb) since London, through extra gym work and a high-protein diet. “I’ve done a lot of eating – but unfortunately that hasn’t included my favourite fish and chips and curry sauce and mushy peas. I’ve also got a very sweet tooth. But I’ve had to be strict with myself before a tournament.”
The 25-year-old from Southport describes the Olympic Games as “the epitome of my sport”. She remembers the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, when she was just 10 years old. “Even then I had dreamed of winning an Olympic gold medal,” she says. When it was announced that the 2012 Games would be held in London she told her mother: “I will be 22 then, the perfect age. This is destiny, Mum. You had me at the right time.”
Samuel Beckett once said that “to be an artist is to fail as no others dare fail” but arguably, the sportsman and sportswoman dares in the same way. Halsall placed enormous pressure on herself.
She had already achieved a great deal before London 2012, winning silver medals at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, in the 4x100m freestyle and medley relay. At her first Olympics in 2008, awestruck on seeing sportspeople such as Pelé and Rafael Nadal, she reached the final of the 100m freestyle. In 2010, when named Sunday Times young sportswoman of the year, she won five medals, including two golds, at the European championships. And there was a gold, three silvers and a bronze in the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
Halsall went to London with realistic hopes of a gold in the 50m and 100m freestyle, in which she was ranked No2 and No4 in the world. She also competed in three other events. “My coach, James Gibson, was expected to do really well in the 2004 Olympics in Athens, and it didn’t work out for him. So he was able to understand my sense of disappointment eight years later,” she says.
“It took me a while to get over the disappointment of the London Olympics. Over time I’ve been able to take away the emotion of it and see it in a more logical way. I’ve been able to rationalise it, and say: ‘OK, this is what happened, this is why it happened and this is what I’ve got to do’. It’s been a learning experience. I suppose I would have liked it to have happened a couple of years before the Olympics. Instead it happened at the wrong time.
“But, if I want to I could go on to Tokyo in 2020, when I will still be only 30. So I was lucky, after London, to know that I could have another crack at it, maybe two, and that maybe I would be smarter with it.”
Mark Spitz, who won seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympics, once observed: “Swimming is the only sport in which before an athlete competes he stands on a pedestal, is introduced and applauded. And he hasn’t even done anything yet.” But no one will begrudge Halsall her introduction. She has already done plenty.
