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Fogg Lifts Crown With Davies In Tow
Mar 10, 2012 - Craig Lord
Great Britain Olympic Trials, Day 8 finals
David Davies, the Olympic bronze medallist (1500) of 2004 and silver medallist (marathon) of 2008, was the last name added to the roster for a home Olympic Games as the Britain trials came to a close in London tonight with victory for Daniel Fogg over 30 laps, 14:55.30, to 15:00.73.
Those two will now move out to open water in a battle to fill the one place open to Britain in The Serpentine when the marathon gets underway this summer at Hyde Park in the British capital.
Davies, coached by Dave Haller in Cardiff, put his fatigue problems aside to book a third Olympic Games, while Fogg, coached by Kevin Renshaw in Loughborough, became only the third Briton after Davies and Graeme Smith to go inside 15 minutes.
For Fogg, a terrific swim and victory confined to history the heartache of 2008, when he missed the cut for Beijing 2008. He praised the role of former training partner and friend Davies in drawing out the best of him in tough sessions with Renshaw at Loughborough.
Where Fogg was coming through the ranks, Davies had been through it all before and the regime he could once master was one he could no longer manage. He suffered fatigue syndrome in 2010 and returned to Haller a man in need of a break.
The 27-year-old described himself last year as "a bag of rubbish" that had been left outside Haller's door and his problems then returned, forcing him to pull out of last year's World Championships in Shanghai.
After qualifying in second place tonight he said: "I've got mixed emotions really. If somebody had offered me 15 minutes in the summer I'd have given up all my Christmases for that. I was in a bad position. I owe a lot to Dave Haller, he's really helped him out.
"I remember saying last year nobody knew how bad I was - one of those people was me, I didn't realise how bad I was and it's been a real struggle. What the guy has done is save my career almost. To get back to this now is great.
"Fifteen minutes is not a bad performance, it's a good marker, it's not where I want to end up ultimately, I'd like to go faster in the summer. But the goal was to qualify and I've done that so now I can look forward and I'm just so glad to say that."
For national performance director Michael Scott the eight-day trials have been mostly positive, although he pinpointed the men's sprint freestyle as an area in need of attention with no-one having qualified in either the 50 or 100m.
Scott said: "Overall the meet has been a success. I think we've seen progress in a number of areas. From my perspective in terms of the depths of the fields, there's been significant improvement. Depth-wise it has been good. (There are areas) where we've got to do better and we'll be evaluating what we need to do. A positive week, progress, but more to be done."
The result
A measure of progress:
