'That’s when the doubt creeps in - 'Am I good enough? Am I cut out for this sport?'

Conor Ferguson , for instance, has given years for less than the amount of time it has taken you to read this sentence.

The golden number is 53.74 seconds. Swim within that this week, and Ferguson will forever be known as an Olympian. It’s a case of three strikes and out: he has to make it once over either his heat, semi-final, or final this week, or else he is out. Loughborough is regarded as one of the best swimming programmes in the UK, and as a result it has the use of a £500,000 kistler machine to precisely analyse performance from within the water. Previously, the university had to rely on a Go Pro and a coach’s hovering eye, but now they can avail of the kistler, which features 12 cameras that offer angles from underneath, above, and from the side, all displayed on a 50-inch screen beside the pool.

For Ferguson, this is a kind of last dance. He came outrageously close to qualifying for the 2016 Games when he was only 16, missing the mandatory qualifying time by half a second. But then he ran into the brutality of diminishing returns, as his hitherto upward trajectory flattened.

Making A Splash

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