“The important thing is that initial movement through the water, so that’s what I spend a lot of time working on with Ben. I have to do a lot of gym work to make sure I have got the power but then it is also about applying it with the right technique.” The power she gives away in her starts means she always has to play catch-up, which makes her an exhilarating swimmer to watch, as she hauls in her rivals and overtakes them. When the team’s sports scientists broke down her swim in the 100m freestyle final of the World Championships last summer, they found she had the second-quickest swim speed but in terms of her start and turns she came eighth. Halsall is bright and curious – she has continued to study after taking up swimming full time – and learns fast.
Winning ways: Fran Halsall's punishing regime may enable the sprinter to replicate her European success
“I was pretty grumpy when I got back from Shanghai because I came home without any medals,” she says. “But when I got around to thinking about it logically I realised there were a lot of positives. I had an ankle operation in December 2010 so had not been able to train as I wanted, so I’d basically come from being on one leg to the final of the Worlds.
“Before Shanghai I’d just thought about going there and trying to do the best I could. It had never entered my head that I could be in lane four for the final of the 100m freestyle. It took me a bit by surprise. I thought, 'Oh, bloomin 'eck, what’s going on here?’
“After I got back I realised that I wasn’t in the right shape to swim three 100m freestyles that fast [ie, the two heats and the final].
“That’s all it was. I tried my best in the final — I’ve been over that race again and again. I swam a great speed it’s just that I was knackered by the time I got to the last 10m.” At one point while she is demonstrating her quickest speed in the pool, she misjudges her turn – this is not her training pool and there are no lane guides – and smacks her ankles on the end of the pool. Titley winces but Halsall emerges intact. It seems the ankle is robust enough now.
- Fran Halsall: the facts and figures
- Born in Southport, April 12 1990.
- She has won 13 national titles since 2006.
- She won silver at the 2009 World Championships in 100m freestyle.
- In 2010 she became the most successful British swimmer at a European Championships ever with two golds, two silvers and a bronze.
- At the 2010 Commonwealth Games she won one gold, three silvers and a bronze.
- She is the British No1 in sprint-swimming, and British record-holder in 50m and 100m freestyle and 50m and 100m butterfly.
So these are the two areas she is working on this winter – getting her endurance back up to its old levels and sharpening her turns and starts. “I’ve been doing tons of turns and starts and I’ve already started seeing the benefit.” The preconception about swimming training is that it is just about doing lengths. Sure, there is plenty of that but Titley has tried to keep things fresh by helping his Loughborough Intensive Training Centre group get their core fitness outside the pool.
“When we first came back to training after Shanghai, we did a lot of cross training,” Halsall explains. “We do so much swimming during the year so at the start of the season we like to try to do it in different ways. We’ve done a bit of kick-boxing, rock climbing and ballet. It helps our base fitness and develops our core strength.
“We went to Derbyshire to go camping, to Carsington Water. It was the windiest weekend ever and there we were trying to pitch tents. We did lots of running and rock climbing. We did canoeing and made rafts on the lake. They told us we weren’t allowed in the water for safety reasons but we ended up rolling each other’s canoes any way. It was a lot of fun but hard work with it.”
Disappointment: Halsall finished fourth at the World Aquatics Championships in 2011
To refine her technique, Halsall has used various different technological innovations, including a towing system in the pool (essentially attaching the swimmer to a leash) that measures the force of each stroke. “It showed me that I didn’t have the balance I needed in my stroke,” Halsall says. “My left arm was not as forceful when it went in as my right. I have tried to correct that and have already seen improvement.
“At the end of September I went to Tenerife with the Loughborough University team. They have an amazing facility there. There is this pit which you get in and it pushes water at you at the rate you swim at. So you stay still but have to swim at the speed which you would swim at in a race. Then they have all these different cameras pointing at you from different angles. It’s really good for analysing how you are swimming. The only problem is getting out. You get pushed back and stuck to the wall so it’s not easy.”
After a training camp in Florida, Halsall competed in the Duel in the Pool last month, in which the United States take on a combined European team. Halsall is already looking in fine shape – she was part of a 4x100m freestyle relay team which broke the world record. After that competition, though, it is hard graft in the pool until the Olympic trials in March. She had four days off over the holidays – Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day – but has had to up her daily schedule from 6km to 9km in compensation.
For Halsall, training is a trial, a sacrifice she knows she has to make. Her pleasure comes from racing. Fraction by fraction, she is reaching the apex of her ability to swim 100m faster than any other woman in the world. On Aug 1, in the London Aquatic Centre, she will discover if she can.
Fran Halsall is an ambassador for Multipower Sportsfood. For sports nutrition tailored to your individual needs visit www.multipower.co.uk
