James Guy, the 2015 World 200m freestyle champion. For Britain, is leaving his long-time coach Jol Finck to train with Dave McNulty at Bath University’s performance centre.
The move is both big yet nuanced, both Finck and Guy having worked closely with and at the Bath set-up for years beyond their time at Millfield when Guy was a school boy.
Guy, who is sponsored by FINIS, took to social media today to announce:
“After 8 years of working with my Coach Jol Finck – winning European, World and Olympic Medals. I’ve decided to move on and find new energy for Tokyo 2020. It was a tough decision but I’m excited to start my new adventure into the Olympics with David McNulty!”
The news comes soon after another Bath-based Britain ace, Siobhan-Marie O’Connor, the Olympic silver medallist over 200m medley, announced that she was moving on from McNulty and Bath for a fresh start at Loughborough’s performance centre.
For Guy, not having Finck there own the deck watching over him each day will mark a big change but the pool and the environment, at Bath, will be the same he has become accustomed to these past two years since moving, with Finck, from his schoolboy base at Millfield.
James Guy – Boy To Man and World Champion With Coach Jol Finck
Born in Bury near Manchester, where the local football club is making headlines in Britain this day of deadline, Guy left before he was aware of the place.
On the way to Rio 2016, he lived with his parents and younger brother Luke at the family home in the small village of Street, Somerset. They went there so their son could go to Millfield. Guy trained each day at the same Millfield School where he was pupil for seven years until 2014.
By the time the family left Warrington for Street for the sake of the swimming son’s progress, Guy had a shed-load of medals and trophies from the pool. In 2007, he won a dedication award as Warrington’s Young Sports Personality vote, judges impressed (and probably horrified) by Guy’s daily 4.10am rise-and-shines. It’s all worked out rather well since.
His regime at Millfield, replicated to some extent at Bath) includes two sessions a day Monday and Tuesday each week, a single Wednesday, doubles Thursday and Friday, then Saturday morning. There was gym, weights cardio work, running and rowing in the mix, too. All of which demands 5-6,000 calories a day.
Breakfast included porridge, bagels, poached eggs, spinach and smoked salmon. He put that together himself; lunch was provided at school and then mum made supper – and when she was not able, she would leave instructions, like the one that Guy tweeted:
“James – just fry up. Put in soy sauce….Do Not Use any metal spoons or forks on the frying pan – only plastic!!”
Recovery is a critical part of the workload. Naps are taken with Churchillian seriousness.
To get away from it all, there are girls and dates to think about and then, on fair-weather weekends fishing. Why angling?
“It’s the calm, the relaxed environment where there’s nothing to do with swimming (unless you count the fish); it’s not about what time I did and all that. It’s a world of floats and bait and line and just sitting looking out across the water and thinking, sometimes about nothing at all. It’s easy to turn it all off there.”
At 19, Guy became world champion over 200m and claimed silver in the 400m freestyle. The predictions of Olympic gold began almost instantly. Much easier said and written than done, of course.
A year later at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Guy got locked out of the medals in both his main events. His response: not under any circumstance, to give in, no matter how depressed he felt. The result: silver medals for Britain in the 4x200m freestyle and on butterfly in the 4x100m medley relay as the man who was last to race stroke for stroke down an Olympic pool with Michael Phelps before the most decorated Olympian of all-time called time on his career.
In Budapest at world titles in July 2017, history and pattern seemed to repeat themselves as Guy missed the medals in the 400m and then the 200m once more. Suffering the same sort of blow for a second season in succession might well have been followed by a slump. Not in Guy’s nature; nor his training with coach Jol Finck, first at Millfield and now at Bath University’s High Performance Centre.
Day 3 and Guy felt like walking away and never looking back. Day 6 and there he was delivering a knockout blow to Russia and the United States with a blistering anchor leg that kept the 4x200m freestyle world title firmly in British hands.
Great Britain’s golden boys (l-r) Duncan Scott, James Guy, Nick Grainger and Stephen Milne – by Patrick B. Kraemer
James Guy celebrates Britain’s victory – by Patrick B. Kraemer
Gold was one thing. The speed was sensational. Stephen Milne, Nick Grainger, Duncan Scottand Guy combined for a 7mins 01.70 victory, their time the second-fastest ever when swimming history is stripped of shiny suits sunk seven years ago.
Russia took silver in 7:02.68, United States the bronze in 7:03.18, Australia locked out in 7:05.98.
Guy entered the water in third place 1.62sec behind the USA but clawed his and Britain’s way back into contention within just 50m and had taken the lead with 100m to go.
Rippling speed: 49.87 out, which meant a 0.71sec lead over the USA. Could he hang on? You bet! And not only that: by the close of play he had entered the realms of all-time relay heroes. His split time of 1:43.80 is the third fastest ever, swifter than Michael Phelps at his relay best (1:44.05, London 2012, USA gold, he split 1:43.3 leading the USA at Beijing 2008 in the first season of poly putting the kettle on) and Ian Thorpe at top Thorpedo relay pace (1:44.14, 2001 world title for Australia).
Britain had never won a 4x200m title before the 2015 championships, when Dan Wallace, Robert Renwick, Calum Jarvis and Guy, with Grainger and Scott assisting with heats swims, clocked 7:04.33 to end the USA’s five-championship winning streak in the 4x200m.
Guy brought home the maiden title in 1:44.82 back in 2015. There was gold at world titles for Guy and mates in the 4x200m free once more but this year – no medal at all and a determination to step back up win the podium come Tokyo 2020.
Bath-Bound For A New Chapter
James Guy and coach Jol Finck at the London 2012 Legacy Pool at the University of Bath Sports Training Village – courtesy of Matchtight
To some extent, at 19 going on 20, Guy had outgrown his program at Millfield by the time he and Finck moved on in 2017. Asked to explain how he felt at a time when many would have imagined he could not have been happier, Guy said: “After Rio, I fell out of love with it all and wasn’t really enjoying it. I wasn’t happy with what I was doing. I knew on [training] camp that something was wrong but the trouble is you feel you can’t think about why something’s not working because that in itself can play games with your mind and it can really let you down.”
So, was it the taper that had not been timed quite right? “No, not at all,” says Guy. “With me, the more relaxed I am, the better I swim. I’ve realised that. It’s one off those things you learn; something I’ll be passing on. If I get nervous and tense, it’s not going to happen: the less I ‘care’, the better. I have to learn to not put pressure on myself, to enjoy myself because it is fairly obvious what happens when that’s the case, as we saw in Budapest – and Rio before that.
“It showed in the Duna Arena, it showed in relays and in the ‘fly: I never thought I’d get a medal. I was thinking maybe a place in the final. And then when you get there, you know what you have to do.”
Two years on and in Gwangju at World titles last month, we saw another week of struggle to find best form but plenty to indicate that Guy remains a threat waiting to happen once more. On the last day of action he became the threat that delivered, alongside teammates in a 4x100m medley relay that claimed historic gold.
Next month, beyond a post-Gwangju break, a new chapter starts for Guy.