NATIONAL champion Ian Powell has set his sights on a bigger goal - the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The Beau Sejour Barracuda became the first Guernsey swimmer to win a national title with his gold medal in the 200m backstroke at the championships at Pond’s Forge, Sheffield, on Tuesday.
Now he wants to make the step up onto the international stage and make the British team for the biggest sports event in the world in four years’ time.
‘That is what I am going to be going for. I have probably got a decent chance of making it,’ said Powell.
‘There are about four of us [nationally] who are around the same age and are putting up the same sort of time, so it is all pretty tight and it is probably going to be between us lot to see who goes.’
Powell departs for the United States on 16 August to take up his scholarship at Florida State University and he believes that his four years in Tallahassee should help him accomplish his Olympic dream.
‘It is a completely different system over there so I am looking forward to see how it is done in America. It will be a good experience for me,’ he said.
With his scholarship spanning the time between now and the 2008 Olympics, Powell should be in the perfect condition for his attempt at reaching Beijing.
However, he does not think it will be his only chance to swim at the Games.
‘It all depends on how you develop - Mark Foster is 32 and still swimming. I will probably keep going until I am 26, which will take me up to 2012.
‘But in four years’ time, I should definitely be in the right sort of shape to give it my best shot.
‘It will take about a 1-58 or a 1-59 to qualify so I have got a bit to go yet and it will mean a lot of hard work, but it is definitely not out of my reach,’ Powell added.
The Guernseyman finished sixth at the Olympic trials this year but admitted that he was not at his best due to it being his final year of A-levels.
‘It was okay. I would have liked to have gone faster but it has been a tough year and I have not swum any PBs at all, until now at these championships.
‘But my aim for the year was to win at the Nationals and now that I have won, I can say I reached my goal and you cannot do any better than that.’
He went on to pay tribute to the work done by his Barracudas coach, Alison Frankland, in helping him prepare for Sheffield.
‘The three weeks of A-levels were tough. I would go to training but my mind was elsewhere,’ Powell said.
‘Then over the last two weeks, I was back home, I could relax and train with Alison, getting a short-course base, which was really important. Alison has done a lot for me and she put together an excellent programme.
‘I knew it would take a 2-04, 2-05 to win it and I had a plan, which I stuck to. That was to go through the first 50 steadily and build it through the other three 50s.
‘I gave it everything in the final 50 and in the last 15m my arms were burning, but it was brilliant to win and also a big relief.’
Article posted on 5th August, 2004 - 12.00am
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