Each month David tells us where he has been, what he has been doing and his plans for the month ahead. You can go to each month by clicking on the buttons down the right hand side of this page. This diary will continue until September 2008 when David will have just returned from the Olympic Games in Beijing, hopefully with another medal!

I had a chance to test myself against some World class opposition in my preferred event, the 1500m this month. I was selected to swim at the European Championships in Eindhoven, Holland. This was my first pool competition of 2008. Europe is a very strong continent for swimming, especially in my event where the top 3 at last years World Championships all came from Europe. I had been training well, but it is all about racing so I was very keen and excited to see what kind of performance I could churn out.

The weekend before flying out to Holland I had the small matter of going back home to support the Welsh rugby team as they attempted to complete the final leg of the Grand Slam and win the 6 Nations.  They were playing their final match against France at the Millennium Stadium. I’ll explain more about the day later, I ended up having a very bizarre weekend!

Whilst driving down from Loughborough to Cardiff I felt a throbbing pain in my right foot.  I thought nothing of it at first thinking I had probably just knocked it. However when I got home I took my shoe off and I had a massive lump on my right ankle - it was sore, hot and very red. Given I had a foot infection 2 years ago which resulted in surgery and me missing 3 months of training I wasn’t going to wait and see if it would go away. 

Mum took me straight to hospital. After x-rays and blood tests they discovered I had the early stages of the same infection I had 2 years ago.  This was obviously not good with a big race only a week away, but could have been a lot worse looking at the bigger picture of the Olympic Games. They said the worst case scenario would be out of the water for 10 days and missing the European Championships. I was allowed to stay at home but had to go into hospital 4 times a day for heavy dosages of antibiotics through an intravenous drip. I was so pleased they let me go to the game on crutches -  it was hard work walking through Cardiff on crutches amongst the thousands of fans but I really didn’t want to miss the game.

Cardiff was buzzing with Grand Slam fever, it was packed and the atmosphere was amazing. I had great seats in a box so I could rest my bad foot easily. The music was epic as the teams walked out and there were flames as they walked out of the tunnel. When the anthem was sung I got more goose pimples than normal. Without going into too much detail, Wales won deservedly and completed the Grand Slam. It was electric as the team did the lap of honour. When everyone went into town to party I had to go back to hospital to receive further treatment but it had already been a memorable day. Now I had to focus on getting better.

The hospital staff were brilliant to me and always made my visits quick and easy.  We all wanted me back into the pool as soon as possible. I still didn’t have the all clear by Monday but the lump had shrunk considerably so progress was being made. All I could do was rest. Tuesday morning it looked 10 times better again and the consultant gave me the go ahead to start back with training and I could also compete at the European Championships. I was still going to be on tablet antibiotics for a week. These weren’t ideal circumstances going to a competition but I was so happy I could swim.  On the grand scheme of my participation in the Olympics I was ok but had to be careful nothing like this would erupt again.

I struggled to get my feel back in the pool for the first few days and didn’t feel that great.  However I qualified for the Final on the Friday morning as the second fastest swimmer. I went through the normal routine on the day of the Final.  Waiting for the time to pass is always hard but I kept relaxed and filled myself up with the usual pre- race foods of pasta and bananas!! The race came and having warmed up, put my swimming suit on listened to music I was ready to go.

I took the race fairly quick in the early stages and struggled on the middle part. I was leading until 600 metres and was stuck on the leader’s feet for the remainder. I just couldn’t get back after the early fast pace. I wanted to try going out hard to see how I would react. I hung on for silver in a decent time: 14.54.50. I was relieved at the end, it was a hard race and with the circumstances the previous weekend I was proud of winning my first European medal. I have now won a medal at each of the major long course meets. I’m confident that after another couple of months of hard work and staying illness free I will be in very good shape for Beijing in the summer.

I enjoyed the presentation and the night in Eindhoven where I went out for some Japanese food with my coach and sport scientist. We flew home the next day and on the Monday morning I was back in hard training for Beijing.

I will be competing at the World Short Course Championships in Manchester.