THE smile is back on her face, the spring in her step and the record book boasts her name anew after a successful week on the World Cup circuit, but this is not the Melanie Marshall we knew before she headed to Athens as an Olympic title favourite over 200 metres freestyle only to be caught like a rabbit in headlights.
Here is a wiser, more mature model, a 23-year-old no longer thinking of the prize but being the best she can be. The strategy is clearly working. In 1min 54.53sec, Marshall established a European short-course record over 200 metres to win the German round of the World Cup on Saturday, her effort shaving 0.11sec off the standard set by Josefin Lillhage, the world short-course champion from Sweden, in February last year.
Yesterday, she added the silver medal over 400 metres in 4:03.26, only 0.34sec behind Ai Shibata, the Olympic 800 metres champion from Japan. Marshall’s next big race will be at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne but, rather than medals, she is focused instead on “mastering the mystery of 200 metres racing”.
“Loads of people have struggled to move the event on, but it’s about finding that easy speed that lets you go out fast but come back strong,” she said. “I’m working on that and loving it.”
That is a far cry from the woman who left Athens distraught after finishing sixteenth a few months after setting what remained the fastest time in the world in 2004. A period of self-doubt and analysis followed.
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“It was all very well being fastest in the world but I’d had no experience racing the 200 metres on big occasions,” Marshall, coached by Ben Titley at Loughborough University, said. “The Olympic Games happened too quickly for me. I’ve now learnt that pressure is what you find for yourself. Instead of saying ‘I’m searching for Olympic gold’ I’m now searc hing for the best I can do. There’s an inner calm and I love it.”
There was a second silver medal yesterday for a Great Britain team that have celebrated 32 personal best times at two World Cup rounds this week. Kate Haywood shared second place with Janne Schaefer, the German who is based in Bath, over 50 metres breaststroke behind Tara Kirk, the world record-holder from the United States. The race represented the first big occasion on which Haywood, in 30.90sec, has got the better of Zoe Baker, the British record-holder who now races for New Zealand and finished fourth.
Haywood lost her British record over 100 metres to her team-mate, Kirsty Balfour, on Saturday, when they finished second and third respectively behind Kirk in 1:06.51 and 1:06.71. “I was disappointed,” Haywood said. “I messed up my start and turns. I’ve just come off a training camp so I’m a bit tired, but I’m really looking forward to racing when I’ve had a rest for the Commonwealth Games in March.”