James Guy and I sit in a quiet corner of a hotel near Heathrow. This is not to escape the wails of emotion of the family and friends of Britain’s swimmers reunited after a successful Games because there are no wails. It is very quiet.
“Everyone’s a little bit tired, we are all a little bit shattered,” Guy, 25, says. “The American boys too, Caeleb Dressel, his eyes looked black, everyone’s in the same position. And once the racing’s been done you just want to come home.
“Covid’s a massive part of it now, it’s drilled into your head you can’t hug people, but I don’t care now. My mum and dad are here, my girlfriend, brother, his girlfriend.”
We are speaking before his overdue long sleep and before Adam Gemili, the British sprinter, pulls his hamstring. Why this matters will become clear but first Guy needs to process the sacrifice he made for the team, pulling out of the individual butterfly in order to give his all in the mixed medley.
“It was a very tough choice to make,” he says. “Even to this day it haunts me a little bit.”
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This response is something of a surprise given the sacrifice was not in vain. Guy won gold as part of the 4x100 metres mixed relay.
“I always think what could have been,” he says. “But I can’t complain. We won the mixed medley. I had to think if I could be in my best physical shape in the mixed race. If we want to win the mixed medley then Jimmy Guy has got to be on point. Why even try to win a bronze medal in the individual race if we could potentially win gold. It’s a sacrifice — so if I pull out, we’ve got to win this race. We’ve got to get the world record and smash it.”
The notion of compromise was not bubbling beneath the surface in the build up to Tokyo. When it was first suggested he put the mixed medley first he was completely taken aback.
“It did upset me,” he says. “I was told, this is what they were thinking and at first I was ‘no, it isn’t happening’, but once it was explained to me and it was broken down, I thought they might be right.”
It was not until after he won gold in the 4x200m freestyle, that the plan was mooted.
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“Then we had a massive chat,” he explains. “Having that chat was very hard because all I’d been thinking about was that [individual] race the whole time. But that’s high performance sport. Would you rather come back with Olympic bronze or Olympic gold? I know which one I would pick.”
The decision, I suggest, meant his team-mates were more likely to push themselves knowing what he had given up.
“I think so. I said to the girls and to Adam beforehand, if I pull out then we’ve got to win. It was the right thing to do.
“At the end of the day it was my choice but it did really hurt me. When I told my brother he was dumbstruck because all we’d talked about was the butterfly. Once I explained it to him properly, he said ‘I get it.’”
Guy, who was born in Bury, is proud of his northern heritage and claims, half-joking, that the success of the mixed medley team was that they were all from the north which helped boost camaraderie.
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He says he lived in Warrington for a few years which was where Kathleen Dawson learned to swim.
“I was all over the Warrington Guardian after winning the under-11 sports award,” he laughs, “which was fantastic. Ann [Hopkin] is from Lancashire, but I wouldn’t really count Adam Peaty as he’s from the Midlands, but we are a tight bunch.
“The northerners are harder than the southerners and I was talking to Tom Dean [who is from Berkshire] about how southerners don’t wave when they pass you in the car after you let them through. I don’t like that.”
In fact, Guy is big on manners which is where athletics comes into his story.
“I saw Noah Lyles, the American 200m sprinter, in the dining hall and I love my athletics and so I said can I get a selfie please and he said, ‘no, sorry’. It takes ten seconds to say no worries pal and bang, it’s over. But he walked off and I thought immediately I hope Adam Gemili smashes you in this race. The true greats of sport will do anything for anyone. These small things I never forget. Kindness is really important.”
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Much was made of Britain’s swimmers being a family to compensate for no relatives being allowed in Tokyo but Guy says it spreads further than that.
“At the Games you definitely feel part of a bigger family. You see someone with a Team GB top on and you don’t know who it is but you say ‘morning’. You are there as a massive family. I met Alistair Brownlee [the triathlete], had lunch with him and, you know what, he’s a top bloke. What a lovely lad he is. I’d never spoken to him before in my life.”
Guy was caught on camera more than once in tears at the British success in the pool.
“I’ve been called James Cry-all-week. I don’t mind, I embrace it. It means the absolute world to me to be here with these Olympic athletes, some great friends of mine and to be one of the best in the world.
“I’ve always been emotional and seeing my dad there [at the Heathrow hotel], I was crying straight away. I’m getting emotional now. I always wanted to be an Olympic champion, that was my dream as an 11-year-old boy and we got that. That’s why I was so emotional. It shows how much it means to me. People know I’m a soft boy. It shows dreams can come true.”
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Swimming will be handsomely rewarded financially for its success at these Games but funding has see-sawed through the cycles and I wonder if that means sometimes Guy looks at his breakfast and sees just one egg on his toast instead of two.
“Never, no! It’s all world class and hopefully we can keep it rolling.”
