If you add Liam Tancock’s fastest opening 50 metres backstroke in a 100 metres race to his best return length, the 52.75sec tally takes him inside the time it took to lift the world crown last year.
On July 31, a year and five days after he finished 0.27sec shy of a podium place in Beijing — he finished sixth — he is likely to walk out for the Olympic 100 metres final in London. It will all be over in less than a minute but his battle to achieve the perfect balance has been going on for seven years. At every global event since Beijing, Tancock, world champion over 50 metres in 2009 and 2011, has been in the medals in the 100 metres at halfway but off the podium by a matter of inches at the end.
Last year, he slipped from third to sixth; in 2009, he moved from second to fourth equal; and at the 2008 Olympics, he slumped from first to sixth, having raced half a second inside the world-record pace at the halfway mark.
Tancock, 27, knows that holding his form on that critical second length is all important. He has improved with age. Now he has to deliver on the big day.
When that day comes, Tancock will enter his own little world of obsession. While others throw their kit and shoes in a pile, the former youth rugby player for Exeter Chiefs will fold his clothes neatly and place his headphones on top. He studied the art of pre-race cool by attending other big sports events.
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“I fold up my kit and everyone finds that quite funny,” Tancock said. “I like to go to Wimbledon to see how tennis players do it, I like to go to the Formula One and see what those guys do . . . and whether I can take any of that on. Doing my own thing helps me to stay relaxed and totally focused.”
It has been that way since he was a small boy who chased his older brother, Ryan, to the pool with such competitive verve that coaches let him attend early-morning training two years earlier than most. It stopped him from nagging his mother, Kim, a teaching assistant, and his father, Tony, a commercial director at a building firm. They even took him to Wales on holiday so that he could race before he was 10, something frowned on in England at the time.
“My brother used to swim [at national youth team level] and I was like, ‘I want to race, too.’ It used to kill me,” Tancock said.
A man who tweets “morning” to the world just for the sheer joy of being able to do so, Tancock brims with childlike enthusiasm for his sport.
At a recent training camp in Florida, he trained at midnight for the first time. After an electrical storm had put the outdoor pool out of bounds during daylight hours, Ben Titley, his coach from Loughborough, scheduled a late, late practice session.
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“We went back to the pool, got the security guard to open it up and on went the floodlights,” Tancock said. “It was pretty cool diving in with the pool pitch black.”
The lights will be on again for the Mare Nostrum tour race in Canet, France, and Monte Carlo this week. A Formula One fan, Tancock may have missed the grand prix but intends to wander down to the harbour for a touch of tyre-track spotting.
A gentle giant who appears to have not a care in the world, he looks over his shoulder only when asked to do so.
Of his world title win in Shanghai last year he said: “That was amazing. What’s next?” Reflection? “I’ve got plenty of time in my life after swimming, when I am a grandad, to think, ‘I did pretty well in swimming.’ ”
There are no signs yet of a wedding to Caitlin McClatchey, his long-time girlfriend and London 2012 team-mate.
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“I’ve never really thought about it,because we are so focused on what we are doing in the pool,” he said, adding laddishly: “That’s something you do when you grow up, isn’t it? I’m still a spring chicken.” London looms but Tancock is already eyeing Rio 2016.
• Liam Tancock won the 50 metres world title in 2009 and 2011 but 100 metres is the Olympic distance. His ability to hold on on the way home will be key to him making the podium at London 2012.
Search fo finishing power
• How he performed at the World Championships in 2011
1, Camille Lacourt (Fr), 27.50sec (second leg), 52.76 (overall) 2, Jeremy Stravius (Fr) 27.42, 52.76 3, Ryosuke Irie (Japan) 27.00 52.98 6, Tancock 27.70 53.25
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• His best efforts, year by year
2012 27.39, 53.16
2010 27.20, 52.85
2008 28.28, 53.39
2007 27.93, 53.61
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2006 28.27, 54.51
2005 28.25, 55.07