Hector Pardoe told how he feared he had lost an eye after being struck by a stray elbow in the latter stages of the men’s 10km marathon swimming in Tokyo.
Before the incident, the 20-year-old Olympic debutant, who developed his open water skills at Ellesmere College in Shropshire but now lives and trains in Montpellier, was well in touch with the pack in a race dominated from start to finish by the German world champion Florian Wellbrock, but was forced to retire.
“It’s fine, they’re just going to stitch it up for me back at the Olympic Village,”said Pardoe. “It was bleeding everywhere.”
Even though he was wearing goggles at the time, Pardoe sustained cuts above and below his right eye as well as bruising to the socket. He received treatment in the on-site medical assessment area and left Odaiba Marine Park sporting a substantial dressing.
“I was screaming and thought I had lost my eye,” said Pardoe, whose girlfriend, Cassandre Beaugrand, was part of the French mixed triathlon team who claimed bronze at the same venue last week behind the British champion quartet. “My goggle completely snapped off and I couldn’t see a thing. I didn’t realise how bad it was, it was all blurry in my eye. I lost my goggles and the race was over.
Advertisement
“I would have continued if I had my goggles but they sunk because I couldn’t see initially. You know when you get hit and it goes all blurry; I was waiting for it to come back and then the goggles were gone and the race was finished.
“Once I got on the jetski, you can’t get back in. I haven’t really properly seen it [the incident] yet, I can’t really open my eye very well. I’ve never not finished a 10km before so it’s really disappointing in the Olympics, the biggest stage of them all.
“I’ve been progressing through every race this year and I thought I had a good chance of doing something good here. I obviously saw from the start that it was such a fast race and I was towards the back but I tried to calm down and bring it back and secure a top ten, top 12 finish. I was coming through the field, I felt OK with a lap to go and I felt like I could secure that and then it was over.”
Marathon swimming is a notoriously rough-and-tumble pursuit, with lots of physical contact. Swimmers can receive yellow and red cards for transgressions, such as when the contact is deemed to have been intentional.
Conditions here were once again extremely challenging, with the water temperatures pushing 30C. After his acclimiatisation swims, Pardoe likened it to swimming in a “warm puddle”.
Advertisement
“It was really hot, I noticed my heart rate was really high on the first lap when I wasn’t even pushing that much,” he said. “It’s nothing I’ve really ever experienced before — I think the hottest I’ve ever done is like 23C so to jump to 29, it was really difficult.
“I feel frustrated. I knew that after three laps it was over for anything, top six or anything, but I just wanted to finish and get that top 12 because I’m still young and I knew I could come back strong in Paris [for the 2024 Games] and hopefully try and win it.
“This is not going to be a setback, this is going to be more motivation. I’m going to get my head down for the next three years.”
