British Swimming is on a roll and it’s not just the big names of the team that are carrying the wave of success. The depth of talent, highlighted by the 22-strong team headed to Indianapolis next week, also includes those on the cusp of the world podium. Medley swimmer Max Litchfield is one of those swimmers having come agonisingly close to securing medals in Rio and Budapest.
In his first World Championships, Litchfield missed the podium by 0.58 seconds in the 200m IM (1:56.86) and by 0.48 seconds in the 400m IM (4:09.62). They were the best performances of his career and scored him new British and Commonwealth records but it still left him wanting more.
“I was very satisfied with my times and how I swam at Worlds but I was disappointed given how close I was to the medals. I couldn’t have given it more than I did,” said Litchfield.
Litchfield has proved over the last four years how hard he’s prepared to work, travelling from Sheffield to Rio to Windsor to Budapest and across the European circuit to get as much race practise as possible.
Litchfield swam his breakout performance at the 2016 British Championships in the 400m IM, earning a spot on the Olympic team, where the 22-year-old placed fourth in his debut Olympic final. He followed up with silver in the 400m IM at the 2016 World Short Course Champs and his time of 4:00.66 broke a 7-year-old British record.
The rapid improvement in his times has Litchfield feeling optimistic about the future, especially with the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia on the near horizon. As he gets set to return to training after a well-deserved break, Litchfield has no plans to change his training routine in preparation for the Games.
“I feel I’m going in the right direction. It’s just the small things that I need to keep working on to make the tiny differences and hopefully push into the medals.”
Litchfield is part of the Funky Trunks F-Team along with brother Joe (currently competing at World University Games) and Sheffield teammates Richard Nagy and Rosie Rudin who also competed at World Championships.
Follow the F-Team on Social Media. Max Litchfield (@maxlitchfield95) Richard Nagy (@riso.nagy) Rosie Rudin (@rosierudin) Luke Howdle (@lukehowdle) Amy Bell (@amybell00) Joe Litchfield (@joelitch98) Elliot Clogg (elliotclogg)
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Swimming Gear News is courtesy of Funky Trunks, a SwimSwam ad partner.
This provides a good example of how medals tables can distort the picture. Look at the results from all the major meets and almost always there’s only a slight gap between 3rd and 4th. But 3rd gets you a medal and 4th gets you nothing. Max Litchfield deserves more recognition than he got. By the same token, an overall points system rather than a simple medals table should be used to determine the relative strength of nations, The conventional wisdom is that Australia and Japan had a poor World Championships but if there was some kind of points system based on finals appearances I’m pretty sure they would have finished inside the top five or six.