Daniel Fogg claimed gold in an entirely new event at the European Championships – and quickly admitted it more than made up for his disappointment in the pool at the Commonwealth Games.
Fogg booked himself a swim in the 1500m freestyle at Glasgow 2014 after taking a third successive British title over the distance earlier in the year but couldn’t follow up on his bronze from 2010.
The 26-year-old finished seventh in the final at the Commonwealth Games and also failed to reach the medal showdown of the 400m freestyle, placing 15th overall after the heats in Glasgow.
He didn’t have long to dwell on his efforts though with the European Championships in Berlin swiftly following on and Fogg entered into a rather unknown event to him – the 5km open water time trial.
Fogg’s open water credentials are not to be passed up, he finished fifth in the 10km at the London 2012 Olympics, and he stormed to gold by over 20 seconds after clocking a time of 53:41.4 minutes.
German pair and home hopes in Berlin Rob Muffels and Thomas Lurz took silver and bronze in 54:01.8 and 54:02.6 respectively with Fogg happy to end his season having won a major medal.
“I’ve never done a 5km time trial before. It was a bit weird not knowing where you are until the end but I swam my own race and tried to time it so that I was faster at the end,” he said.
“I knew I had a good chance if I swam well, and starting near the end probably helped, but as I had never done it before I didn’t know how it would go so am really pleased with the gold.
“After the disappointment of the 1500m at the Commonwealth Games, to come out here and end the season on a high is really positive and puts me in good stead for next season.”
© Sportsbeat 2014