Great Britain’s swimmers have just capped a fine year at the World Short Course Championships but head coach Bill Furniss remains grounded 20 months out from the Rio 2016 Olympics.
After an Olympics in London in 2012 that produced just three medals and a World Championships in 2013 where only one podium finish in the pool was secured, British swimmers have starred this year.
The home nations won 45 medals at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and then, coming together as Britain, they topped the medal table at the European Championships with 24.
The year closed with the World Short Course Championships in Doha, where Britain claimed eight medals – seven silver and one bronze – two more than in Istanbul two years ago.
Adam Peaty was one of the stars of the British team with three silvers not to mention Championship and British records while Siobhan-Marie O’Connor claimed double silver herself.
It all makes for good reading for Furniss, placed as British Swimming’s head coach following a wind of change post London 2012 in February 2013, but he is refusing to go overboard.
“Even with our results at the Commonwealths and Europeans, we are not getting carried away,” he said.
“We know we’ve got a lot of work to do, we targeted this meet really to learn more about starts, turns, finishes and we’ve learned a lot from some of the athletes.
“Some of them have improved at this meet but they are all going to take stuff away they can work on.”
© Sportsbeat 2014