Team Gregory's September Update

Date added: Monday 19th September 2011

The five Team Gregory athletes are currently undergoing mixed fortunes.  800 metre track champion Jemma Simpson has had her training and competition schedule disrupted by a slow-to-heal ankle injury, while former windsurfing champion Nick Dempsey has put together some impressive results this year including a silver medal at this month's Olympic Test Event in Weymouth.

After a couple of very close misses this year, Gorgs Geikie has won an Olympic Quota place in Team GB's shooting team with a qualifying score of 578 in the 25m pistol at the European Championships in Belgrade, while modern pentathlete Heather Fell is training hard to recover her Olympic silver medal form.

However, it is backstroke swimmer Liam Tancock who dominated the headlines this summer after he became the first UK swimmer to retain a World Championship title since David Wilkie did so in the 200m breaststroke, 36 years ago.

Back-to-back world titles in the 50m backstroke means that the Exeter born swimmer has taken five medals in four World Championships, but only one at the Olympic distance of 100m, and that was bronze in Melbourne in 2007.

There is no doubt that Liam is totally focused on winning the 2012 Olympics and he'll be looking to impress at the Olympic Trials next March, which will take place at the new Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park in Stratford, giving him and the rest of the team a chance to acclimatise to the new venue.

Before that there will be a number of training camps with fellow Team GB swimmers and some competitions.

It is often held that winning is a habit and we certainly hope that's true for Liam Tancock.  His record is truly impressive.  If you take both short course and long course events, Liam has won three World Championship gold medals, two silver and three bronze while his Commonwealth Games record stands at three gold, three silver and a bronze. Add his contribution to British team relay wins, European success, countless international competitions and a raft of world record times, you can't fail to be impressed by this hugely likeable and totally committed 26 year-old.

There is just that one special medal to come!