It’s a sprint, not a marathon, for Hector Pardoe
Hector Pardoe is going from a marathon to a sprint in his attempts to qualify for next year’s Commonwealth Games.
The former Whitchurch Wasp and Ellesmere College Titan had to retire from the 10-kilometre open water marathon swimming event at Tokyo 2020 after an elbow to his face caused serious damage to his eye.
And while that event remains his focus, he is also targeting a spot in Birmingham in the 200m butterfly.
“It’s just something I really want to do,” Pardoe told BBC Sport Wales. “I want to look back on my swimming career and say I’ve been to an Olympics, I’ve been to a Commonwealths.
“Being with the home nation, it’d be amazing. And just to experience that pool competition as well because I’ve never been to a pool competition internationally.
“It’d be an amazing experience so hopefully I can achieve it.”
To reach next year’s Games, he needs to reach the Swim Wales standard of one minute 58.79 seconds – something he is aiming to do at the French National Championships in Montpellier next week.
“I want to look back on my swimming career and say I’ve been to an Olympics, I’ve been to a Commonwealths,” he added. “And I can’t do it in open water because there is no open water [events at the Commonwealth Games].
“But having joked about being a fly swimmer before, now I am and I’ve got to do the harsh realities of being a fly swimmer.
“I’m doing absolutely gruesome sets which I wasn’t doing before. I’ve been averaging 2.5km to 3km fly per session. I do 10 sessions a week so I’ve been doing 25km to 30km fly a week.
“Some fly swimmers only swim 45km a week in total. I’ve still been doing 75km a week.”
