In the early hours of this morning Sunday 17th August (10.10 Beijing time) David battled hard to come in sixth in a very competitive 1500 metres freestyle race which saw a new champion being crowned. Even the great Grant Hackett was beaten into silver position by  Tunisia’s Oussama Mellouli.

David managed to keep pace with the leaders until the final 200 metres where the extra effort to qualify for this final in Fridays heats took its toll. With ‘nothing left in the tank’ David still managed to beat off the competition from the two Chinese swimmers. With this performance, although disappointing by his standards, he is still a world class swimmer.

He now swims again on Thursday in swimming’s equivalent to the marathon, the 10,000 metres open water race. Surprisingly this is a distance that David has only ever swam twice before, so best of luck David.

Just a quick note to say that David Davies from Barry has qualified for the final of the Mens 1500 metres freestyle at the Beijing Olympics. The final will take place in the early hours of Sunday Morning at 03.10am British time (GMT) and will probably be shown live .

He qualified in 5th place with a respectable time of 14mins 46.11 seconds. Grant Hackett from Australia has broken the Olympic record in his heat posting a time of 14 minutes 38.92 seconds.

It should be an exciting final on Sunday.

Barry born swimmer David Davies is competing in two events at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

He will be aiming to improve on his current 1500 meters freestyle bronze medal (Athens 2004) by challenging for his first Olympic Gold medal. He has also entered the first ever Olympic 10 kilometers Open Water event, a challenging endurance race that will take place in the rowing lake.

You can follow his progress by watching the BBC Olympic coverage:
Highlights from the heats of the men 1500 meters freestyle will be shown on
Friday 15 August at 20.00 (BBC Satellite, Cable, online and Freeview)

David is swimming in heat 3 which is scheduled to start at 19.35 (Beijing Time) 12.35 UK time

If he qualifies by posting a suitably fast time in the heats stage then the final of the mens 1500 meters freestyle will be shown live on Sunday 17 August at 10.09 (Beijing Time) 03.09 UK time.

Highlights will be shown at 07.00 (BBC Satellite, BBC3, online , Cable and Freeview)

The current world record for the 1500 meters freestyle is 14mins 34.56 seconds set by Australian Grant Hackett in Japan 2001. Davids personal best at this distance is 14 minutes 45.95 seconds and at this moment stands ninth in the world rankings. As well as Hackett who is looking for his third consecutive mens 1500 meters Olympic gold medal, Davids main competitors will be USA’s Peter Vanderkaay (who earlier this year swam 10 seconds faster than David), Russian Yuriy Prilukov, Korean PARK Taehwan and from Poland Mateus Sawrymowicz. The local swimmer will be Zhang who has also posted a sub 15 minutes qualifying time this year.

If he wins a medal there will be extensive news coverage on TV and radio throughout Wales.

More details about Olympic swimming can be found on the BBC website

The 10k open water marathon

is a new Olympic event for 2008. 25 swimmers will compete over 10,000 meters in a grueling, competitive event being held in the SY Rowing-Canoeing Park in Beijing. As conditions where this event takes place vary throughout the world, swimmers compete in rivers, lakes and man-mad dams, there is no official world record.

David has competed twice in this event this year. In South Africa in January he came first and for the Olympic qualifiers held in Seville in may David came second posting a time of 1 hour, 53 minutes 21.3 seconds - that’s faster than many people can run the same distance.

The mens 10k Open Water (marathon) is scheduled to take place on Thursday August 21 at 09.00(Beijing Time) 02.00 UK time

It will be shown on the BBC at 02.00 (live on BBC Satellite, Cable, online and Freeview) Highlights at 08.15 and 14.00 with a further showing on Freeview at 19.00.

Check out David’s BBC diary entry.

GOOD LUCK Dave

Last week Friday 25 July Radio 1 came to Barry Island.

What a great event and a good news story for Barry Island and the town itself. The host DJ Scott Mills seemed to have a great time and so did the visiting celebrities like Ruth Jones, creator of Gavin and Stacy.

See for yourself on the Radio 1 website

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I have written about this issue before: Barry Island needs a hotel now.

With the ‘credit crunch’ being talked-up all the time and the general air of gloom and doom, people are seriously looking to holiday at home this year and many UK resorts have seen a boom in bookings. Why not Barry Island? Because there’s nowhere to stay!

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