Tancock finds formula to London 2012 success

By David Jordan, Sportsbeat

LIAM Tancock has been searching high and low for a taste of London 2012 - and is adamant his watching brief at the British Formula One Grand Prix could be the answer.

TOUGH CALL: World champion Liam Tancock admits British swimmers are caught between doing well at next week's European Championships and the Commonwealth Games in Delhi later this year (Getty Images)

The 25-year-old joined fellow British sports stars Amy Williams, Tom Daley and Amir Khan at Silverstone at the start of the month. However, while they were busy enjoying the occasion he was doing his homework.

The closest Tancock has come to experiencing the potential of the 2012 Olympics was when the World Short Course Championships visited Manchester in April 2008 - four months before the Beijing Games.

Tancock coped under the pressure, scooping gold, two silvers and a bronze and returned to the north-west for the inaugural Europe against USA Duel in the Pool meet last December.

And with the London 2012 countdown clock ticking under the two-year mark on July 27 Tancock - who won world 50m backstroke gold last year - believes he now knows what to expect in the capital.

"It was the first time I had ever been to a Grand Prix and it was nothing like I expected and it is great to see how different sports work," said Tancock.

"F1 and swimming are a world away from each other and it was great to see Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button competing on home soil and what the crowd was like towards them and how they handled it.

"It is only two years until the London Olympics now and I wanted to get a little taste of that because that is what we hope the atmosphere is going to be like.

"The only previous experience we had of it was at the World Short Course Championships - the atmosphere there was great and everyone wanted the British swimmers to do well.

"They were chanting our names when we got out of the water which was just unheard of and that was just from a couple of thousand people and come 2012 we are going to be talking about 12,000 to 15,000."

Before Tancock can even begin to think about London 2012 he has to navigate a hectic next four months with the European Championships and Commonwealth Games fast approaching.

He is the fastest man in the world in both the 50m and 100m backstrokes this year having clocked 24.52 seconds and 52.85 at the British Championships in March.

The European Championships follow first next month, but with Tancock's heart set on the Commonwealth Games in October, he is refusing to make any bold prediction ahead of his trip to Budapest.

"Many of the European swimmers can't do the Commonwealths so they're focused on next month," he added. "And the Australians and the like are focused on the Commonwealths - so we Brits can get stuck in the middle a little.

"So I can't say what I can do or what I will do but I will be going all out in both and it will be tough but I'm excited to see what happens and I'm looking forward to it all.    

"I am going to be at a big disadvantage there and I can only know what I have been producing in training and that there are going to be some really, really quick swims from people there."