Tom Dean exclusive: The graft and glory of Britain’s record-breaking Olympic swimming champion
Team GB’s double Olympic gold medallist has overhauled his approach to swimming for Paris 2024, as he seeks more medals across multiple events. But the hard work and "next-day mentality" - which fuelled his rapid rise to the top - remain.
Swimming
Life has changed for Tom Dean, who became the first British swimmer to win two gold medals at a single Olympics in 113 years at Tokyo 2020,
The 23-year-old from Maidenhead hopes to break more national records at the Fukuoka 2023 World Aquatics Championships in Japan with swimming starting on Sunday 23 July.
One example of that change came place in the summer of 2022 when he was invited to the Wimbledon tennis championships and spent the day with some of Britain’s most well-loved sports personalities including England football manager Gareth Southgate.
Winning Olympic gold “catapulted” Dean onto another level, both in a sporting sense and in everyday life. TV appearances followed, invites to major events arrived and he even received an MBE from Princess Anne at Buckingham Palace.
But one thing has remained constant for the swimmer, who went on to become England’s most successful medallist at a Commonwealth Games when he won seven in Birmingham weeks after chatting to Southgate: the daily graft it takes to achieve sporting glory.
Tom Dean’s rocky journey to Tokyo 2020
Dean’s road to last year’s Olympics in Tokyo was not a simple one.
In the weeks leading up to the Olympic trials, the athlete caught COVID - not once, but twice. It was a devastating setback for someone who has a laser-like focus on the day-to-day training it takes to achieve the percentage gains required to become an Olympic champion.
“I was the first COVID reinfection of any Olympic sport in the UK and the doctors were saying, ‘we don’t really know the protocol here,’” he explained, looking back at the touch-and-go situation that so nearly scuppered his chance of heading to a first Olympics in Japan.
“It was really scary and kind of knocked me back. I’d always dreamed of the Olympics like every young athlete and we’re two months away from the trials and I’m stuck at home really, really ill with COVID, unable to train, isolating, stuck in my room by myself.”
At his lowest ebb, Dean turned to his coach David McNulty and asked him whether there was still any small chance he could make it to the Games. And when the response came that with no slip-ups and no errors he could still make it to Tokyo, the young swimmer returned to the water like a man possessed, eager to give everything he had to fulfil a dream that came so close to slipping away.
“I thought, I’ve trained for 15 years and I’m not going to the Olympics, this is my chance and it’s gone. And Dave said, ‘you’ve got a second chance, you’ve got to give it everything you’ve got.’ And that really motivated me to hit an extra level of training and do stuff I’d never done before and squeeze one per cent out of sessions.”
Tokyo 2020: British swimming's first double gold medallist in 113 years
Qualifying for Tokyo turned out to be just the beginning of the Olympic journey for Dean, whose rapid improvement in the pool led his coach to tell him to readjust his expectations from qualifying for a relay to eventually “wrapping your head around the prospect you could win the Olympics.”
But there are so many variables that go into winning gold, particularly in the minefield of the 200m freestyle.
“It is a really tactical race, you have to find that perfect balance between easy speed and upbeat rate,” Dean explained about his pet event. “It’s not 400, you haven’t quite got the time to be tactical and make a move at the right time, but it’s not an all-out like the 100. It’s that middle ground and that’s why some people pin it as the blue ribband event.”
In the gold medal race in Tokyo, Dean found himself in exactly the type of strategic quandary the 200m free can evoke.
Having calculated to the minutest detail the speed he would need to race to 50m, 100m, 150m and the finish, Republic of Korea’s Hwang Sunwoo set off in lane seven at a blistering world record pace that could easily have led Dean to abandon his own well-thought plans in an attempt to keep up with his young rival.
But this is where the days, weeks and years of graft came into play for Dean, as he stuck to the plan he had worked on in the pool for so many months leading up to the Games.
“It was a case of being confident in my fitness, my own ability, knowing the race plan, knowing how I wanted to execute and almost using that to my advantage,” he said. “It allowed me to stick with him, but sitting slightly behind using that easy speed, knowing that I was going to be able to come through in the second half.”
And boy did Dean come through.
In a race that also included the likes of Romania’s David Popovici and Britain's Duncan Scott, Dean touched the wall in 1:44.22, a new national record.
“That’s the closest to a perfect 200 freestyle I’ve executed,” Dean said of a race he eventually won by four-hundredths of a second.
Watching the final, there’s a pause between the moment the race ends and Dean’s eventual outpouring of emotion as he punches the water and realises he’s won gold.
“I’m getting goosebumps right now just talking about it,” he said of that memory. “I wanted to double check, I wanted to make sure, and then all the emotion comes out and you almost don’t know how you’re going to react.
“This is something you’ve been thinking about since you were a kid and then it comes to fruition and you’re like, ‘is it still a vision, a dream?’ And then you remember it’s actually reality and it all floods in.”
Just a day later, Dean made history by winning the 4x200m relay gold along with teammates James Guy, Matthew Richards and Duncan Scott. In doing so he became the first Briton in 113 years to win two swimming golds at a single Games.
Evolving goals and Commonwealth Games history
The year after the Olympics, Dean changed his goals, seeking to go even further at the next Games in 2024.
From winning two medals in Tokyo, he now has his sights on pushing his body to the limits in France to take on multiple events that could see him become one of the greatest British swimmers in history.
The plan started with the World Championships in Budapest in 2022 where he won three bronze medals in the 200m freestyle, 4x200m freestyle and 4x100m medley. But the real fruit of his labours became evident during the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham where he became the most medalled English athlete in the history of the championships by reaching the podium seven times, including six silvers and a gold in his last event, the 4x100m medley, that he calls “one of the most special moments from my entire swimming career”.
“It was like, right, we want to change the aim, we want to change the priorities and we want to go for a massive different range of events to see how far we can push my body,” Dean said of his new approach heading towards Paris 2024.
But while the difference in these goals may seem simple on paper, in reality it takes a toll on an athlete that combines physical exhaustion with a mental challenge that few can deal with.
“I’m trying to teach myself to come off the results of a swim, whether it went well or badly, straight into recovery strategies, strip back the emotions, come off that mental high, recover and go again,” he said, before adding: “I know I can broaden my event schedule and I want to go to Paris and try to bring home as many medals as possible.”
Full focus on Paris 2024
With less than a year until the next Olympics, Dean’s new strategy is in full swing, with the World Championships in Japan a barometer of how those plans are progressing.
The goals may have changed, but the hard work he puts into achieving them is the same as it has been since the beginning of his career.
“My mindset is very much a next-day mentality,” he explained about the detailed training plans that go into achieving the marginal gains required to become an Olympic champion.
“At the Bath Performance Centre [where he trains] my coach Dave will still give us a week’s plan and it will have the 10 swim sessions, the four gym sessions, the core sessions, the stretching, everything is laid out for you down to the minute. That will be part of a micro-cycle which will be part of a macro-cycle.
“And I always stick these plans on my wall and I tick them off. It gets a tick when I’ve locked that in, it’s another piece of the jigsaw locked in, that’s always our approach to my training.”
It’s an approach that is paying rich dividends on Dean’s journey as a swimmer as he continues to put in the daily graft that is the key to achieving his next Olympic dreams.
“Olympians, Olympic champions, people representing Team GB, they’re not superhumans, you know?” he said when asked what advice he would give to others aiming to follow in his record-breaking footsteps.
“It’s just one step at a time, you love your sport, enjoy what you’re doing, listen to your coaches and don’t worry about anyone else. Just focus on yourself and do one more step.”