Tancock Ready for Competitive Return

LONDON, May 27. COMMONWEALTH Champion Liam Tancock will use next month's Mare Nostrum tour to see how well his recuperation has gone as he lines up on the blocks just eight weeks after breaking his wrist. The 21-year-old Loughborough University swimmer has been steadily building back up since breaking his wrist in a fall at the family home in Exeter at Easter.

But both Tancock and coach Ben Titley now feel the time is right to return to the competitive arena to analyze the progress made while taking care not to cause further damage. Tancock appreciates the balance needed in his recovery as he aims to complete the healing process while regaining the kind of form that gave him one world championship, three commonwealth and three European (25m) medals over the past nine months.

"It will be my first competition since breaking my wrist in April so I'll be using the tour as a test to see how it is recovering," said Tancock. "I have no idea how it's going to go because it's a total first for me. I've never had to recover from a major injury before so I don't know what to expect. It's feeling much better but I don't want to aggravate things. I'm looking forward to it but I won't be doing my main events, it will be a case of testing it out while keeping in touch with that competition atmosphere.”

The Mare Nostrum series takes place at three Mediterranean cities and British Swimming will have a large squad at the Canet and Barcelona legs. The open-air, 50-meter tour comes at the right time for Tancock as he is desperate to get back to full fitness as soon as he can in order to be competitive at this summer's European Championships (50m) in Budapest. Despite his broken arm, Tancock has managed to keep the same quantity of training throughout but he has targeted areas of his backstroke that injury would allow.

"The break didn't keep my out of the water at all. I just focused on my kick until the wrist was strong enough to start using and I've been back in the water properly for the past three weeks," said Tancock. "The process is gradual as I increase my swimming but many of the sets I'm doing at the moment are still legs based to give the wrist a chance to recover properly. It seems to be going well and I've been religiously following the exercises given to me to try to build the strength back into the arm. I need to do this if I'm to make a full recovery."

Unfortunately the Mare Nostrum tour will come too soon for Tancock's close friend and fellow commonwealth champion David Davies who is recovering from a foot infection and subsequent surgery. The 21-year-old 1,500 freestyle Olympic medalist is still recuperating after a routine operation on an infected left ankle. Davies plans to start training again early next month but the City of Cardiff swimmer won't have long to prepare for the European Championships in July.

"I'm out of the cast now but I'm not allowed in the water as I still have a wound and it's susceptible to infection," said Davies. "I've been continuing my land work and hopefully this will give me a new strength when I'm fit enough to get back into the water. I'm trying to stay positive and in some respects I'm sure the break and change of training will be of benefit to me in the future. I've just had to shift my focus and my priority now is next year's World Championships in Melbourne."

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