"It's been great to now have some time to reflect on what I've done. Obviously, when I was out in Tokyo, all I was thinking about was trying to move onto the next round. So it was tough not qualifying for the final from my semi-final in the 100m freestyle. But I was really happy with my time in the semi-final - I got a personal best, so I know I did the best I could out there. When I reflect on it now, I'm just over the moon with it really, and it makes me excited to think what might be to come later."
Alfreton swimmer Jacob Whittle has plenty to be proud of as he now look backs at his debut Olympic Games at the age of just 16 years old. Despite competing with the very best swimmers in the world at such a young age, Whittle reached the semi-finals of the men's 100m freestyle event and narrowly missed out on the final of the men's 4x100m freestyle relay event after swimming an outstanding anchor leg. Whilst Whittle was seemingly one of the few swimmers in Team GB's Tokyo 2020 squad that didn't win a medal, the Derbyshire teenager had an extremely encouraging debut Olympic Games and the future looks very bright indeed for this young talent.
You would have been forgiven for thinking that Whittle may well have been over-awed by the occasion of the Games but Jacob already displays an impressive amount of maturity for such a young sportsman. In our interview with Jacob, he tells us that nerves wasn't an issue in Tokyo; not even before his very first race there in front of a global TV audience of tens of millions:
"I don't normally feel too much of anything really just before a race. Before a race, I just try and be as neutral as possible. I don't allow myself to get too excited or too nervous. As I see it, it's just a big hole full of water and we're just going to two lengths of it. I try and just treat every race as the exact same. I practice my tactics a lot, so I know exactly how I'm going to approach every race I enter. All that's left for me to do is to just execute that approach when the race comes along, regardless of what pressures might be on me. That being said, for the Olympics, you are sometimes stood around next to people who I've looked up to pretty much my whole life and then suddenly you're racing against these people. You do get a little bit of nerves with that feeling. But I just try to ignore all that and focus on just what I need to do."
Whittle was asked just how important his Tokyo Games experience will be for the rest of his career considering he has now competed at the pinnacle of his sport at the age of just 16:
"It means everything really. The Olympics is such a different experience. Just being in the Olympics Village and getting used to that sort of environment. It's such a valuable experience racing against people who are at such a high level. Obviously we have World Championships and European Championships too, but the Olympics is regarded as 'the big meet' at the end of every four year cycle. The Olympics will always be the one that stands out the most. It's been a great experience - it was a five year wait for many people. I guess it wasn't really the same for me as it was only back in 2020 that it appeared I might be capable of qualifying for the Games. It's always been something I've wanted to take part in and it just so happened that 2021 was to be my year. I'm looking forward to the future and the Tokyo Games has definitely given me valuable experience."
Many athletes at the Olympic Games, regardless of what sport they compete in, will switch off their social media accounts once at the host venue in order to focus solely on their competition. Due to this, many athletes are in the lurch as to just how much support they are getting from back home. When his competitions were over, Whittle was humbled by the amount of support he realised he'd been receiving and was blown away by the messages he received once his Games were over:
"It was a bit crazy really everywhere around my local area. Near enough everyone who lives on the same street as me knew I was competing at the Olympics. A lot of people on my family's street all had big banners up and flags and stuff like that. It was amazing to see how much support I got. It goes further than just family and friends - it spreads across the country. I had people from Scotland messaging me on Instagram and I had people from Cornwall doing the same. I was getting quite a few messages from people younger than me saying that they want to be doing the same thing as myself and that they were inspired by what they'd seen. That's just great to see that reaction from people."
Once finally back in England, Jacob was able to celebrate with friends, family and the local community. Eventually, that is...
"I went straight on holiday to Devon with my family, so the celebrations had to wait a little bit! But yeah, after that we ended up having a big get-together with lots of people and had a bit of a party. It was really nice to see everyone there and, I guess, nice for them not to just see me on the TV! "
One of the many defining elements to the Tokyo Games was its lack of atmosphere; each empty seat gave a further illustration of the bizarre and chaotic times we all still live in. Jacob was asked how strange it was to compete at such a big event without any spectators whatsoever and how that element impacted on himself and his fellow athletes:
"A big crowd doesn't bring on too much pressure for me. It does give you that little bit of adrenaline though when you first arrive at your starting blocks. But it doesn't add any more pressure for me. You still had fellow athletes cheering you on in Tokyo as well as coaches and members of staff, but yeah, it wasn't anywhere near the atmosphere it would have been had the general public been allowed to watch. It is pretty weird to think that I've competed at an Olympics which had the same amount of atmosphere as races at county level! I think we all adapted to it pretty quickly though. We know what that feels like now. We were just able to focus on what we were doing and not looking around us."
Like many sports, swimming has a jam-packed competition schedule for 2022 because of the long amount of time where no competitions at all could take place due to the pandemic. In addition that, this is now the shortest gap between one Olympic Games to another in modern history. Remarkably, Whittle will still be a teenager if he qualifies for the Paris Olympics in 2024. There's no disputing that the future looks really bright for the Alfreton man; especially with British Swimming now on an absolute roll and with the sport in the best shape its ever been in this country:
"Next year will be very busy. We've got the World Championships, the European Championships and the Commonwealth Games for swimming in 2022. It's going to be a very tight schedule but that's what we're training for. I've just got to buckle down, train hard and get ready for those races."
"Right now, I just want to keep on improving. I want to improve from every competition to the next one. Obviously, I want to do better in an event than what I've managed before. So if I could get to Paris 2024 and make a final or challenge for medals and challenge the bigger names, then that would be great. I'm not going to set anything in stone though - I'm just going to see what happens."
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