In competition, its always just about focusing on myself: it is sort of like ‘what path am I going to take, where is it leading me, and focusing on what I need to do for myself to be at my best. Of course, in training you have to have something to push you and I remember that throughout my preparations for the Beijng Olympic Games that it was in my mind most days that Kitajima and Hansen were the best and when I woke at 5.30am it was the first thing that went through my mind. That helps to concentrate your mind on the job.

I think a mix of both things. The majority of the time I just think about myself and being the best I can possibly be. If I can do that, I’m happy. In a race, if I give 100 per cent and I’m not on top, well, I’m still happy because that was a personal best for me. I’m aware of what my rivals are doing but most of the time it is about me.

The biggest rival is the clock, the race against time. Then there’s the men in competition: Cameron Van Der Burgh; Kosuke Kitajima (JPN) and Brenton Rickard (AUS). Everyone who is in a final is an opponent. You get to know the people you race against, so you will automatically get to know them for their strong and weak sides and you calculate that in when it comes to competition. But it’s the clock that is the biggest rival of us all. If in prelims and semis you see times under a minute on the board, then you feel just how hard it is to get in the final. The clock is always the main thing.

Alex, I really respect him as a swimming talent. His feel for water is really good. He trains extremely hard and is very dedicated. He comes to training with a good mentality and trains in a perfect way. He’s a Viking! Strong-minded and a strong guy. I think in future I may need to say Kitajima. I have been working with his coach in Tokyo. Kosuke says he will come back but he will be in California learning English for a year before he starts training for London 2012. I would never rule him out, I have huge respect for him. Watching as a young swimmer he really stood out for me in Athens. He’s the original, the purist, his stroke, his mentality, the person he is, he’s a great guy, an idol and it was a real honour for me to meet him and talk to him. I cherish that. Brenton Rickard is the third one: he’s not too old and in London 2012 will be in good form. In previous years, he has swum well and is a hard man to beat, he’s a strong fighter. In the Beijing 200m, he came back really hard and fought hard to get the medal.

If I wake up and I’m feeling really tired, I think about the world championships or the Olympic Games and if I don’t do the job properly at that moment, that morning, that afternoon, I know I’ll lose my odds of success and I won’t achieve what I want. So, I am always thinking about what to do in future and what can make me achieve my goals. Me and my coach, we set our goals each year. Time-wise we look at what is the goal for 100 and 200. But for me the most important thing is always to swim faster, not so much what the time is. Time is important but the main thing is to achieve a better performance and a faster time than before. In Norway, a lot of people have problems breaking the minute [100m breaststroke]. For me that was not a problem, it was just a number. If I want to go under a minute, I have to find a better pull, a better stroke to work with, I have to break down my stroke and race into parts and find the things that can be improvement.

I find motivation in small things, like being able to learn new things, put them into training and also to learn lessons in life. Swimming is a great tool, it’s the foundation to my future. I can put back into my future what swimming has given me, how it has moulded me into the person I am. I’ve been given an amazing swimming talent and I wouldn’t want to waste it but want to refine it and get 100 per cent efficiency out of it. There is so much to work on. When it’s a 5am rise, I just think about the feeling I get from breaking world records and the joy from that. Its overwhelming, and I can replay that in my mind.

I can think of one set I did in Sierra Nevada: 5 x 150, 100 and 50, off 2mins 30, 2mins and 1min. That was just crazy hard before the Olympic Games. Getting under 1:10 [100] and 31 [50] from the push ... it was really painful in training. But those things are hard, its tight for then and there. The minute I stop, I feel nothing. There is no pain. Each set, I concentrate on each 100 at a time in a set of 100s and don’t look at it as 5x100. Each swim is separate and I try to ignore the pain. We have a saying in Norway: “Don’t ask for an easy trick, ask for a strong back”.

I think there was one set when I was young, about 14 years old, and we used to go on training camp to the huge game reserve, the Kruger Park. We used to go to the river outside the park near where we trained and we could see all the animals from there. Every year, every Wednesday of the camp, we would do a 15km single session. It was so blisteringly cold that. The younger ones were allowed to get out if it was too much but I remember begging to get out and coaches who saw my potential wouldn’t let me get out - and now I’m grateful that they did that to me. It was just so cold ... it was like I had climbed a mountain by the time I got out of it.

It varies from day to day, but we try to make dry-land weights and swimming focused on what has to happen in important races in future. Even a local meet is important: we make the best of everything we do; every push off and turn and set and every part is made to count as good as possible. I can’t make every session as good as I want to - but I try to do it and to eliminate [errors].

Pretty often. What you do in practice is practice the race , and if you practice the wrong habits, you are not going to achieve what you want. It’s like brushing your teeth: its pre-programmed – you’re not thinking ‘screw the cap and put the stuff on’, you just do it. I simulated the race in training a lot when I was training with Dirk [Lange]. We worked on that a lot, on starts and turns. It was really good for me and I try to produce max potential when I’m working on those things. The intention is to make a habit of doing the right thing. I learned that from Dirk.

The heaviest work I do takes me between 60 and 75km a week. I try to do my work on swimming only when I’m away and I can get full use of a 50m pool, that the case whether its Flagstaff at altitude or whenever I can get any long-course training in. I do 40 to 50km each week back home, 60% swim and 40% other stuff. Bergen has no 50m pool so we do other work to compensate. For the four years between Athens and Beijing I spent 200 days a year traveling, mostly just training. I went to a Thailand school ... for two weeks a year and Flagstaff is an excellent facility. I also train at Sierra Nevada, where there’s long-course and a good weights room and that’s all I need. When you come from a city that has no 50m pool, hey, you’re not picky! I do some paddling [canoe] and gymnastics. My coach has always tried to involve dryland training and to apply it more specifically to what I do.

Right now, it’s difficult to say because I’m in a transition period. In May I had my first session with Norimasa Hirai [head Japan coach and mentor to Kosuke Kitajima]. That’s a new chapter in my career. I do some landwork and in water I’m doing around 40km a week at the moment. He [Hirai] told me in an e-mail ‘take it easy, we will increase mileage slowly’. 40k was a hard week with Dirk but I think I’m in for a surprise!

I know that had it not been for my coach I would not be where I am today. To sum up our relationship: when I wake up at 6am I know that he is at the pool deck waiting for me to give me the opportunity to be one of the world’s best breaststroke swimmers. And I lose his respect if I don’t do it. He’s extraordinary, and he’s 33 years old. We’ve grown up together.

With Dirk, in the beginning we clashed heads and it took a while to get to know each other and get to know our personalities. He was a lot more upfront and blunt that I was used to. He likes to talk straight. It just took me a while to get used to it. Then we got along really great. He would never lie to me. H e would always say ‘you look terrible’ or ‘you look great’. That’s what you need in your coach; to be straightforward. For the first time, I could ask ‘why’ and he could answer me in a way I could understand. He could explain why we were doing what we were doing. He gave me a good understanding and he would prepare me mentally. He made me believe in myself. I could walk out on a pool deck and I would exude so much confidence that people said ‘we could tell you were going to win’. That puts fear into other competitors. On a training camp with Norimasa Hirai, I really enjoyed the atmosphere in training. The things I learned in such a short time were overwhelming. He just knows breaststroke so well. He enjoyed it when I was in training because I’m a quick learner. Hugues Duboscq (FRA) went out there in 2004 and the coach said that it was hard to get through to him [language difficulties]. He’s a really great guy. We don’t understand each other perfectly [language] but have a good laugh. He is quite a shy person and very meticulous. It’s written up on the board ‘start: 6am ... everything is timed accurately ... and finish at 7.57am’. But we were always late finishing when I was there. He said ‘you talk so much, it’s 8.04am!’ He joked that I spoiled his schedule, and the other swimmers were laughing. I respect him as Kitajima’s coach. At competitions before, he was always very friendly to me and if Dirk wasn’t there, he would help me at times. I really respect that I’m South African, he’s the head coach of Japan and is willing to help me for the good of the sport, for the pure love of sport and passion and the enjoyment of what he gets out of it. I wish there were more like him

They play a tremendous role. When I was younger, it was my brother who dragged me up in morning and my friends always get me up when I’m down. My parents gave me the opportunity to become a great swimmer. My parents drove me around. We live outside Bergen, it was 60km to the nearest pool. That’s 120km driving for one session from eight until I was 16. Had it not been for them, I would not have been here. I try to be as humble, regarding swimming and other athletes. It’s really important to me to show that I really appreciate where I am today. Having friends, meeting new people and having a good laugh are all important part of it, not only hard work. You have also to relax and enjoy.

My mother played the biggest part in my success. She’s the strength behind me. She has really supported me and it was really special for me in Durban [when he set the world 50m record]. It meant so much more to me that she was there. It is almost like when I’m swimming she is swimming through me. In South Africa I see kids giving up at 15 because their parents put too much pressure on them. My mum was just there in the background and will always be there when I need a helping hand and share in my lows and highs. Without her, I would not have enjoyed all of this as much as I do.

As a stepping stone to the pool. I don’t think about it too much. I don’t put myself in any locks [binds]. I am just smiling and enjoying the moment at that stage. I know then that I’ve done everything I could to do my best at that moment.

I think the ready room is more of a relaxed environment for me. I don’t perform best when I get too nervous. It’s back to the toothpaste thing: I know what I’m going to do. It’s like a place to focus on what I need to do and I have confidence in my ability. There is nothing to be scared of. Some people get nervous. In Beijing, Alex (Dale Oen) was one of those who just relaxes, he tells a joke and that often lifts the pressure. You see people shaking their arms and smacking themselves but it’s too late to start thinking ‘what am I going to do now’. It’s time to enjoy it. I loathe training but I live for racing. It’s really fun. It’s about putting your body through it but having fun. When you stop having fun, you stop swimming fast. I just want to enjoy myself. I don’t enjoy the moment if I’m shaking. In Beijing I was so calm that I could see every spectators face and I was just enjoying taking in the moment.

No. Nothing. It is just easier if you don’t do that before races. Too much thought.

I have a love affair with coffee. I got the most beautiful coffee machine. I treat myself before a race and it helps to pump me up half an hour before a race.

Pretty much what Kitajima did in Beijing. Dropping half a second off the world record and winning Olympic gold, that really takes your breath away. There is no optimal perfect race but you can get pretty close.. I was stunned when he did that race. You get this feeling like ‘I did everything I could and he reached beyond what he had in store for that day beyond what he thought of before that moment’. It was extraordinary.

There’s no such thing as a perfect race. You will always look back, watch the video and say ‘I could have done this better, a better dive, this might have been better’. Like Cielo [Cesar, in the first In the Arena feature] said: you might as well walk away because you’re never going to do it [perfection]. You’re not human if you don’t make mistakes. We are made to make mistakes.

During the world championships in Melbourne 2007, Cameron had his first breakthrough. He wasn’t part of it before that. I realised that he was really fast and would become a fast competitor in the future. There are always parts of what rivals do that you can use in competition or in your daily routine. The strength they have can always be adapted to my plan. You always have something to learn from others.

Melbourne 2007 was when I first became aware of him. I was ignorant before that. I was about 17 and living so far away from Europe and not travelling so much. In Melbourne, I did so well there and began picking up on who else did well. It was an experience in the call room and meeting people. I added Alex on Facebook at that point and he wrote to me as “the guy that beat the cxxp out of me in the 50 breast”. Rivals help to push me to be a better swimmer. We can learn from each other. If you put the strengths of Alex and me into one swimmer ... it would be daunting.

Not too much. I don’t think about anything. I just try to make sure I know I’ve done everything I can before I reach the ready room. I try to relax, don’t hype myself up, stay balanced. You have to store energy to let it out.

Nothing, actually. Just nothing at all. I just feel ‘this is good fun’, there’s an equilibrium, I’m not too nervous, not too calm. The body is a loaded gun.

Cameron’s really fast – that’s his strength. And that’s all I need to know. I don’t play the psychological game. I just want to be fast. There aren’t a lot of things that will influence me.

I try not to underestimate anyone. I don’t think Alex has too many weaknesses. He won silver at the Olympics. One of his really strong points is his strength itself. In the last 50 of a 200m, he clocked 32sec and got into second place. That’s really, really strong. If you’re not in front of Alex at 75, you’re definitely going to lose.

Ed Moses and Kosuke Kitajima would be contenders. Even though Ed Moses didn’t do that well at the Olympics, although he got a silver, his potential was so much bigger than the thing he achieved. Kitajima is probably one of the all-time bests of history. His legacy is really extraordinary. It will be a long while before someone can emulate the double double, two [Olympic] golds in a row [2004 and 2008]. Maybe in 20 years, we’ll look back and it’ll feel pretty cool to have been there to see it happen. At the moment its too close and the focus is on self.

Kosuke Kitajima. What he’s done – the double 2004 and 2008 - is amazing. I have a lot of respect to him. I think it’s beyond anything ... I take nothing away from people like Spitz and what they did ... but to do what Kosuke Kitajima did in this day and age is a lot more special. Like Michael Phelps, you have to have a lot of respect for that.

I think becoming European champion really was something special for me. I was the first Norwegian to do that and just to do that was special and, of course, listening to the national anthem was great. Even before Europeans I thought I’d go really well and just to get out of myself what I knew I could was really nice. The medal was one thing but to get everything inside out of you was what was really, really good. It was pretty hectic after that, with TV shows and papers.

The world championships bronze medal in the 50m breaststroke at Melbourne 2007: Dirk [Lange, coach] was saying ‘just make a semi – that’s what you have top focus on’, and I was first into the semi and I learned a lot from that. I was very nervous in the semi and went into the final in eight and then got the bronze. I remember standing there, watching them raise the flag. To take that leap from local South African swimmer to international swimmer, well, it’s the hardest leap to make. It was so un-expected. I was just cherishing the medal. I remember that I couldn’t sleep.

I would definitely be happy, yes. Every day I just wait on the message from Fina to say ‘we will return to 2007’. For me I am just happy to be a member of the sub-minute group with the old normal suit. I know that we were only four people in a normal suit. Now with new-tech suits, we’re 12 and like more than 25 performances [54 in fact, by June 2009]. I hate how the suits have made a mockery out of swimming and I just hope that [FINA] will clean it up. I would be so happy to go back - even to briefs. I don’t care what we race in, as long as it is the man or woman that does the job and not the suit. You see people do times that you know they have not done the work to do. It makes me sick to my stomach. It’s not right. What those who have worked really, really hard to do, others seem to do by just putting a suit on. We see people who have done not nearly as much work do those times that took us years to achieve. I was really happy about what arena said earlier in Manchester 2008, like 'ok, if you accept this LZR that will be the start of a new era, careful’, but FINA did not listen and now look where we are. I just hope that Beijing was not the last Olympics to be close to fair...for us it seems that Athens 2004 was the last Olympics that was truly down to the person not the suit.

“I think most swimmers would say ‘is that rhetorical?’ It’s sad what’s happened. I would be more than willing to go back, and so would any great or good swimmer. Some random Joe puts on a random suit right now and becomes superman right away. It takes it out. Times don’t mean anything these days. I didn’t wear neoprene or anything like it in 2007. It doesn’t have the same vibe now to break a world record. It’s lost its special nature. It’s like monotonous. I was speaking to Alex and saying that we have the X-Glide now, we'll wear it and compete this summer if that's allowed, but I didn’t want to wear it because it will be banned by December. I don’t want to do 58.2 in the 100m and then never be able to get back there. It would be so demoralizing and depressing. The worth of a personal best is immense. It’s what keeps you going."

I love taking photos, relaxing. I take nature pictures, scenery. I enjoy quality time with the camera in silence. It is a good way to relax after a hard set. I’m studying at the Bergen photo school. I’m also into veteran cars. I have a 1960 23-window samba VW bus. I’m into cars. I’m social, I like meeting people. That’s the most important stuff. It’s good to do something other than swimming.

Photography. I was here [in Norway] last year and took a lot of pictures. On the way home from Norway, I won some money and bought a camera at the airport [a Nikon B80 D700]. It was expensive and the collection of lenses is also expensive. But for me it is just a hobby. Alex is studying photography so he’s given me some tips. I took a couple of weeks holiday after nationals and will go down to Jeffreys Bay, where we have a holiday home. It’s the best surfing destination. I bought a board and I’ve starting picking up surfing. I’m scared of the sharks though!

Kitajima, Moses, Cameron, Brendan Hansen, Chris Cook; I’d serve them a traditional Norwegian dish called Smalahove. That’s a sheep’s head [often served at Christmas]. Yeah, some kind of Viking warning [laughter].

I’d have Alex over because he’s been so good to me and I’d be able to do the same for him. Everyone would get huge steaks. I’d have Kitajima, Hansen, a really quiet guy who does his own thing and it’s always been good to hear what he has to say; Oleg Lisogor, he’s a good character and when I broke his [world] record for 50m, he sms’d me and said ‘I don’t like you anymore [profanity]’. We partied together and he’s a great guy. Randal Bal, because I’ve travelled so much with him and got to know him really well. He’s a great guy and he has that really American-like thing of listening to you, pretending to be stupid but he’s actually humouring you. He does it on purpose. It’s funny.

If I was there with a beautiful girl I would not be too obsessed with swimming in the pool. It’s always good to swim a few metres - and if Cameron was there and we were preparing for something, I would be a little more serious and wouldn’t be lying around.

When I’m on holiday, I’m on holiday. I loathe training so if there were some beautiful girls in the pool, sure I’d jump in and have a splash. I’m young and I like to party and just chill out. I hate getting wet if I don’t have to. It wouldn’t make much difference if Alex was there. We’d just have fun.

After Beijing, I had a little break to recharge my batteries and get a perspective on things. We’ve now started to build up our base towards Rome. Rome is going to be first entry ticket to the next few years. I don’t know where we will stand. Hopefully I’ll be fast. My times are pretty much at a stage now where they were before the Olympic Games. I don’t discuss places and medals with others. The focus is to be faster than before. If we can do that already in Rome, well it would be a huge relief. We will have to see who will be the main contenders. The suit thing means we don’t know what will happen. It’s really difficult for swimmers to make a choice, especially when you don’t know where you’ll be 10 months from now. It will be hard to make it to a final if they’re all in 100% fast fabric like the Jaked[01].

I guess since Beijing, it’s been really good. I was kind of disappointed in Beijing. It was good to go 59 but I got ahead of myself and had a lot to prove and went to the world cup and showed I could do it. I’ve gone from strength to strength from there. I was out for a week with a back injury before South Africa trials. It’s funny in a way: whenever I swim well there is always something wrong. If everything goes smoothly with my taper, I swim badly. So, things happen for a reason. The back injury could be a blessing in disguise because I might have benefited from a small rest. Now I’m excited to be vack in training and doing lots more mileage. I’m enjoying the programme. It’s not monotonous. It’s interval training with targets. I will be swimming the 50 in Rome but it will be a bonus. I will take it seriously in Rome but the 100 has to be the long-term aim. I’m taking the best part of my stroke and Kitajima’s and trying to fuse it together. His efficiency and my speed and strength will be very potent. We need the endurance to kick in and that’s the hardest step to take now. I’m hoping to kick some axx.