Profiles

One minute, 47 seconds.

Put all the hours of work and years of training to one side, and that's roughly the time  he has make himself an Olympic medallist.

Ross Davenport is one of only a handful of people from Derbyshire in our lifetime who can dream of standing on an Olympic podium - and to be in the position of having a realistic chance of doing so.

Ross had his first win in the swimming pool at the age of eight and only really started swimming because his older brother, Ashley, could swim.

Now, at 24, he's going for what many consider to be the ultimate prize in sport - Olympic gold... though he admits that any colour will do.

Having just missed out on a 4x200m medal in Athens in 2002, Ross admits that fourth is the worst place to finish and said the disappointment was hard to take: "You'd rather come ninth or not not even have made the final." he told BBC Radio Derby.

He has had medal success though - and perhaps his crowning glory, so far, was double gold at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

Commonwealth Gold

He swam the race of his life to take the individual gold on the 200m freestyle event though, perhaps modestly, he lists the team gold as his favourite performance to date. Ross swam the anchor leg for the 4x200 freestyle relay for England and raced past Scotland and Australia to take gold.

But now, he says the experience of going to Athens has made him stronger and more determined to come home with a medal: "All I really want is to go one better and that's what we're hoping for.

"First and foremost I want to enjoy the experience - at the end of the day we're going to the Olympic Games. Not many people can say that and I'm going to my second one. But I most definitely want to come back with a medal.

"We have a chance - as slim as it might be at the minute." Ross thinks the mighty USA will be hard to beat and that the Australians will also be a strong team. He lists Russia, Italy and Canada as other strong contenders.

He's hoping his strict training regime will  get the results - and that again he can bring some cheer to his home town: "People of Belper and Derbyshire have been so supportive of my swimming career over the last few years. It's really nice to hear people's stories of when they watched the Commonwealths and what they were doing at the time...  that [they] can back a local person and I think they feel like it's almost personal...  walking down the streets of Belper and people stopping you and asking how training's going - I really can't thank them enough."

Ross is due to compete in three events in Beijing - the 4x200m Freestyle Relay, the 4x100m Freestyle Relay and the 200m Freestyle (individual).

The swimmer was voted BBC East Midlands Sports Personality of the Year in 2006.