Bio
How I started:
I got into my sport through my Granddad who chucked me into the pool ever since I was a baby. I started swimming lessons at the age of four, and my first ever coach recognised my talent and came over to me after a lesson, told me a had a lot of talent, and she chatted to my parents and just told me to stick with it and that she was sure I could get really far, so we stuck with it.
My Greatest Achievement:
My greatest achievement is winning a gold medal in Tokyo, and also obtaining my MBE. I remember walking into Buckingham Palace and being gobsmacked. Everything was perfect, and so big, it was like walking into a shopping centre! I was part of a group of other athletes, but there were a lot of other people there being awarded different awards. It was a very surreal experience!
My Greatest Challenge:
My greatest challenge was overcoming depression, it took it out of me for three or four years. It took me out of training and made me not want to train or have any belief in myself in fact. There were two different times when this peaked, before the Worlds in Mexico, I had trained for a year leading up to it, but then it was cancelled as an earthquake had hit the nation. The second instance was going from 2019 into 2020 as I had qualified for the Paralympics around a month before the first lockdown, but once that hit, I had to move up to Manchester for training but I fell to another low after this period as it was a very tumultuous and uncertain time for everyone.
My Hobbies:
Outside of Swimming I enjoy playing Golf and five-a-side football in my free time. It’s the best bit of social time I get outside of training around the team!
My Future Aspirations:
In the future I would like to go to Paris and come away with at least three gold medals. I would also like to break the 100m Backstroke, the 200m Freestyle, and the 4x100m Relay world record too!
