The teenager enjoyed a near perfect month both indoors and out in Jersey and across the UK, becoming the Island’s first British champion in over a decade by claiming British Championships gold in the 13-14 years 800m freestyle and 200m backstroke finals, before taking home the national open water crown with a leading display over 3 km at Rother Valley.
Bronze medals in 200m butterfly and 400m individual medley were also added to his haul at Pond’s Forge, as well as victory in the 2018 Green Island to Havre des Pas swim, and the Victoria College student says it has all been a product of eight weekly sessions in the pool.
‘I’ve been training a lot, so that’s probably it,’ he said. ‘I’ve been doing 16 hours a week.
‘I was surprised by how well it went at the British Championships. I didn’t expect anything like that to happen.
‘In the long term there are things I can improve on, like my speed, but for the short term I think I swam as close to my best as I could.’
Asked what he wants to improve on for next year, he said: ‘I want to out-do this season, but I’ve still got my triathlon [national championships] this season to do. I came seventh at that two years ago so I’d like to do better, but we’ll see, because I’ve been concentrating a lot more on swimming this year.’
