- 2023 Spotlight
Personal Statement
"Somewhere behind the athlete, behind the hours of practice, behind the coaches who have pushed me, is a little girl who fell in love with swimming and never looked back." Anonymous
Swimming has always been my passion, from my very first lesson to the excitement I feel every time I stand behind the blocks at the start of a race. What I have learnt through being a swimmer and the desire to continuously improve myself in and out of the water is what drives me and has helped me to become the person that I am today. Swimming has taught me to set myself targets that are both aspirational and challenging and inspired me to push myself to become physically and emotionally stronger. Alongside this, swimming has helped me to develop my resilience and strength of character and taught me to reflect on my successes and learn from swims and performances that have been more challenging than I had expected. I started swimming when I was 4 Years old and at 11 years old was the youngest swimmer at my club to qualify for the Kent County Swimming Championships for Backstroke and Freestyle. From this point I continued to qualify at County Level every year, broadening the range of strokes and distances that I competed in, individually and at Competitive Team Galas. In the last 12 months I have qualified for and reached finals at Summer and Winter Regionals and achieved National Level Qualification as a member of my schools Freestyle and Medley Relay team. My dream is to compete individually in my focus stroke, Backstroke at National Level and represent my country.
“I come to training everyday with the mindset that I am there to get better.”
Caleb Dressel
Part of my swimming development has involved following key swimmers, watching and analysing their swims with my coaches, reading and listening to interviews they have given about their swimming journeys, the successes and the challenges. I have also been fortunate to have attended residential swimming training camps for the last 5 years run by Melanie Marshall, the National Lead Coach at the British Swimming Centre in Loughborough.
This year I was selected to be one of the female club captains and have taken on coaching responsibilities for the younger squad swimmers alongside the assistant and head coach. I always looked up to and admired the older swimmers within my club and at the competitive events I have attended. They have been inspirational and positive role-models throughout my swimming journey and through my club captain role I hope to be the same positive influence for the younger swimmers that are the future of my club. I believe that my positive and enthusiastic personality and my ability to help with the younger swimmers physical and emotional needs are all skills that I bring to the role. I also feel it is very important to lead by example and this is something I always strive to do in my training and when competing at galas individually and when I am part of a team. There have also been times when I have supported my pears and younger swimmers when a swim may not have gone as they had hoped and helped them to take positives from a swim and identify key areas of learning and development.
I believe that when you work as a team you can achieve more than one person and that the skills I possess personally as an individual in and out of the pool will help me realise and achieve the next step in my swimming career, that being to secure a place at an American College with an outstanding swimming and academic profile. When it comes to choosing what school I would like to go to I am mainly looking at the east coast of the USA. However, I am open minded and if the right opportunity for my swimming and academic development presented itself else where I would be more than prepared to consider this with Business Administration, Management, and Operations or Business or Sports and Entertainment Management/Marketing being the choice for my academic major.
“I want to be able to look back and say, ‘I’ve done everything I can and I was successful.’ I don’t want to look back and say I should have done this or that.” Michael Phelps
