Grantham’s swimming sensation Freya Colbert is back at her desk at KGGS sixth form this week after five days of intensive racing at British Swimming’s Olympic Trials at the London Aquatic Centre
The 17-year-old junior was competing alongside established senior stars like Adam Peaty, Molly Renshaw and Abbie Wood at this year’s trials which were held under strict Covid-19 protocols without spectators.
Stand-out races included the 800m freestyle, where Freya came 4th and was top junior with a season’s best time, a season’s best 400m free in which she also came 4th, plus an impressive 5th place in the 400IM.
The Grantham girl, who trains at Nottingham’s performance centre Nova Centurion, is on British Swimming’s podium potential programme which means she has been able to continue training to some degree through most of the pandemic.
Freya said: “Overall it was a great experience, and I learnt a lot through racing with some of the senior athletes where they swam personal bests and Olympic consideration times. I’m feeling very grateful for the opportunity to race at the moment, even if the life of racing is very different in comparison to pre-COVID times.
“It was a full circle moment really, as I attended the Olympic trials at the same venue in 2012 as a spectator and this time nine years on, I was racing there!”
The talented teen is hoping to compete at the European Junior Swimming Championships which takes place in Rome in July and is in the squad from which swimmers for next year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham will be selected.
Younger sister Iona Colbert, 15, had also qualified to swim at this year’s British Trials but because of lack of training since December due to pool closures imposed by the pandemic had decided not to enter, as did 15-year-old Callum Melville from Barrowby and 18-year-old Abigail Farkas from Ropsley.
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