Below, L6 Pupil, Katerina DiMaria shares her experience of the British Swimming Championships and the lead up to it.

"My name is Katerina, and I am a national level swimmer for the city of Norwich swimming club as well as being both a sport and academic scholar. This year was my third year swimming at the Swim England national summer championships and qualifying for the British swimming championships as part of the relay team. This year was also the year of my GCSE’s and, thanks to the support the sports scholarship program provided me with, I was able to manage my heavy training whilst still performing to the best of my abilities in all my 11 subjects. I have been swimming 7-8 times a week for the past few years of my life and I think it was the fact that I continued to train throughout the exam period that led to my success in both fields. My experience at Nationals continues to change as I learn more about what works for me. Physical training, psychology and nutrition all play a huge role in preparing for a competition such as nationals.

The physical training starts as young as 10 in a serious context, but the competition season begins in February when I was privileged enough to attend an international competition in Antwerp, Belgium, where some top-level Olympic swimmers were present. This helped me to be independent in planning my pre-race routines and doing everything I needed to before racing. Throughout the year we build on skills and fitness in training, and this leads up to a peak at the end of the season, Nationals. A couple of weeks before the competition the nerves start to hit as we begin the tapering phase before the big competitions. You might feel doubt about your training, “have I done enough?”; your nutrition becomes important as you go into the rest and recovery period; your skills will feel odd as if you are re-learning them every session and, as you get older you learn strategies to deal with the nerves.

My first British champions experience was not a good one, my stress levels were too high to enjoy myself and I didn’t swim well. I have since learnt that performance is best when the adrenaline is just high enough to get you excited but not so much that it tips you over the edge. This is valid for any aspect of life where you are expected to perform on the day, I would say that this knowledge really helped me to study effectively for my GCSE’s, enjoying myself and taking breaks is ultimately what helped me to achieve the high grades that I did.

This year at nationals I also learnt a lot about recovery, over the 4 days I was there racing heats and finals every day I really struggled to get enough rest especially the first few days, by the fourth day I had already done 6 races, and I managed to qualify for the 100m backstroke final. Listening to my coach I ended up sleeping on the floor of the gallery in ponds forge international sports center in Sheffield after which I swam a new PB and had my highest placing of 4^th.

The whole overview of my swims was as follows:

British swimming championships week 1 (1^st Leg of the relay)

100m Freestyle- split 1st in a PB of 59.56

Swim England national summer meet

50m Freestyle- PB 27.46 7^th]

50m backstroke- 31.77 9^th

100m Freestyle- 59.86 8^th  

100m Backstroke- 1.07.40 4^th

Overall, I was incredibly pleased with the results, and I can’t wait to go again next year."