Myles Impresses at Olympic Trials

Published: 29 April 2021 at 16:39

Olympic Swimming Pool

Final year BSc (Hons) Sports Coaching and Physical Education student, Myles Turner, recently competed in the British Swimming Selection Trials. This event acted as the trials for this year’s Tokyo Olympics and took place at the London Aquatics Centre – home to swimming events at London 2012.

Just to qualify for this event was an excellent achievement and the culmination of many years’ hard work. The event saw the best swimmers from across the country, including Duncan Scott and Olympic champion Adam Peaty, compete over the 5-day schedule.

Myles is a member of West Suffolk Swimming Club and his usual training regime would include up to 20 hours per week of pool sessions and gym work. However, to makes things even tougher for Myles, due to coronavirus restrictions, he had only been able to train a handful of times at his local lido, whilst the elite swimmers were able to continue with their full-time training schedules. Despite this, Myles performed superbly with a string of excellent performances, which were only just off his best times. He came 15th in 200m individual medley, 12th in the 400m individual medley and 14th in the 200m backstroke.

Myles commented:

“To reduce the number of competitors attending the meet, entry times were tightened, so being able to compete in three events was a major achievement. During lockdown swimmers on the GB programmes were able to train as normal which was annoying but these thoughts I just had to push away and believe in myself and what I am capable of achieving.

It was an exciting week; the 400IM was the one I knew would be the toughest - these distances had not been swam at competition speed for a year - I just had to trust my fitness. Keeping up on the 100 fly with two swimmers that achieved the Olympic qualifying standard, this is something I will remember with pride. I knew this was an experience of a lifetime.

I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without support from family and friends along with the West Suffolk coaching team and Lesley for the strength and conditioning.”