Dunfermline Press | Sport | Dalgety Bay swimmer Barber hopes to peak for GB debut

Friday, 5th September, 2008

Published: Thursday, 3rd July, 2008 11:50

Dalgety Bay swimmer Barber hopes to peak for GB debut

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WITH less than four weeks to go until her first event as a GB competitor, Dalgety Bay’s Eloise Barber is nearing peak form at the perfect time.

In the recent Slovenian International Swimming Championships in Kranji, the Carnegie Swimming Club 16-year-old won the silver medal in the 200 metres individual medley and just missed out on a medal in the 400 metres individual medley final.

“I was hoping to get to a few finals but certainly not expecting a medal so I was quite pleased,” said Barber, a Tayside & Fife Institute of Sport-supported athlete.

At the end of this month Barber and Dalgety Bay’s Lucy Ellis will make up two thirds of the Scottish contingent in the British team competing in Belgrade when Serbia hosts the European Junior Championships.

“This is my first GB selection and it will certainly help my confidence that I won the silver medal in Slovenia,” said Barber, who qualified for the team at the British & Olympic trials in Sheffield this March.

In the 200 metres individual medley Barber swam 2:20.89, more than seven seconds faster than her time a year ago and came fourth in the race. She’s also going as a reserve for the 4x100 freestyle relay in Belgrade.

Barber’s next few weeks consist of “training and more training, with some eating and sleeping” thrown in before she tapers down for the Europeans.

The event is one of her two major goals for the season and if she swims a fast time then she has a chance of qualifying for her second major aim, the Commonwealth Youth Games, held in Pune, India, this October.

“My biggest goal was to get to the European juniors, my second is to get to Pune,” she said. “I was going for a qualification time for Pune last weekend in the Scottish Championships but I missed it by half a second. The Europeans will be my last chance to get a time and hopefully I’ll get it there.”

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