CARNEGIE Swimming Club's Lucy Walkup has just returned from the 11th European Swimming Championships in Saransk in Russia, where she had a very heavy schedule, competing in eight individual events, contesting five individual finals plus three team relays.

Walkup is one of the established members of the GB Deaf Team and she was happy with how she had coped with the challenges of this most recent international competition. She had the additional challenge of working with the new GB coaches and management team and was keen to acknowledge the support she received in the past from former coach Angela Holmes and assistant coach Martin Lee from Fife, himself a TB deaf swimmer.

The Disability Sport Fife teenager is a specialist breaststroke swimmer and in her three breaststroke events she finished in fourth place. In the 50 metres and 200m she set personal best times and new British records, while in the 50m breaststroke she missed out on a medal by 0.13 seconds. Her final placings in butterfly were 11th in the 50m and sixth in the 100m. In her freestyle programme she finished 10th in the 50m with a new personal best time and 13th in the 100m. In her final event, the 200m IM, she was seventh.

Walkup was delighted to gain her first team European medal when, as a member of Team GB, she finished third in the 4x100m freestyle. In the other two relays of which she was a member, Team GB finished fourth.

In all of her breaststroke events, the Carnegie swimmer finished behind the same swimmers from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine indicating how much she has improved as an international competitor, after only a few years of international swimming. Each of these three Eastern European countries dominates sport for sensory-impaired swimmers and she should be fiercely proud of her achievement.