Refreshed and highly motivated, Lewis Smith will began the countdown to London 2012 at December’s European short-course Championships at Rijeka in Croatia.
 
The 20-year-old Warrender swimmer just missed out on this year’s Olympics in Beijing, but he is going to make some significant changes over the next few weeks as he begins another vital four-year cycle.

“Unusually, I took a two month break this summer just so that I could freshen things up and get my head around things,” said Lewis. “In the previous eight years, I’d never taken more than two weeks out of the water.

”But now I’m ready and looking forward to the next few years with the 2010 and 2014 Commonwealth Games, plus the 2012 Olympics. 2012 and 214 are particularly exciting. To have two home Games will be an amazing opportunity.”

A development that has thrown his routine up in the air is that his lifelong coach, Iain Wright, has been appointed as the new Stirling performance coach squad. After almost 13 years at Warrender, he moves job next month.

As a result, Lewis has made the momentous decision to follow suit. Not only will he be training at Stirling, but he will also be enrolling at the university. 

“I always planned to go to university, but put it off for the past couple of years and have been a full-time swimmer,” he explained. “But there is an intake in February and I’m going to study something related to sport.

“I really want to stay with Iain because we have a great coach/swimmer relationship. I also think that the changes will do me good. It is a new stimulus and probably just what I need at this time. Stirling will work closely with the new British Swimming International Training Centre (ITC).”

Not that he is abandoning his beloved Warrender Club. “It has been my life,” says the young man who first joined the club as a seven-year-old and has been a serious swimmer before he hit his teens. His Mum, Gail, is the Club’s ‘entry level’ coach.

“I’ll be holding on to my membership and swimming for Warrender at all the meets,” he continued. “The ITC isn’t going to be one super club – it is just going to be a great new set-up that will bring top swimmers together.” 

Following his lengthy break, the European short-course Championships that ran from 11-14 December have re-whetted Lewis’s appetite. His main event was be the 400m individual medley, and while he didn’t win any medals, just getting there is another stroke in the right direction. 

EB
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