Rebecca in Top 2% of Swimmers

Rebecca's Making Waves in the Swimming World

The London Olympics might be five years away but one Fylde Coast schoolgirl is making sufficient waves in the swimming world to be in with a chance of competing when Britain hosts the Games in the Capital for the first time since 1948.

Rebecca Rimmer, aged 12, has joined the elite top 2% of competitive swimmers in the country by achieving national qualifying times in butterfly and freestyle events, including the gruelling 1500 metres freestyle in which she is now ranked 5th in the UK in her age group. She is ranked 13th in 400 freestyle and in her best event, butterfly, ranked 4th in the UK. This follows impressive swimming in the British National Age Group Finals earlier this year at Pond’s Forge, Sheffield.

Rebecca’s also picked up a fistful of medals at the North West Championships for 200m butterfly and 400 and 1500m freestyle and is tipped as one to watch by Rossall School swimming coach Hugo Ordonez, a former member of the Mexican Olympic diving team. He commented: “I see Rebecca in school competition, and when she trains here in our pool with the Gallica squad and she’s improved tremendously in the last twelve months. She has a real chance of becoming a national champion and has the attitude and devotion to training that will help her to succeed.”

Currently, Rebecca trains for around 14 hours per week, mostly early morning and evening sessions and she’s grateful to have use of Rossall’s own pool. The Thornton Cleveleys youngster also regularly trains as a member of Newton Hall Blackpool ASC and Gallica, one of the country’s elite swimming Squads, which often entails travelling across the country, so keeping up school work its doubly surprising but she manages to immerse herself in life on campus at Rossall, where she participates in sport, music and art groups and is also a model pupil.

Said Rebecca: “I hope I can move up through the rankings to an even higher position. It will be hard work and there’s lots of competition at national level but I’d love one day to swim for Great Britain at the Olympics, so that thought helps me when I’m in competition.”