Luke Greenbank broke onto the scene after winning gold and bronze at last year’s Youth Olympic Games and since then he has continued his progress. He travelled to Baku for the European Games and started his campaign with gold in the 100m Backstroke and then secured not only the gold in the 200m Backstroke but also the world junior record. Here he shares the experience of competing on the senior circuit for the first time.
It’s been really enjoyable moving onto racing in senior competitions in the past few months, I’ve been able to race against and meet some of the best swimmers in the world like Adam Peaty and Chad Le Clos which make the transition into senior swimming that little bit easier.
I competed at two World Cups over the last few months and I think they are really good for swimmers trying to transition from junior swimming into senior swimming, as there is a high standard of competition. If you have a good morning swim then you can make it back into the final, and race against some of the best senior swimmers in the world.
Also when I won my bronzes in the 200m Backstrokes in Doha and Dubai it gave me a lot of confidence going into the European SC championships in Israel.
After the World Cups, I stayed on in Dubai for a couple of weeks to train with Mel Marshall and a few of the guys from City of Derby. I really enjoyed the camp. There were quite a few tough sessions but it was all interesting and sometimes quite different to the sessions I do at home in cockermouth, which is good because I can try a lot of different training methods and see which one suits me best.
In December I went over to Israel for the European Short Course Championships. I really enjoyed going out to Netanya in Israel, it was quite a new experience for me because it was my first international short course meet and also I am more used to competing long course.
I was really please to get five PBs out of five swims. Most of the British team that I went out with had a lot of experience of international senior competitions and they were really helpful and encouraging. It was really motivating to see them winning medals and doing well.
I’ll probably have a couple of days off over Christmas and new year, which I’ll use to catch up on some rest, then in January I’m heading out to Australia with Mel and the City of Derby squad for a training camp on the gold coast which I’m really looking forward to. Hopefully that will prepare me well for Olympic trials in April.
I really hope you had a good Christmas and I can’t wait for 2016 and what that might bring.