Congratulations to Stephanie Millward who has been selected for the paralympics in Beijing next month..

Many people in the West still remember Stephanie as a fifteen year old in 1997 winning the ASA National Age Group in 100m backstoke in new District and County record times. Her county record for that and the 200m backstroke still stand but the District record was finally broken in 2007. Stephanie also held county butterfly records from 1997 until 2006 when Tilly Gray broke them.

Following Stephanie’s success at the Nationals she was invited to compete in  Grand Prix events in Sweden and Germany and she also made the trip to China as a member of the ESSA National Team.

She was probably the first club swimmer to benefit from the swimming scheme set up at the newly opened 50m pool at the University of Bath, when her father persuaded Ian Turner to allow Stephanie to join them for  training extra to that which Corsham ASC was able to provide.

Sadly Stephanie was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis when she was only 17  having spent a year trying to find the cause of her failing health.

 

For the last few weeks Stephanie has been training in Swansea with the rest of the team under the watchful eye of Billy Pye and hopefully all this extra pooltime and support will give her just the edge she needs to succeed in China.

Stephanie is a multi-talented lady, she is writing a book about her experiencies and has recorded two songs and she remains as bubbly and positive as she was in her youth

The whole team flew out to Macau last Saturday for 10 days training before going on to Beijing. Lets hope that they have as much success as our returning Olympians. Stephanie's swims are on  7,8,13 and 14 September.

I am sure that we all wish Stephanie all the best over the next few weeks and hope she has a very successful Olympics and an enjoyable visit to the far east. She has promised to pass on all her experiencies to the county on her return