South COast junior prepares for Commonwealth Games debut

Especially not at the age of 13.

But Sussex Inlet swimmer Jasmine Greenwood has done just that, following the recent Australian swimming trials on the Gold Coast.

The Shoalhaven High student, who will compete in both the SB9 100m breaststroke and S10 200m individual medley, will be the youngest person on the Australian Dolphins swim team at the games, which will run from April 4-15.

“Going into the trials, I was confident but just wanted to get in there and swim – with there being such a long build up towards this meet,” Greenwood said.

Greenwood first hit the water in the 200m IM, where she swam a 2:36.09 in the final, just shy of her personal best.

“I ended up finishing third in the IM but the most important thing was that I swam under the qualifying time,” she said.

“When I hit the wall, I had a massive sense of relief that all the hard work I had done had resulted in me achieving my dream.”

The Bay and Basin athlete, then contested her pet event – the 100m breaststroke.

“Unfortunately, the race was a little bit of a disaster – swimming a 1:23.00, which is three seconds slower than my personal best,” she said. “But although I finished fourth in that event, I still managed to swim under the qualifying time.”

These times can be accredited to Greenwood’s interrupted preparation to the meet, in which a scooter accident forced her out of the water for 10 days. She returned less than two weeks out from the trials.

“Even when I returned to the water, I was limited to what I could do, as I couldn’t get my face that wet,” she said.

“It was really hard to go from such a big training workload to nothing and then trying to get back to where I was before the injury.”

Thankfully, that is now all behind Greenwood.

“I’m really looking forward to the whole experience and testing myself on the world stage once again.”