Ten-year-old Alzain Tareq makes swimming history

Bahrain's Alzain Tareq has made history by competing at the world swimming championships at the age of 10.

Tareq raced in the women's 50m butterfly, finishing in 41.13 seconds, nine seconds behind the winner and 15 seconds adrift of the fastest qualifier in the heats, her hero Sarah Sjostrom.

She was comfortably the slowest of the 64 competitors in the heats, but she is believed to be the youngest ever swimmer at the world championships and admits she came to Kazan as a learning experience.

"I want to learn the techniques and how they swim," said Tareq, whose mother hails from Scotland. "I train five days a week, sometimes I train once a day, and sometimes twice.

"I have school from 7am until 2pm, then I have an hour's rest, then I go home and I study. We have a 50m and a 25m pool in Bahrain. We have about 20 girls who swim, but there are more than 20 boys."

Despite failing to qualify, she said: "I'm happy, I feel so happy. It was really cool. I want to swim at the Olympics".

Britain's Fran Halsall, one of the favourites for a 50m butterfly medal, was surprised someone so young was racing.

"I don't know what to make of it, she's dinky. Good on her for having a go," she said.

Tareq is also competing in Saturday's 100m freestyle heats and was pleased to have met her heroes in Russia.

"I met Sarah from Sweden, I spoke to her and asked if I could take my picture with her and she told me 'good luck'," she said.

"Cate Campbell from Australia is my idol too... and her sister Bronte. I took a picture with Cate, but not her sister. And Cate didn't really talk to me. 

"I was a bit nervous walking out there as I have never swum in front of so many spectators before," added Tareq, who was given fantastic backing from the near 4,000 crowd.

"The other swimmers are often surprised - they ask me my name and how old I am and then they are like 'are you swimming here?'"