Sky Academy Sports Scholarships: Siobhan-Marie O'Connor prepared for World Cup series

On 10 September I attended the Sky Academy Sports Scholarship anniversary day.

This was to celebrate the first year of the programme and to get everyone who is a part of it together. We had a fun morning doing media and interviews followed by the event in the afternoon.

Ten of the 12 Scholars were there and it was great to see everyone. My parents were able to attend too. It was great to be able to show them around the Sky Sports Studios and they really enjoyed the day.

We were very lucky to have special guests Sir Chris Hoy and Johnny Nelson speak to us about their inspiring journeys and it was good to hear from Elise, Quillan and their mentors as well as from Jason and Sam about their journey with the programme so far.

It was a brilliant day and it made me feel so proud and honoured to be a part of such a great scheme with such a talented group of people.

Redevelopment

I have been back in full training for a few weeks now and it has been a different start to the season than usual. The pool in which I have trained every day for 9 years, at Bath University, has been closed from September until April next year for repairs and redevelopment.

It will be great when it is finished but it means we are having to relocate to Millfield school to train in their 50m pool from Monday to Friday every week. It is good getting back into the swing of things and I am really excited about the upcoming season and feeling refreshed after my summer break.

Next week I am going away on a six week trip with a few members of my squad for competition and training. First we are flying to Tokyo for a week’s training with the Japanese Institute of Sport before then competing in the Tokyo and Singapore legs of the World Cup series.

I competed in the World Cup series last year with the help of the Scholarship program and it was hugely beneficial to me so I am really excited to be able to do it again this year. After the World Cups we are travelling to Thailand for a four week training camp in Phuket in preparation for the World Short Course Championships at the beginning of December in Doha.

I am really looking forward to the World Short Course as this will be my first time at this meet and I always really enjoy the short course season before the New Year.