Thank You Anna Hopkin

We hope that everyone who attended yesterday’s evening with Anna Hopkin enjoyed it and that the swimmers who met her and saw her Olympic Gold Medal feel inspired to take their training forward and strive for success. We would like to thank Anna for her time and Mary for organising it.

It was fascinating to hear Anna describe her swimming journey from joining Chorley Marlins aged eight, progressing to train with elite squad Gallica and then joining Blackburn Centurions Swimming Club. She discussed the pressures of balancing swim training with school and other sports and activities, something many of our swimmers will be able to relate to. She explained why she took a break from swimming and how she got back into it. She covered her time at university and training in America whilst studying for her masters degree. Anna outlined her competitive successes including Bronze at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, four Golds and a Bronze at the European Championships and Olympic Gold in Tokyo. She said her target was to be selected for the Paris 2024.

It was lovely to hear her recollections of her time swimming with Chorley Marlins and in particular how she enjoyed being part of the Marlins swimming team representing the Club in the Micro League. Hopefully Micro League swimming will be back in the New Year.

During questions Anna gave some useful training tips. She explained why it was important to train in all strokes including your weakest rather than specialising too early as she had started out as a butterfly swimmer before switching to freestyle. She described the make up of some of her training sessions and how she also includes gym work and Pilates. She stressed that as well as being motivated and wanting success it was important to enjoy your swimming.

The evening highlighted the benefits and importance of swimming clubs like Chorley Marlins and the work that Mary and her coaches do in giving opportunities to young people to take part in competitive swimming and realise their potential. It is good to see that Anna continues to support grassroots swimming as without it there would not be elite swimmers.

There will hopefully be the opportunity for other swimmers from the Club to meet Anna in the future. Anna also donated one of her racing swimsuits to the Club, we plan to raffle it so keep an eye out for details.