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Swimming is a life-saving skill, so just the fact that the sport that I love can give so much back to other people - and inspire them to join something that they never thought they could do or go after their dreams - is something that is really special to me.

There's so much more to me than swimming. I like to go and have fun, like to go dancing, hang out with my friends.

I swam at school a lot. Long-distance swimming in pools, and diving, then when we moved to Hastings when I was 13 I used to swim in the sea all the time; I loved it out of season and when it was rough.

I knew how to swim by the time I turned 4.

Swimming is my passion and something that I love.

I just always really wanted to swim. It was always a family thing: dad obviously swam, and my sister did, too. And mum used to come along to meets. They had to drag me out of the pool - so there was never any pressure on me to swim. It was just something I loved doing.

I grew up in Florida, so you start swimming at the age of 1, really. By 10, I was competitive swimming, and by 12, I had aspirations to be the best in the world.

I started swimming when I was four because my brother wanted to join a swim team, and I wanted to do what he did. They said I had to be six, but if I could swim a lap, then I could participate. So I swam a lap, and the rest is history.

Swimming has its educational value - mental, moral, and physical - in giving you a sense of mastery over an element, and of power of saving life, and in the development of wind and limb.

I was good at swimming until everyone started to grow. The best swimmers are really tall with great big shoulders, and that just isn't us. But then a big, powerful swimmer isn't going to be so good on the bike and the run.