ANNA’S OLYMPIC DREAM
Swimmer, 25, part of Team GB’S squad in Tokyo
A BROWN Edge swimmer left for Tokyo on Saturday to represent Team GB in the Olympic Games.
Anna Hopkin, 25, trains at Loughborough under Mel Marshall, who is also Adam Peaty’s coach.
She competed in the women’s 4 × 100 metre freestyle relay at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, winning a bronze medal.
In April of this year, Anna was named as a member of the British team to go to the postponed 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
Her parents, Helen and Glen, waved her off from the Moorlands on Saturday as she left for Tokyo.
Helen said: “Anna has just won an individual bronze medal and five relay golds at the European Swimming Championships in Budapest.
“She started swimming at nine years old. However, she gave it up at 13 until she went to Loughborough University when she was 18. Since then she has gone from strength to strength.
“Anna then qualified for the Commonwealth Games trial and was successful. She then went on to represent England.
“She has done a master’s degree in sports science in America.
“We are very proud of her, but we are sorry that we can’t be there with her as we have always travelled everywhere with her on her journey.”
Speaking to Swim England this month, Anna revealed that it was her mum who first got her into swimming.
She said: “My mum was always keen to get us to learn to swim. She had previously done some learnto-swim teaching and so was quite keen to get us [myself and my brother] into a club once we realised that we had a bit of a knack for it.
“I joined with two of my friends who I went to primary school with so I think it was just nice to do something with them,” she said.
“I was quite a shy kid so it’s nice to join with people I already knew and then be able to kind of meet people and gain a bit more confidence.”
Anna also admitted that she went through a spell when she fell out of love with the sport and decided to take a step back from serious competition.
“I just found it really hard,” she said. “I wasn’t enjoying it.
“Lee (Orrell, her coach at Blackburn) gradually allowed me to do a little bit and then helped me to enjoy the sport again and get back into it. Ultimately, he helped me qualify for the British Championships before I went to university.”
Her advice to any young person looking to join a club, aquatics or otherwise, is: “I think it’s really important to join I’d say as many clubs as possible when you’re young.
“That’s what I did. I joined swimming, gymnastics, running, trampolining, ballet – I did all sorts.
“Because I was always quite shy, it was always either my mum pushing me to join a club or I would go because friends were joining the club. I’m so glad that my mum did me push to join a club because every time I joined one I absolutely loved it.
“I feel like the coaches are always super-welcoming and they allow you to sort of integrate with other people and make friends.
“It’s always sort of really easy to transition into a club so I 100 per cent recommend it.
“If I hadn’t entered into the club setting, you don’t give yourself the opportunity to be noticed, or your talent improved or your technique worked on.
“It’s at that very early stage where you start to realise where potentially the sport might go. So I think you’ve always got to start somewhere and that’s always going to be instrumental in where you go from there.”