Swimming: Megan Gilchrist back in the medals

Nov 26 2009 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

WHITBURN swimmer Megan Gilchrist returned to competitive action last weekend in her first outing since representing Great Britain last August and made a splash at the Welsh Winter Championships in Swansea.

The 19-year-old Law student picked up where she left off, on the medal trail, by winning the bronze in the 400m Freestyle in a keenly contested race that provided her with a warm-up for her main events.

The West Lothian teen was in record-breaking form on day two, taking a massive 12 seconds of the 800m meet record on her way to her first gold medal of the competition.

In the evening her record breaking continued as she stormed to gold medal number two and a seven-second betterment of the 200m Individual Medley meet record, demonstrating her ability to compete at the top level on all four strokes.

The third and final day of the competition saw Megan excel at her main event, the 1500m freestyle, taking the gold medal and lowering the meet record by a whopping 20 seconds while lapping her nearest competitor in an awesome display of distance swimming.

Coached at the British Gas Intensive Training Centre in Swansea by American Bud McAllister, Megan has her sights firmly set on representing Scotland at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India.

Megan, who is currently supported by the Scottish Institute of Sport and has a Sport Scholarship at Swansea University, said: “I’m really pleased with my times, training has been so hard and I came into the meet un-rested, so to go this fast so early in the season is really encouraging.

“My studies have helped me focus but to be one with a Commonwealth Games medal would be even better.”

Megan’s experiences are far from what she expected when she joined her first club, Armadale Barracudas.

She added: “Armadale was a terrific place to learn to swim with the coaches focusing on teaching technique as opposed to volume swimming.

“I owe much of what I’ve done to Dave Webster and his team, I hope to be home to get to the Club Championships and offer encouragement to the youngsters who are starting out in swimming, if I can make it, so can they.”