Craig Benson eyes London 2012

Sep 22 2011 West Lothian Courier

TRIPLE Youth Commonwealth Games gold medal swimming king Craig Benson is targeting a London 2012 call-up.

Breaststroke specialist Benson began the year by qualifying for July’s European Junior Championships in Belgrade, returning to the UK with 100m silver to declare at customs.

The 17-year-old wasn’t done there however and travelled to Peru a month later for the World Junior Championships where he upgraded his European 100m silver to gold and also took second in the 50m.

Benson clearly got the taste for gold in South America and proved it at the Commonwealth Youth Games on the Isle of Man, sweeping the board to collect the 50m, 100m and 200m titles.

He managed to squeeze in 4x100m medley relay silver in between having climbed the podium on every possible occasion this year.

And Benson has his sights set on London 2012.

He said: “I was hoping to do really well but I wasn’t expecting to do as well as I did.

“I certainly wasn’t expecting to win the 200m breaststroke, that’s my worst breaststroke event and I was quite surprised with how I swam in the 100m – the time I did was really good.

“I’ve had such a busy time because for most people the season finished before I went to world juniors but I had to continue my season and go in without any time off, so it was quite tiring.

“The next season is just about to start now so I’m just going to be training really hard through until March and the Olympic trials. I would like to make it on to the Olympic team so it’s just hard training all the way through until then really.”

And in a season full of so many highs the teenager is adamant that his world title takes pride of place on his mantelpiece.

He said: “I think probably the highlight of my season would be winning at the World Junior Championships.

“That was amazing because I wasn’t expecting to win at all. I was expecting to get a bronze medal because the top two guys were so far ahead of me after the semi-final. So I just thought I will just try and come behind them, so to actually win was amazing.”

Bank of Scotland Local Heroes, in partnership with SportsAid, provides support and funding to 82 emerging Scottish athletes on their journey to London 2012 and beyond.

Follow Scotland’s future stars of TeamGB and ParalympicsGB at: www.bankofscotland.co.uk/localheroes