Olivia was first selected for Great Britain in 2005 and was a member of the England synchronised swimming team at the Commonwealth Games, partnering Jenna Randall in the dual event, in which they came fourth.

The St Albans based swimmer has funded her own training, which has included regular 100-mile round trips to her club Rushmoor in Aldershot and hopes to capitalise on recent successes by winning an Olympic medal in either the 2008 or 2012 Games.


photo gallery

april 2007 blog

I arrived back from Melbourne at the beginning of April and had two weeks at home, where I did basic training including cardio workouts on land and in the pool, strength and conditioning, and flexibility.

On the 10th I went back to Guilford, to live with my duet partner for full time training on that event. We reviewed our performances from World Championships and did some video analysis of both ourselves and other countries to see where we could improve both technically and artistically to move up the rankings for the Rome Cup at the end of May, which is actually the European qualifying competition for 2008 Beijing Olympics.

We've changed both the routines making them more difficult and faster. I've also been getting support from the EIS on nutrition and land training. They assessed our body mechanics to personalise our land training and foresee any potential injury or weaknesses.

At the moment I train seven hours a day which includes one hour of core and flexibility in the morning, five hours in the pool which includes swim workouts with a speed coach, drill and routine work.

In the afternoon I do either land cardio or strength and conditioning for an hour. On Saturdays I do 1.5 hour cardio and then some flexibility.

And a day off on Sunday!


march 2007 blog

I arrived in Melbourne on the 2nd March for a pre-competition camp in Glen Wavley at the Police Academy pool, which we shared with the Australian synchro team.

We trained for five hours in the pool a day while maintaining our land fitness in the gym. This time was used to acclimatise and perfect our routines, and with the purchase of a new DVD player we were able to film and analyse our routines so we know where we can improve.

We also carried out competition simulations where we were able to do our wamup and then perform to a crowd under similar circumstances to a competition so we would know exactly what to do and expect for the real thing.

On the 12th March we moved to the competition-training site at the Rod Laver Arena. We were given music time here and we able to get used to the water and surroundings. Sometimes it was quite crowded in the pool with around 38 competing countries. We used our headsets, which we bought in Canada that enables us to here our music via earphones in the water.

In the duet we performed our best swims and came 20th in both the free and technical programmes which we were really pleased about as our aim was to place in the top 22. We also received our first 9.0 score as a duet! Lots of positive feedback from other countries was given, who have noticed significant improvements and are impressed with our potential, especially being the second youngest duet at the event.

It was a really good competition to see where we are ranked in the world and to start making the necessary steps to improving our position for Olympic trials next year. It was also great to see the top competitors for real and compare programmes and see their new ideas and routines. Now I've finished competing I’ll continue dryland training out here until I go home on Sunday the 26th!
 


february 2007 blog

I’ve just finished my month long training camp in Toronto, Canada and fly to Melbourne tomorrow for a pre-competition camp and travel onto the World Championships for the synchro events from 17th-23rd!

The training was really tough but we’ve made lots of improvements in all our programmes, both routines and dry land work.

I trained 4-5 hours in the water in the morning and then 2 hours of gym or another pool session in the afternoon and of course one day off a week and massage once a week. 

We did some competition simulations as well to help prepare us on our days off. We got to watch a Toronto Raptors basketball game and Toronto Marlies Ice Hockey which was really fun and very different to swimming!

There were loads of snowstorms as well and temperatures down to -16 so pretty cold! I had a really good time even when the training was hard and stayed with a really nice family. So just looking forward to getting to sunny Australia and competing!


january 2007 blog

At the beginning of January I went into full time training in the Guildford area, living with my duet partner and her family during the week. I'll hopefully be re-starting my A-levels next year in Farnborough.

At the moment I've been training 7 hours a day, including strength and conditioning, cardio workouts (in the water and out), flexibility work and routine training. At the beginning of February I'm going to Canada to train, and prepare for the World Championships, so very busy in the next few months!