Alicia Blagg will not allow herself to be distracted by talk of the Rio Olympics when she attends the World Championships next month – but make no mistake about it; qualification for next summer’s Games is certainly the target in Russia.
The competition in Kazan, which gets underway on Friday July 24, doubles up as a qualification event for the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.
Blagg will be competing in the 3m individual and 3m synchronised event with partner Rebecca Gallantree and despite winning bronze alongside Tom Daley at a recent World Series event, the 18-year-old is not letting herself get carried away.
The City of Leeds diver said: “I’m really excited about the World Championships. It will be a difficult event but I have been training really hard and I’m doing everything I can to try to ensure I perform to my best at the World Championships.
“I just want to get a spot for Rio. In the individual event it will be tough to get in the top 12 to qualify for Rio but I hoping to do that and then it is one less thing to worry about.
“We need to finish in the top three in the synchro to qualify for the Olympics and we have been training hard so we will see what happens.
“I want to go out there and have fun and hopefully qualify. If I don’t, then we have another six or seven months to train hard until the next qualifying event.
“For me it is simply about qualifying for Rio and I’m not thinking about trying to a get a medal because it can distract you from everything else.
“I want to take it step by step and then see what happens. The thing with diving is that things can change so quickly. One minute you could be world champion and then if you have one bad dive you are sixth. So you have to be focused and take it dive by dive and not get carried away.
“Rio is a year away so it is not on my mind. I need to qualify first. The World Championships is a chance to do that and although we have been working towards this moment since September, it is also about gaining experience.
“All I can do is be as prepared as possible and see what happens.”
Blagg has already achieved a lot in her career despite her young age, the former Notre Dame College student competing at London 2012 as a 15-year-old, finishing seventh.
She then won her first British title for the 3m springboard last year before securing 3m synchro gold with Gallantree at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Gallantree, 30, has been Blagg’s partner for more than five years but earlier this year the teenager linked up with her hero Daley at the World Series in Mexico, where the duo won bronze.
Blagg said: “Tom is a great guy. It was so much fun competing with him because he was so chilled out.
“He wasn’t used to competing on that particular type of board so I was trying to help him out and he was trying to keep me calm because I was diving with Tom Daley.
“He is my role model so to be able to dive with him and get a medal was great. Hopefully we can do a couple more events together in the future.”