Meet the Bishopbriggs swimmer who has won gold at the European Junior Championships

Katie Shanahan won six medals at the competition in Rome last week, beating the no1 ranked junior swimmer in the world in her gold medal events.

The 17-year-old from Bishopbriggs won two gold, three silver, and one bronze and completed 16 competitive swims over the course of five days, making her one of the most successful British swimmers ever at the European Championships.

The Bishopbriggs Academy pupil said: “I'm over the moon with my results during my week in Rome at the European Junior Championships. I knew I was in good shape and felt pretty confident in my abilities going into the meet. I was ranked quite high for most of my events, so I hoped to continue that form and win a couple of medals, but I never expected to win medals in every event. It was a great end to my last Junior International meet.”

The champ swimmer, who is also a member of the City of Glasgow Swim Team, says the experience of competing at such an elite level against some of the best junior swimmers in Europe has been exciting and overwhelming.

She said: “The competition was really good. It was run safely with lots of protocols in place. The meet was fascinating, and it was a privilege to race with some of the best junior swimmers. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole week. I was part of a great GB team, and we all got on really well. The coaches and team managers were supportive, and we had quite a few laughs along with serious racing.”

Despite the covid lockdown and the loss of training venues during the pandemic, the 17-year-old managed to keep up her fitness levels by swimming in lochs and was relieved during the second lockdown when she was allowed to use Tollcross swimming pool, giving Katie more hours to swim which made training “much easier” for her.

Katie’s coach Ian Wright,48, who has been coaching national and international swimmers for over 20 years, said: "Everyone at City of Glasgow Swim Team is really proud of Katie's performances last week in Rome. To win six medals from six events was clearly a fantastic achievement and gives her seven in total from this competition, having won a bronze in 2019 as well. This ranks Katie as one of the best Scottish and British swimmers of all time at European Junior Championships level."

After being selected for her first senior GB team for the European Championships in May The talented athlete says her ultimate dream is to continue training and competing at an elite level and hopefully make the Olympic Team one day.

She says: “I think the dream of every sports person is to make an Olympic team, and next year is a home Commonwealth Games, so my focus in the coming months will be to prepare for those trials. However, in order to achieve this, there are much smaller goals I need to work on.”