THERE are worse places than Florida to hone your athletic skills and certainly for Mark Szaranek, spending the past three years stateside has paid off with the latest reward a place in the GB team for his first World Championships.

The 21-year-old won silver medals in the 200m and 400m individual medley at the British Championships to secure his place and he cannot wait to make his debut in the World Championships, which begin today in Budapest.

“I’m really looking forward to it and I’m feeling in good shape,” Szaranek said. “I’ll probably be a little nervous on the day but I’ve raced a lot of the guys who’ll be there before so it’s not like the level of competition is something I won’t be able to deal with.”

Szaranek, a former European Junior and Commonwealth Youth Games medallist, is ranked 12th in the world in the 200m IM and 18th in the 400m IM and so is beginning to mix with the best in the world. He feels he is now ready to really make a mark in the senior ranks although he is not revealing just what his expectations are for Budapest.

“Over the past couple of years, I realised I wasn’t quite at senior level yet, but I identified what I needed to change and I’ve done my best to make those changes so I think it’s about time I stepped up and made that transition to senior level,” he said. “I’m looking to be competitive at the highest level and reaching the final at the worlds is definitely a target for me. I have times in my head that I’d like to swim but I’ll keep them to myself. I don’t really shout about what I want to do and I don’t like to think about times too much either – I like more to think about what I need to do in order to be successful rather than the final outcome.”

Szaranek hails from Glenrothes but for the past three years he has been a chemistry student at Florida University. He is one of a number of Scots, including fellow swimmer Dan Wallace and track and field stars Chris O’Hare and Josh Kerr, who found the pull of the American college system too strong to resist.

“Going to America was something I’d wanted to do ever since I was young,” said Szaranek, who is attached to Edinburgh University, where he trains when back home. “I took a year off after finishing high school and I was looking at universities here in Scotland and there were none that really worked for me. So I went to Florida and had a look at everything – the facilities, the coaches and the team – and straight away I knew that was where I wanted to go.”

There seems few downsides to swapping the freezing cold winters of Scotland for the sunny climes of Florida and Szaranek admits that making the move to America’s east coast was one of the best choices he has made.

“I’m so glad I did it. One of the biggest things over there is how the athletic programmes work together as one and you’ve got all the support you could possibly ask for,” he said. “And our team is great – there’s 30 to 35 guys aged between 18 and 23 all working together towards the same goals and there’s a great atmosphere.”

Szaranek’s move to Florida also came at the perfect time as it helped him recover from the disappointment of missing out on a place in Team Scotland for Glasgow 2014.

“That really sucked – having to sit at home whilst that was going on in my home country was tough,” he admitted.

However, he is unlikely to suffer those feelings again, having already secured the qualification times required for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, now less than nine months away.

“It’s so nice to have the qualifying time already and it’s such a weight off my shoulders,” he said. “It’s in the back of my mind but I don’t think about it too much yet because I’ve got a lot of other things to deal with before then. But there’s a very good bunch of young swimmers coming through in Scotland so to be a part of that bodes really well for the Games next year.”