STEPHEN Milne may have returned from the Rio Olympics last summer with a silver medal, but almost immediately he turned his attention to finding ways to improve on that result.
Milne was part of the 4x200m freestyle relay team that finished second at last year’s Olympic Games but the 22-year-old has
refused to rest on his laurels since returning from Brazil.
An intensive winter training schedule, which included two weeks in Tenerife for a warm-weather training camp, has, Milne believes, brought further improvements. This week will show how much he has progressed since Rio. The British Swimming Championships begin on Tuesday in Sheffield and also double as the British trials for the World Championships in July.
Milne is likely to be in the mix for at least one title – he will compete in the 200m, 400m and 1500m freestyle – and just a couple of days out from the championships he is confident.
“My preparation has gone well so I’m really looking forward to the meet,” he said. “I’ve been working a lot on my race strategies so I’ve got a very clear focus of what I want to do. Of course a lot of the swimmers will have an eye on selection for the World Champs and Commonwealth Games and that’s definitely my goal, but I know that I have to focus on getting the process right and that will then allow me to get the times I need to make the team.”
Milne is originally from Inverness but moved to Perth as a child and despite his rise into the elite of world swimming, he has remained at Perth City Swim Club, resisting the temptation to relocate to one of the bigger training hubs in Stirling, Glasgow or Edinburgh. Despite the lack of any other Olympic-level swimmers, his home club is, he insists, the best place for him to be.
“I’m really happy with the set-up I’ve got in Perth. I’ve worked with my coach Ann [Dickson] since I was nine and I feel like I’m continually making progress,” he said. “Ann really understands what I need to do to improve and she knows what I need to work on. I want to continue to move up the world rankings but I know that will only come with hard work and really wanting it so I need to make sure I stay focused on that.”
In the absence of other world-class swimmers at his daily training sessions, Milne has developed mental techniques that he uses to ensure he does not ease off for a second.
“I try to find ways of using imagery to help push myself,” he said. “There’s always something to think about because so many
aspects go into having a good race. I also visualise myself swimming in big races; I imagine most athletes need to rehearse mentally in terms of their skills and the effort their body will go through and I definitely do that.”
Milne’s Rio silver medal may still be fresh in the memory but already he has turned his attention to the 2020 Olympics. En route he has targeted adding some major championship individual medals to the relay medals he has already accumulated but it is the Tokyo Olympics which is his primary goal. That he is already an Olympic medallist may engender complacency in some, but not Milne.
“Rio was an amazing experience and I learned so much,” he said. “I was obviously so pleased with the result but that doesn’t really have much bearing at all on what will happen in the future so I’m just keeping a clear head and I’ll see how I can do this year. I need to build on my result from Rio and continue to progress. It’s about aiming for the perfect race, although you never actually get the perfect race so it’s just about always moving forward.”
Milne will not be the only Scot to keep an eye on in Sheffield next week. Commonwealth champions Ross Murdoch and Hannah Miley are two of the biggest names in action, while Duncan Scott will be looking to secure selection for his second World Championships.
Also in the hunt for titles will be Olympians Camilla Hattersley, Dan Wallace and Craig Benson, while 19-year-old backstroker Kathleen Dawson will want to confirm the potential she showed by winning two medals at last year’s European Championships.
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