Lucy creates new record for Scotland

The 23-year-old is in Budapest, competing in a tournament set up by the International Swimming League.

Her success came at the weekend in her speciality section of relay.

She has been involved in both the mixed freestyle relay and women’s relay team, where she led out the ‘B’ relay in a new Scottish record, clocking 53.21.

This bettered her previous Scottish record by 0.05 and was a great return to form after a turbulent year.

Around 300 of the world’s top swimmers are in the Hungarian capital to compete in a 12-team round robin league, with the top eight progressing to a semi-final and the top four from the semi to the final.

Lucy was picked up by the Energy Standard team, defending champions from 2019.

She has been swimming and training with Olympic champions Pernille Blume and Sarah Sjostrom, plus a host of other world-class swimmers.

Energy Standard won the first semi-final and will compete in the final this weekend, with Lucy hoping to be among the team’s 14 women.

Lucy (pictured) is at Edinburgh University, which allowed elite athletes to return to the water after a July easing of Covid rules.

Training was back on but there were no race meets in the calendar for the rest of 2020 – until the ISL managed to create a Covid bubble, allowing the Budapest event.

Coached by Mathew Trodden, Lucy started this year by smashing her lifetime bests at the British University Championships and Edinburgh International, where she was posting the third ranked time in the UK. Progression looked positive and suggested she’d be challenging for a place on the 2020 Olympics team – until the pandemic shelved the Tokyo games for a year.

During the initial lockdown, Lucy – who acknowledges her support from Roxburgh Sports Council and the George Crawford Legacy Trust – was out of the water for around 16 weeks.

She kept in shape by swimming in waters around Edinburgh, as well as running and body weight training so she didn’t lose her strength. She completed 12 dryland sessions a week, focused on cardio, bodyweight and flexibility.