PERSHORE’S Tazmin Pugh is celebrating after her selection for the European Junior Championships in Hodmezovasarhely, Hungary, was confirmed.
This will be the toughest international championships yet for 16-year-old Pugh, who has qualified for Hungary as a result of her top placings in the 2016 British Swimming Championships in Glasgow which also acted as Olympic and European Junior Championship Trials.
Pugh, who still swims at her home clubs of Pershore and Worcester when on breaks from her Ellesmere Titans base in Shropshire, has already competed in Luxembourg, Italy, Samoa, Toronto, Antwerp and the USA in the last 12 months and come home with a host of medals and awards.
She will be joined at the European Juniors by 15-year-old team-mate Freya Anderson from Ellesmere Titans.
Pugh, who will be competing in Hungary between July 6-10, owes much of her success not only to the hard work she puts into training both in and out of the pool but also to relatives, friends and sponsors in her home town of Pershore and also her bigger backers.
The UK Lottery Fund has helped immensely over the past year as Pugh was invited on to British Swimming’s World Class Programme at ‘Podium Potential’ level.
Special thanks has to go to Richard Brown and the trustees of the Joanna Brown Trust who have been there for Pugh since the age of 11, the Team Super School Elite Athlete Grant, Aquatots and Rivers Leisure.
It was at Aquatots where Pugh first started to swim at the age of three months under the guidance of its founder Fiona Munt-Whittle and where the young Vale ace fell in love with being in the water and has never looked back since.
Pershore Swimming Club awarded Pugh with Honorary Life Membership before she moved to Worcester SC, where Pugh recently celebrated her club-mate Rebecca Redfern’s world record at the Para-Olympic Trials in Glasgow in the 100m breaststroke SB13 category which secured her place at the Rio Para-Olympics.
The exact events which Pugh will contest in Hungary are still to be confirmed, but she hopes to be in action in the 200m backstroke and is also in with a chance of competing in the 200m fly and 100m backstroke.