Lincoln Vulcans' Will Jolly has an Olympic swimming dream

Lincoln Vulcans' Will Jolly has been selected to attend a training camp aiming to identify swimmers to compete in open water events at the London 2012 Olympics.

The 18-year-old will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of David Davies, who won a silver medal in the 10km open water swim at the Beijing Olympics, when he attends the Open Water Development Workshop at the Swansea Performance Centre next month.

Jolly is from Stow but attends Newcastle University, where he is studying marine biology.

He has so far only taken part in one open water event, the Midlands Open Water 3km Championship at Bosworth Lake in July, in which he won the 17 to 19 years age group.

But he has had a successful year in the indoor events becoming 1,500m freestyle county champion, Midlands region champion and finishing fourth in the national championships in his age group.

"I am a bit of a late developer in swimming, as it is only after joining the Vulcans at the beginning of last year and taking up middle- and long-distance swimming that I've managed to reach the nationals," he said.

"I think I'm good at the longer events as I've got a lot of stamina. I was not as good in shorter events because I'm not a quick starter, I'm better a building up and maintaining my speed over a longer period.

"But open water swimming will be different to swimming in a pool. As well as being a lot longer distances, swimmers are not in lanes, so they are quite physical events with everyone jostling to get to the front. There can also be a lot of cheating with swimmers grabbing other swimmers' legs.

"My aim is to try to qualify for the Commonwealth Games next year for the 1,500m indoor. There are no open water events at the Commonwealths.

"But after that the 2012 Olympics, for both indoor and open water swimming, is the ultimate dream."

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