A YEAR ago swimming prodigy Andrew Mullen had to travel across Glasgow twice a week for training.

At Dennistoun he'd swim with both his disabled club and Temple's mainstream club.

Despite being restricted to just three hours a week in the pool the youngster still won three medals at the 2008 British junior championship.

Now, 12 months on Andrew's revelling in a new local club and preparing to take on Europe's best disabled adult swimmers – even though he's not even a teenager yet.

Andrew (12), from Newton Mearns, won seven gold medals at this year's British juniors and told The Extra: "I'm so pleased I switched clubs to REN96 — my training and swimming has got a lot better since I did.

"Compared to my performance last year I notice a big difference and I'm really pleased to win seven medals."

"When we were going to Dennistoun we were waiting in traffic and by the time we got home, the training wasn't really worth all the hassle".

Proud mum Katriona has also seen a huge improvement:not
only is his swimming making waves, she's not snarled up in traffic driving him to and from training.

She added: "Everything's so much better – the furthest we travel is Elderslie and Andrew's improved incredibly.

"When last year's Extra article was printed a few eyebrows were raised as to why he wasn't swimming with the local team but since he's started everything's been much easier — though maybe not for Andrew because REN96 works him much harder.

"His coach Chris Grabham has been particularly influential though, and he's doing really well".

On the back of an all-gold junior championships, Andrew's out of his electric wheelchair and into the pool again on May 15 in the DSE long-distance swimming championship at Sheffield, coming up against some of the world's best.

He added: "There will be swimmers there from all over the world – I don't think I'll get near my seven golds though.

"I'm just going for the experience. If I'm making the times that qualify me for the event that's good enough for now.

"But I'm aiming to be as good as them in a few years, because I'll definitely keep swimming".